Willis Lamb

Willis Lamb
Willis Lamb
	Lamb in 1955
Born	Willis Eugene Lamb Jr.; July 12, 1913; Los Angeles, California, US
Died	May 15, 2008 (aged 94); Tucson, Arizona, US
Alma mater	University of California, Berkeley (BS, PhD)
Known for	Lamb shift (1947)
Title	Wykeham Professor of Physics (1956–1962)
Predecessor	Maurice Pryce
Successor	Rudolf Peierls
Spouse	Ursula Schäfer (m. 1939; died 1996)
Awards	Rumford Prize (1953); Nobel Prize in Physics (1955); Einstein Prize for Laser Science (1992); National Medal of Science (2000);
	Scientific career
Fields	Atomic physics; Quantum physics;
Institutions	Columbia University (1938–51); Stanford University (1951–56); Oxford University (1956–62); Yale University (from 1962);
Thesis	I. On the Capture of Slow Neutrons in Hydrogenuous Substances, II. Electromagnetic Properties of Nuclear Systems (1938)
Doctoral advisor	J. Robert Oppenheimer
Doctoral students	Bernard T. Feld (1945); Norman Myles Kroll (1948); Theodore Maiman (1955); Balázs László Győrffy (1966); Marlan Scully (1966);

Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. (July 12, 1913 – May 15, 2008) was an American physicist who shared the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics with Polykarp Kusch "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum". Lamb was able to precisely determine a surprising shift in electron energies in a hydrogen atom, known as the Lamb shift. He was a professor at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences.