The Nobel Prize in Physics 2005
Awarded on: 2005-10-04
"for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"
Affiliations:
- Harvard University – Cambridge, MA, USA
Roy J. Glauber
Born: 1925-09-01 in New York, NY, USA
Gender: male
Field: American theoretical physicist (1925–2018)
Biography
Roy Jay Glauber was an American theoretical physicist. He was the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University and Adjunct Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona. Born in New York City, he was awarded one half of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence", with the other half shared by John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch. In this work, published in 1963, he created a model for photodetection and explained the fundamental characteristics of different types of light, such as laser light and light from light bulbs. His theories are widely used in the field of quantum optics. In statistical physics he pioneered the study of the dynamics of first-order phase transitions, since he first defined and investigated the stochastic dynamics of an Ising model in a paper published in 1963.