Nobel Laureate Douglas Osheroff

First Hermann Staudinger* Lecture

by

Douglas D. Osheroff

Stanford University, Departments of Physics & Applied Physics

The Nature of Discovery in Physics

It is seldom the case that one can anticipate where great breakthroughs in science will occur, and even harder to anticipate where these breakthroughs will find applications to benefit mankind.  How, then, are such breakthroughs made, and how must science be supported in order to provide the greatest benefit to mankind. The speaker will discuss these challenges in light of some well recognized advances, and suggest both personal and national strategies to best push forward the frontiers of knowledge while also helping to meet the many challenges facing mankind.

Professor Douglas Osheroff (born August 1, 1945) is an American physicist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 with David Lee and Robert C. Richardson for discovering the superfluidic nature of 3He. This discovery was made in 1971 while Osheroff was a graduate at Cornell University.

(http://www.stanford.edu/dept/physics/people/faculty/osheroff_douglas.html)

* Hermann Staudinger (1881-1965)

Staudinger’s groundbreaking elucidation of the nature of the high-molecular weight compounds he termed Makromoleküle paved the way for the birth of the field of polymer chemistry. Staudinger himself saw the potential for this science long before it was fully realized. He was appointed a Professor at Albert-Ludwig University Freiburg in 1926 and founded the first polymer chemistry journal in 1940. In 1953 Staudinger received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry.