Willis Lamb



Willis Eugene Lamb, Jr. (July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1955 "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum".

Quotes

 * In his 1930 book, Dirac took for granted that measurements could be made, but was very vague about what was actually involved.
 * W. E. Lamb, Sequential measurements in quantum mechanics, in Quantum Measurements and Chaos, E. R. Pike and S. Sarkar, eds. (Plenum, New York, 1987) pp. 183-193.


 * Neither Dirac nor von Neumann discussed his measurements in physical terms.
 * W. E. Lamb, Classical measurements on a quantum mechanical system, Nuclear Phys. B 6, 197-201 (1989).


 * At the first of the 1960's Rochester Coherence Conferences, I suggested that a license be required for use of the word photon, and offered to give such license to properly qualified people.
 * W. E. Lamb, Anti-photon, Appl. Phys. B 60, 77-84 (1995).


 * I liked quantum mechanics very much. The subject was hard to understand but easy to apply to a large number of interesting problems.
 * W. E. Lamb, Super classical quantum mechanics: the best interpretation of non relativistic quantum mechanics, Am. J. Phys. 69, 413-422 (2001).


 * In fact, there really is not a new law of nature. It was all in the theory to begin with but nobody worked it out.
 * relating his experimental confirmation of the fine structure spectrum of hydrogen, as reported by

Quotes about Lamb

 * A rare theorist turned experimentalist.


 * A gifted experimentalist, and theoretician, in the best Newtonian tradition... His contributions to quantum measurements, and elucidative teachings on quantum mechanics, have not yet received the attention they deserve.