The Nobel Prize in Physics 1989
Awarded on: 1989-10-12
"for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks"
Affiliations:
- Harvard University – Cambridge, MA, USA
Norman F. Ramsey
Born: 1915-08-27 in Washington, D.C., USA
Gender: male
Field: American physicist
Biography
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. was an American physicist who was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. A physics professor at Harvard University for most of his career, Ramsey also held several posts with such government and international agencies as NATO and the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Among his other accomplishments are helping to found the United States Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab.