Physics Today
Robert Phillip Sharp
Clarence R. Allen and David J. Stevenson
Citation: Physics Today
58
(5), 84 (2005); doi: 10.1063/1.1995761
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.1995761
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84
May 2005 Physics Today
http://www.physicstoday.org
Robert Phillip Sharp
R
obert Phillip Sharp, one of the
leading figures of American geol-
ogy, died peacefully in his home in
Santa Barbara, California, on 25 May
2004. Bob’s enormous contributions
on the physical processes that have
modified the surfaces of Earth and
Mars are scientific classics that have
substantially enhanced our under-
standing of the unique roles of water,
wind, and ice in modifying planetary
surfaces. Virtually an equal contribu-
tion was Bob’s vision and leadership
in geological academia, primarily at
Caltech.
Bob was born in Oxnard, Califor-
nia, on 24 June 1911. As an under-
graduate at Caltech in the 1930s, he
was quarterback of the football team
in his senior year and an outstanding
student. He chose to do his doctoral
work at Harvard University and pre-
pared a thesis, under Kirk Bryan, on
the geology of the Ruby–East Hum-
boldt Range area of northeastern
Nevada, where his discovery of Pleis-
tocene glacial landforms in the sum-
mit area sparked an interest in gla-
ciers and glaciation that persisted
throughout his career. He also partic-
ipated in a two-month geological ex-
pedition boating down the Grand
Canyon, the inner gorge of which was,
at the time, essentially terra incog-
nita in terms of its geology.
Jobs were scarce in 1938, when
Bob obtained his doctorate, and he felt
lucky to land an academic position at
the University of Illinois. He was
called into military service with the
US Army Air Corps five years later
and researched and wrote survival
manuals for downed fliers in the
North Pacific–Alaska region. His per-
sonal survival experiences in the
westernmost Aleutians and on the
slopes of Mt. McKinley further stimu-
lated his interest in a variety of geo-
logical topics, particularly glaciology.
After a brief postwar period at the
University of Minnesota, he returned
in 1947 to Caltech, where he spent the
remainder of his academic career. His
teaching was legendary, particularly
his introductory geology course. On
nomination by a group of undergrad-
uates, he was named by
Life
magazine
in 1950 as one of the top 10 US college
teachers of the year. In 1952, he was
appointed chairman of the division of
geological sciences and, during the en-
suing 16 years, played a central role
in building Caltech into a leader in in-
novative efforts in geochemistry and
planetary science.
In his research, Bob embarked on
a major drilling program on the
Malaspina Glacier in southeastern
Alaska in an attempt to better under-
stand the physics of glacier flow. He
subsequently shifted that effort to the
Blue Glacier on Mt. Olympus in
northwest Washington. His collabora-
tion with geochemist Sam Epstein led
to pioneering efforts in climate
change. Bob also studied the role of
wind as a geological agent; his work
on dune formation is particularly well
known. Around 1961, another impor-
tant chapter in his scientific career
began with attempts to understand
geological surface processes on Mars.
Bob and Caltech colleagues formed
the team to evaluate the
Mariner
TV
imaging of Mars and contributed to
the recognition of the role water
played in Martian evolution, still a
central theme in our growing under-
standing of that planet.
Bob’s leadership at Caltech was
punctuated by two major develop-
ments. The first was the phasing out
of the vertebrate paleontology pro-
gram and a major thrust, supported
by Linus Pauling and others, into the
Robert Phillip Sharp
Volovik, made fundamental contribu-
tions to that area. In particular, the
two showed that the v-vortex, a non-
axisymmetric vortex, can be stable.
That finding was important in resolv-
ing the nature of the vortex–core tran-
sition in superfluid
3
He, which had
been discovered experimentally some
years before. For that work, they re-
ceived the Köorber Foundation’s
Award in 1987 for the Advancement of
European Science. Their jointly writ-
ten article published in
Reviews of
Modern Physics
in 1987 is still a stan-
dard reference on the topic.
Salomaa became an associate pro-
fessor in 1994 and, in 1996, was
named both a full professor of theo-
retical materials physics at TKK and
director of TKK’s Materials Physics
Laboratory. His tremendous energy
and organizational skills made him
an appropriate choice to direct the lab.
He was determined to move the facil-
ity into new areas and did so success-
fully, and active collaborations with
prominent scientists from the US,
Japan, and European countries be-
came a feature of the lab. Salomaa
built a theoretical research group that
worked in BEC, quantum computing,
and nanotechnology. He also reorgan-
ized the curriculum to include those
forefront topics. In nanotechnology,
the group contributed to the theory of
quantum dots, superconducting inter-
faces, scanning-tunneling-microscope
spectroscopy, and other subfields. In
BEC of alkali metal atoms, his re-
search group studied the structure
and stability of multiply quantized
vortices at ultralow temperatures. In
quantum computing, the group has
been working on optimizing the com-
puting resources both in holonomic
quantum computing and in ordinary
Hamiltonian quantum computing.
In 1996, Salomaa initiated a large,
new area of theoretical and experi-
mental research in the Materials
Physics Lab: the propagation of sur-
face and bulk acoustic waves (SAWs
and BAWs). The group doing this re-
search has become one of the largest
and most active worldwide. Filters
that use SAWs and BAWs are funda-
mental components of mobile phone
systems and Bluetooth technology;
consequently, they have been of great
importance to the Finnish economy.
The group’s work on Green’s-function
theory of leaky SAWs, propagation of
SAWs in reflecting structures, and laser
probing (visualization) of gigahertz-
range SAW devices are fundamental
contributions. A remarkable paper on
acoustic loss mechanisms in leaky
SAW resonators earned Salomaa and
his collaborators the 2002 Outstanding
Paper Award, given by the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers’
Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Fre-
quency Control Society.
Salomaa was a very patriotic Finn
whose career was dedicated to ensur-
ing that Finnish physics and technol-
ogy meet the highest international
standards. He succeeded, both in his
personal scientific work and in the
work of the material physics labora-
tory that he headed.
Robert Joynt
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Mikio Nakahara
Kinki University
Osaka, Japan
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May 2005 Physics Today
http://www.physicstoday.org
William Edward
Spicer
W
illiam Edward Spicer, a pioneer
in the field of photoelectron spec-
troscopy, teacher, mentor, and inven-
tor, died of heart failure on 6 June
2004 while vacationing with his fam-
ily in London, England.
Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
on 7 September 1929, Spicer over-
came learning and speech difficulties
to obtain a bachelor’s degree in
physics in 1949 from the College of
William and Mary in Williamsburg,
Virginia. He earned a second bache-
lor’s degree in physics from MIT in
1951. He then attended the Univer-
sity of Missouri–Columbia, where he
received his master’s and doctoral de-
grees, both in physics, in 1953 and
1955, respectively. His doctoral thesis,
prepared under the guidance of Eu-
gene B. Hensley, was on luminescence
from sodium chloride.
For the next seven years, Spicer
worked at RCA Research Laborato-
ries in Princeton, New Jersey, where
he studied photocathodes. In doing so,
he developed a keen understanding of
the photoemission process. That work
ultimately developed into his career.
In the late 1950s, he used the studies
of specific photocathode materials to
develop a general model of photo-
emission, which led to the later use of
photoemission as a scientific tool.
After coming to Stanford Univer-
sity in the early 1960s, Spicer pio-
neered the use of photoemission spec-
troscopy to study the band structure
of solids. He introduced the so-called
three-step model to interpret the re-
sults and connect the measured photo-
emission spectra to the electronic
band structure. According to the
model, the photoemission process oc-
curs in three independent steps: photo-
excitation, transport to the surface,
and escape of the electron into vac-
uum. Spicer’s pioneering work opened
up a new field that over the years has
become the main line of research for
hundreds of scientists worldwide.
During his more than 40 years at
Stanford, he was instrumental in fur-
ther developing the technique and its
application to a broad range of prob-
lems in condensed matter physics.
Spicer’s interest in photocathodes
extended to industrial applications,
including early development of the
medical x-ray image intensifier tube
and the night-vision tube. The US
military today uses night-vision de-
vices based on those developments.
On learning of Spicer’s death, John
Pollard, a scientist at the US Army’s
Night Vision Laboratory, left a note
that stated, “Our night-vision capa-
bility today stems from his efforts,
and our soldiers owe a debt of grati-
tude to Professor Spicer for his vision,
insight, and deep understanding. We
have lost a true giant.”
Spicer recognized, though, that the
light sources he was using for his re-
search were limited and that syn-
chrotron radiation would provide a
superior excitation source. As soon as
he learned that SLAC was building
such an accelerator, he wrote a letter
to Wolfgang Panofsky, then director of
SLAC, and explored the possibility of
accommodating a port on the new ac-
celerator for use in solid-state physics.
As a result of that letter, a port was
added to the SPEAR storage ring, and
in the early 1970s, Spicer and Seb
Doniach cofounded what is now the
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lab-
oratory. Spicer immediately started
using synchrotron radiation along
with his laboratory sources.
Spicer published more than 700
papers in refereed journals, and dur-
ing his long career at Stanford, he su-
pervised more than 80 doctoral stu-
dents. He also worked hard to recruit
women and minorities into his group.
One of the honors he treasured most
was the American Association for the
Advancement of Science’s Lifetime
Mentor Award, which, in 2000, recog-
nized his contributions to that effort.
Spicer received other prestigious
awards, including the American Phys-
ical Society’s Oliver E. Buckley Prize
in 1980, Scientist of the Year by
R&D
Magazine
in 1981, and the Medard W.
Welch Medal of the American Vacuum
Society (now AVS Science & Technol-
ogy Society) in 1984.
Spicer was an avid reader of books
in a variety of fields. He had a deep
love for history in general, and over
the years, he amassed a remarkable
stamp collection that focused mostly
on military and postal history. He was
also an accomplished tennis and
bridge player.
Colleagues at Stanford and world-
wide sorely miss Spicer for his pio-
neering work and high professional
standards. His many students re-
member him as a caring and under-
standing mentor who was supportive
not only during their scientific train-
ing, but also personally. For those of
William Edward Spicer
DIANA ROGERS
emerging area of geochemistry. Many
classical geology colleagues around
the country, who literally accused Cal-
tech of “selling out” geology to the geo-
chemists, initially did not look favor-
ably on the new emphasis on
geochemistry. However, they subse-
quently recognized it as a forward-
looking and daring move. The second
new thrust in the 1960s required a
choice between ocean-floor geophysics
and planetary science. The presence
in Pasadena of the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory was a strong argument in
favor of planetary science, and Bob
even received the blessing of the Cal-
tech astronomers, who were deeply
engrossed in far-out space and were
quite willing to “give away” our solar
system to the geologists.
Numerous national honors were
bestowed on Bob during his career.
But the two in which he took the most
pride were the 1977 Penrose Medal of
the Geological Society of America—its
highest honor—and NSF’s National
Medal of Science, presented to him in
1989. When awarded the Penrose
Medal, he commented that “few sci-
entists in other professional fields
seem to enjoy and savor their work as
fully as do Earth scientists.” If there
was one activity Bob enjoyed above
all, it was the planning and leading of
geological field trips for students,
alumni, and others. Those included
yearly trips to Hawaii for graduating
students.
It is an intriguing enigma that
Bob, with his profoundly rigid self-
discipline and basically conservative
ways, would nevertheless leave a last-
ing legacy of truly forward-looking in-
novation in his scientific and aca-
demic ventures. He is remembered so
fondly by a multitude of friends from
all walks of life as an immensely
warm and generous individual.
Clarence R. Allen
David J. Stevenson
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena
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