Robert B. Laughlin
American physicist
- 1 min read
- 2 chapters
Related on Lably
Through Physics, Mathematics and South Korea
In 1983, Laughlin was first to provide a many body wave function, now known as the Laughlin wavefunction, for the fractional quantum Hall effect, which was able to correctly explain the fractionalized charge observed in experiments. This state has since been interpreted as the integer quantum Hall effect of the composite fermion.
His 2017 paper, "Pumped thermal grid storage with heat exchange" inspired Project Malta at Google X and subsequently Malta inc.
Biography
Laughlin was born in Visalia, California. He earned a B.A. in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in physics in 1979 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Between 2004 and 2006, he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.
Sign in to keep reading
One more chapter is free with a Lably account.
Honors and awards
- E. O. Lawrence Award in Physics – 1984
- Oliver E. Buckley Prize – 1986
- Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society - 1986
- National Academy of Sciences – 1994
- Benjamin Franklin Medal for Physics of the Franklin Institute – 1998
- Nobel Prize in Physics – 1998
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement – 1999
- Doctorate of Letters, University of Maryland – 2005
- Onsager Medal – 2007