John Norris Bahcall (December 30, 1934 – August 17, 2005) was an American astrophysicist. He is best known for his contributions to the solar neutrino problem and the development of the Hubble Space Telescope, and for his leadership and development of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... August 17 is the 229th day of the year (230th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... An astrophysicist is a person whose profession is astrophysics. ... The solar neutrino problem was a major discrepancy between measurements of the neutrinos flowing through the Earth and theoretical models of the solar interior, lasting from the mid-1960s to about 2002. ... // The Hubble Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a telescope in orbit around the Earth. ... Fuld Hall The Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, U.S.A. (although it is not part of Princeton University), designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the... Princeton, New Jersey, is the name of a section of Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. ...

Early and family life

Bahcall was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He did not take science classes at high school, and became state tennis champion and a national debate team champion. Bahcall started his university career at Louisiana State University as a philosophy student on a tennis scholarship, and considered becoming a rabbi. He moved to the University of California, Berkeley after one year, still studying philosophy. He took his first physics class as it was a graduation requirement. Official website: www. ... High school - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Australian Rod Laver, a candidate for the greatest player of all time This article is about the sport. ... Debate or debating is a formal method of interactive and position representational argument. ... Memorial Tower. ... Philosopher in Meditation (detail), by Rembrandt Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics, in which people ask questions such as whether God exists, whether knowledge is possible, and what makes actions right or wrong. ... A scholarship is an award of access to an institution or a financial aid award for an individual (a scholar) for the purposes of furthering their education. ... Rabbi (Classical Hebrew רִבִּי ribbī;; modern Ashkenazi and Israeli רַבִּי rabbī) in Judaism, means teacher, or more literally great one. The word Rabbi is derived from the Hebrew root-word RaV, which in biblical Hebrew means great or distinguished, (in knowledge). In the ancient Judean schools (and among Sefaradim today) the sages... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as the University of California at Berkeley, UC Berkeley, Cal, California, or Berkeley) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. ... Physics (from the Greek, φυσικός (physikos), natural, and φύσις (physis), nature) is the science of the natural world, which deals with the fundamental constituents of the universe, the forces they exert on one another, and the results of these forces. ...

He was married to Princeton University professor in astrophysics Neta Bahcall, whom he first met while she was a graduate student at the Weizmann Institute in the 1960s. Together, they had a daughter and two sons. He died in New York from a rare blood disorder. Princeton University is a coeducational private university located on an extensive campus in and around suburban Princeton, New Jersey. ... The Weizmann Institute of Science (מכון ויצמן למדע) is an institute of higher learning and research in Rehovot, Israel. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1961 to 1970, inclusive. ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq. ...

Academic career

He graduated with an A.B. in Physics from Berkeley in 1956, obtained his M.S. in physics in 1957 from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard in 1961. He became a research fellow in physics at Indiana University in 1960 and then worked at the California Institute of Technology from 1962 to 1970, where he worked alongside Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, and William Fowler. A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B.) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate course of one or two years in duration. ... Physics (from the Greek, φυσικός (physikos), natural, and φύσις (physis), nature) is the science of the natural world, which deals with the fundamental constituents of the universe, the forces they exert on one another, and the results of these forces. ... The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. ... Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. ... Harvard University campus (old map) Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... Indiana University Bloomington is the principal campus of the Indiana University system. ... The California Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Caltech) is a private, coeducational university located in Pasadena, California, in the United States. ... Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) (surname pronounced FINE-man; in IPA) was one of the most influential American physicists of the 20th century, expanding greatly on the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the quark theory, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium. ... Murray Gell-Mann at Harvard University Murray Gell-Mann (born September 15, 1929) is an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. ... There is another William Fowler who was a Scottish poet and uncle of William Drummond of Hawthornden William Alfred Willy Fowler (August 9, 1911 – March 14, 1995) was an American astrophysicist. ...

He was appointed professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1971. He became a member of the National Academy of Science in 1976. He was president of the American Astronomical Society from 1990 to 1992, and was president-elect of the American Physical Society at the date of his death. Fuld Hall The Institute for Advanced Study is a private institution in Princeton Township, New Jersey, U.S.A. (although it is not part of Princeton University), designed to foster pure cutting-edge research by scientists in a variety of fields without the complications of teaching or funding, or the... Princeton, New Jersey, is the name of a section of Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The main aim of the AAS is provide a political voice for its members and organise their lobbying. ... The American Physical Society was founded in 1899 and is the worlds second largest organization of physicists. ...

Bahcall is best known for his work on the solar neutrino problem with physical chemist Raymond Davis, Jr. Together, Davis and Bahcall collaborated on the creation of an underground detector for neutrinos in a gold mine in South Dakota (essentially a very large tank filled with cleaning fluid). The flux of neutrinos found by the detector was 1/3 the amount predicted by Bahcall, a discrepancy that took over 30 years to resolve. Many thought that Bahcall should have shared the 2002 Nobel Prize that was awarded to Davis and Masatoshi Koshiba. The solar neutrino problem was a major discrepancy between measurements of the neutrinos flowing through the Earth and theoretical models of the solar interior, lasting from the mid-1960s to about 2002. ... Physical Chemistry is the combined science of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics which functions to provide molecular-level interpretations of observed macroscopic phenomena. ... Raymond Davis Jr. ... The neutrino is an elementary particle. ... Gold mining consists of the processes and techniques employed in the removal of gold from the ground. ... Official language(s) English Capital Pierre Largest city Sioux Falls Area  Ranked 17th  - Total 77,163 sq. ... Sir Edward Appletons medal Photographs of Nobel Prize Medals. ... Masatoshi Koshiba (小柴 昌俊 Koshiba Masatoshi, born on September 19, 1926 in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture -) is a Japanese physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2002. ...

Bahcall's other great contribution was in the development and implementation of the Hubble Telescope, alongside Lyman Spitzer, Jr from the 1970s through to the period after the telescope was launched in 1990. In 1992, he received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal for this work. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a telescope orbiting the Earth at the outer edges of the atmosphere. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1971 to 1980, inclusive. ... This article is about the year. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ...

He also worked in many other areas: the standard model of a galaxy, with a massive black hole surrounded by stars, is known as the Bahcall-Wolf model; the Bahcall-Soneira model was for many years the standard model for the structure of the Milky Way; and he contributed to accurate models of stellar interiors. All togther Bahcall published over 600 scientific papers and five books in the field of astrophysics. A black hole is a concentration of mass great enough that the force of gravity prevents anything past its event horizon from escaping it except through quantum tunnelling behaviour (known as Hawking Radiation). ... Note: This article contains special characters. ...

Honors

• Helen B. Warner Prize (1970)
• NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (1992)
• Heineman Prize (1994)
• Hans Bethe Prize (1998)
• United States National Medal of Science (1998)
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1999)
• Dan David Prize (2003)
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (2003)
• Fermi Award (with Raymond Davis, Jr) (2003)
• Academy of Achievement, Golden Plate Award (2004)

The Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy is awarded annually by the American Astronomical Society for a significant contribution to observational or theoretical astronomy. ... 1970 (MCMLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1970 calendar). ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics is jointly awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics for outstanding work in astrophysics. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated like the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal. // Events January Bill Clinton January 1 : North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) goes into effect. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... The Henry Norris Russell Lectureship is awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of a lifetime of excellence in astronomical research. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... The Dan David Prize annually gives three $1 million prizes to honor achievements aimed at understanding or impacting the world. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Gold Medal awarded to Asaph Hall The Gold Medal is the highest award of the Royal Astronomical Society. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Enrico Fermi Award is a U.S. government Presidential award honoring scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use, or production of energy. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Quotes

• "I know all about neutrinos, and my friend here knows about everything else in astrophysics". --- Bahcall's standard phrase on introducing himself and a colleague to a new acquaintance

External links

• Institute for Advanced Study:
  • Homepage
  • Biography
  • Press release following his death
• PBS Nova: The Ghost Particle
• Letter from his family after his death

• Obituaries
  • Obituary (Nature, 1 September 2005) (PDF)
  • Obituary (Washington Post, August 20, 2005)
  • Obituary (New York Times, August 19, 2005) (Microsoft Word,
  • Obituary (The Times, 1 September 2005)