Robert Betts Laughlin (born November 1, 1950) is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. He shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics with Horst L. Störmer and Daniel C. Tsui for explaining the fractional quantum Hall effect. In 1983, he introduced the Laughlin wavefunction, a many-body wave function that explained fractional charge phenomena, later related to the integer quantum Hall effect of composite fermions. His 2017 paper on "Pumped thermal grid storage with heat exchange" inspired Project Malta at Google X and 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 2006,5 he served as the president of KAIST in Daejeon, South Korea.
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 – 19996
- Doctorate of Letters, University of Maryland – 2005
- Onsager Medal – 2007
Publications
Laughlin published a book entitled A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down in 2005. The book argues for emergence as a replacement for reductionism, in addition to general commentary on hot-topic issues.
- Laughlin, Robert B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03828-2. (Trad. esp.: Un universo diferente. La reinvención de la física en la Edad de la Emergencia, Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores, 2007, ISBN 978-84-935432-9-7).
- Laughlin, Robert B. (2008). The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00507-9. (Trad. esp.: Crímenes de la razón. El fin de la mentalidad científica, Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores, 2010, ISBN 978-84-96859-68-5).
- Mente y materia. ¿Qué es la vida? Sobre la vigencia de Erwin Schrödinger (with Michael R. Hendrickson; Robert Pogue Harrison and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht), Buenos Aires/Madrid, Katz editores, 2010, ISBN 978-84-92946-12-9.
- Laughlin, Robert B. (2013). Powering the Future: How We Will (Eventually) Solve the Energy Crisis and Fuel the Civilization of Tomorrow. Basic Books. ISBN 9780465022205.7
External links
- Media related to Robert B. Laughlin at Wikimedia Commons
- Robert B. Laughlin on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture on December 8, 1998 Fractional Quantization
- The Crime of Reason and the Closing of the Scientific Mind lecture at the Linda Hall Library, May 4, 2011
References
Robert Laughlin – Stanford Physics Faculty. Stanford.edu. Retrieved on 2012-01-28. https://physics.stanford.edu/people/robert-laughlin ↩
J.K. Jain (1989). "Composite fermion approach for fractional quantum Hall effect". Physical Review Letters. 63 (2): 199–202. Bibcode:1989PhRvL..63..199J. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.63.199. PMID 10040805. /wiki/Physical_Review_Letters ↩
Laughlin, Robert B. (July 2017). "Pumped thermal grid storage with heat exchange". Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy. 9 (4): 044103. doi:10.1063/1.4994054. https://doi.org/10.1063%2F1.4994054 ↩
"Home | Malta". www.maltainc.com. Retrieved 2023-11-03. https://www.maltainc.com/ ↩
"A Lesson to Learn from the 'Laughlin Experiment' - :: KOREA FOCUS ::". Archived from the original on 2018-10-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20181003101204/http://www.koreafocus.or.kr/design2/layout/content_print.asp?group_id=101176 ↩
"Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#science-exploration ↩
"Faculty publications". Stanford Program in Science, Technology and Society. Retrieved 7 June 2024. https://sts.stanford.edu/publications/powering-future-how-we-will-eventually-solve-energy-crisis-and-fuel-civilization ↩