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Norman Ramsey was born in 1915 in Washington, D.C. He received his A.B. and M.A. from Columbia University and similar degrees from Cambridge University. In 1940 he received a Ph.D. from Columbia University for molecular beam studies with 1. 1. Rabi. He was awarded an Sc.D. by Cambridge University in 1954 and by Oxford University in 1973 as well as honorary D.Sc.'s from Middlebury, Lake Forest and Carleton Colleges and from Case Western Reserve, Rockefeller, Chicago, Houston and Michigan Universities. After temporary periods at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the University of Illinois, the MIT Radiation Laboratory and Los Alamos, he became an Associate Professor at Columbia University. He was Executive Secretary of the group scientists who established Brookhaven National Laboratory and was the first Chairman of its Physics Department. Since 1947 he has been at Harvard University where he is Higgins Professor of Physics.
Norman Ramsey's experimental work has ranged from molecular beams to particle physics and has concentrated on precision measurements of the electric and magnetic properties of nucleons, nuclei, atoms and molecules. He and his associates discovered the deuteron electric quadrupole moment, have studied proton-proton and electron-proton scattering and have measured many nuclear magnetic moments including those of the proton, neutron, and deuteron. He has studied nuclear interactions in molecules and the electron distribution within molecules, has proposed the first successful theories of the chemical shift in NMR and of the electron coupled spin-spin interactions in molecules and has developed the theory of thermodynamics at negative absolute temperatures. He and his associates have invented high precision methods of molecular beam spectroscopy including the atomic hydrogen maser and have set low limits to the electric dipole moment of the neutron as a test of time reversal symmetry. He and his associates observed for the first time parity non-conserving spin rotations of neutrons passing through matter. Norman Ramsey's books include Experimental Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Moments, Molecular Beams, Quick Calculus and Spectroscopy with Coherent Radiation.
Norman Ramsey has been a Guggenheim Fellow, was the George Eastman Professor at Oxford University in 1973-74 and visiting professor at Middlebury, Mount Holyoke and Williams Colleges and at Virginia, Colorado, Chicago arid Michigan Universities. He was Chairman of the Physics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1977-78 and President of the American Physical Society 1978-79. From 1966-81 he was President of Universities Research Association, which operates the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He was a Trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and of Rockefeller University. From 1980 to 1986 he was Chairman of the Board of Govenors of the American Institute of Physics and from 1985 to 1988 he was President of the national Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Norman Ramsey is a member of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and is a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences. He has received the Presidential Certificate of Merit, E. 0. Lawrence Award, Davisson-Germer Prize, Columbia Award for Excellence in Science, IEEE Centennial Medal, IEEE Medal of Honor, Monie Ferst Award, Rabi Prize, Rumford Premium, Compton Medal, Oersted Medal, Pupin Medal, Erice Science for Peace Prize, Einstein Prize for Laser Science, Erice Science for Peace Prize, Vannevar Bush Award, Alexander Hamilton Award, National Medal of Science and Nobel Prize.
Higgins Professor of Physics,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts