William M. Fairbank

William Martin Fairbank (24 February 1917 in Minneapolis – 30 September 1989 in Palo Alto) was an American physicist known in particular for his work on liquid helium.[1]

Fairbank obtained his A. B. degree from Whitman College (1939) and his Ph.D. in physics from Yale University (1948) under the supervision of C. T. Lane.[2] He then went on to a productive academic career.[3][4]

Assistant Professor of Physics, Amherst College, 1947–1952
Assistant Professor to Associate Professor of Physics, Duke University, 1952–1959
Professor to Max H. Stein Professor of Physics, Stanford University 1959–1985
Emeritus Professor of Physics, Stanford University 1985–1989

Legacy

Fairbank had, at Duke, 7 doctoral students and, at Stanford, 47 doctoral students, including Blas Cabrera Navarro, Bascom S. Deaver, Alexander J. Dessler and Arthur F. Hebard. His three sons are: William M. Fairbank Jr. (a physicist and Fellow of the APS),[5] Robert Harold Fairbank (an antitrust, business, consumer and IP lawyer in Los Angeles), and Richard Dana Fairbank (founder and CEO of Capital One). He was involved in work on Gravity Probe B.

Awards

Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize from the APS, 1963
Fritz London Memorial Lecture, 1965
Member of the National Academy of Sciences, 1966.
Fritz London Memorial Award, 1968

References

Cabrera, Blas; Everitt, C. W. F.; Deaver Jr., Bascom S. (February 1991). "Obituary. William M. Fairbank". Physics Today. 44 (2): 112–113. Bibcode:1991PhT....44b.112C. doi:10.1063/1.2810005.
APS - 2006 APS March Meeting - Event - Low Temperature Physics at Yale in the late 30s through the early 50s The low temperature program at Yale was initiated by Cecil Taverner Lane (1904–1991) in 1937.
http://www.aip.org/history/acap/biographies/bio.jsp?fairbankw APS Biography
http://www.phy.duke.edu/william-m-fairbank Duke University Biography
William M. Fairbank Jr. | Physics, Colorado State University website

Sources

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