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Frederick Seitz
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Frederick Seitz (July 4, 1911–March 2, 2008) was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics. Seitz studied under Eugene Wigner at Princeton University, graduating in 1934. He, along with Wigner, came up with the concept of the Wigner-Seitz unit cell. Seitz was president of the US National Academy of Sciences 1962-1969.
He also founded the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as several other material research laboratories across the United States.
Biography
Born in San Francisco on July 4, 1911, Seitz graduated from Lick-Wilmerding High School in the middle of his senior year.
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Encyclopedia
Frederick Seitz (July 4, 1911–March 2, 2008) was an American physicist and a pioneer of solid state physics. Seitz studied under Eugene Wigner at Princeton University, graduating in 1934. He, along with Wigner, came up with the concept of the Wigner-Seitz unit cell. Seitz was president of the US National Academy of Sciences 1962-1969.
He also founded the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as well as several other material research laboratories across the United States.
Biography
Born in San Francisco on July 4, 1911, Seitz graduated from Lick-Wilmerding High School in the middle of his senior year. He went on to study physics at Stanford University obtaining his bachelor's degree in three years, and then moved to Princeton University to study metals under Eugene Wigner. He and Wigner pioneered one of the first quantum theory of crystals, and developed concepts such as the Wigner-Seitz unit cell.
After his graduate studied, Seitz continued to work on solid state physics, publishing The Modern Theory of Solids in 1940, motivated by a desire to "write a cohesive account of the various aspects of solid-state physics in order to give the field the kind of unity it deserved". The Modern Theory of Solids helped unify and understand the relations between the fields of metallurgy, ceramics, and electronics. He was also a consultant on many World War II related projects in metallurgy, radiation damage to solids and electronics amongst others. He, along with Hillard Huntington, made the first calculation of the energies of formation and migration of vacancies and interstitials in copper, inspiring many works on point defects in metals.
He was the president of Rockefeller University from 1968 to 1978 during which he helped to launch new research programs in molecular biology, cell biology, and neuroscience as well as creating a joint MD-PhD program with Cornell University. Shortly before his retirement from Rockefeller University in 1979, Seitz began working as a paid permanent consultant for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, advising their research program.
Seitz was a founder of the George C. Marshall Institute and was chairman of its board. In 1994, the Institute published a paper by Seitz titled Global warming and ozone hole controversies: A challenge to scientific judgment. He questioned the view that CFCs "are the greatest threat to the ozone layer". In a broader discussion of environmental toxins, he concluded "there is no good scientific evidence that passive inhalation is truly dangerous under normal circumstances."
Seitz questioned whether global warming is anthropogenic. He supported the position of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) on global warming and in an open letter invited scientists to sign the OISM's global warming petition. Seitz also signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration. Seitz used the same "uncertainty" tactic to challege global warning that he had used effectively at R.J. Reynolds to confuse the cancer/smoking link debate. Namely repeatly attacking the science of global warming to convince government representatives and the public that there was still a debate regarding the cause of warming. Note that Seitz did not conduct scientific experiments to come to his conclusions. I cite the following lecture from Naomi Oreskes, Ph.d., a Professor of History at UCSD.
Seitz died March 2 2008 in New York. He was said to have a "wry sense of humour" and to be "a kind and generous person, giving untold and unacclaimed time and energy to help young scientists and young science along their way".
Positions held
- Carnegie Tech, Head of the physics department (1946–?)
- University of Illinois, Professor of physics (1949–1968)
- American Institute of Physics, Chairman (1954-1959)
- Academic Press, Editor (1955–1984)
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (1959-1960)
- American Physics Society, Chairman (1961)
- United States National Academy of Sciences, Chairman (1962–1964)
- United States National Academy of Sciences, Chairman (1964-1969)
- Rockefeller University, President Emeritus (1968–1978)
- Richard Lounsbery Foundation, President (?–?)
- Science and Environmental Policy Project, Chair (?–?)
- George C. Marshall Institute, Founder, Chairman
Books
- Frederick Seitz On the Frontier, My Life in Science (American Institute of Physics, 1994)
- Nikolaus Riehl and Frederick Seitz Stalin’s Captive: Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb (American Chemical Society and the Chemical Heritage Foundations, 1996) ISBN 0-8412-3310-1.
- This book is a translation of Nikolaus Riehl’s book Zehn Jahre im goldenen Käfig (Ten Years in a Golden Cage) (Riederer-Verlag, 1988); but Seitz wrote a lengthy introduction. It contains 58 photographs.
Awards
External links
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- (Rockefeller University Newswire)
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- - September 3, 1997
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- (TCS Daily, April 14, 2006): rebuttal to Seitz article in Vanity Fair
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