Maria Goeppert Mayer

thumb|Maria Goeppert Mayer Maria Goeppert Mayer (née Göppert; June 28, 1906 – February 20, 1972) was a German-born American theoretical physicist who shared one half of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics with J. Hans D. Jensen for their research on Nuclear shell model nuclear shell structure; the other half was awarded to Eugene Wigner. Among her many honors, she was elected in 1956 to the U.S National Academy of Sciences, in 1964 to the American Philosophical Society, and in 1965 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Quotes There are essentially two ways in which physicists at present seek to obtain a consistent picture of atomic nucleus. The first, the basic approach, is to study the elementary particles, their properties and mutual interaction. Thus one hopes to obtain a knowledge of the nuclear forces.If the forces are known, one should in principle be able to calculate deductively the properties of individual complex nuclei. Only after this has been accomplished can one say that one completely understands nuclear structures.Considerable progress in this direction has been made in the last few years. The work by Keith Brueckner Brueckner1, Bethe2 and others has developed ways of handling the many-body problem. But our knowledge of the nuclear forces is still far from complete.The other approach is that of the experimentalist and consists in obtaining by direct experimentation as many data as possible for individual nuclei. One hopes in this way to find regularities and correlations which give a clue to the structure of the nucleus.…1. K.A. Brueckner, A.M. Lockett and M. Rotenberg, Phys. Rev., 121 (1961) 255.2. H.A. Bethe and Jeffrey Goldstone J. Goldstone, Proc. Roy. Soc. (London), Ser. A, 238 (1957) 551. Chapter. The Shell Model, Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1963 20–37 Nobel Lectures, Physics 1963–1972 Amsterdam Elsevier Publishing Company 1972 https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1963/mayer/lecture/ (quote from p. 20 & p. 37) Born took a great personal interest in his students. It was a tradition in Göttingen that after the theoretical seminars, Born and his graduate students would go for a walk in the hills to have supper in some village inn (when it didn't rain too hard). The students then had a chance to ask him anything about physics or nonphysics. Discussions with Born on any subject were interesting. As a beginning student I learned a great deal from these completely informal physics discussions. Most of all we learned at that time to appreciate and cherish the friendship of Born. He was an excellent pianist, and I remember several evenings when Born and Heisenberg played concerts on two pianos. March 1970 Pioneer of Quantum Mechanics, Max Born, Dies in Göttingen Physics Today 23 3 97 & 99 https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-abstract/23/3/97/596885 (quote from p. 99) Mathematics began to seem too much like puzzle solving. Physics is puzzle solving, too, but of puzzles created by nature, not by the mind of man. as quoted in: Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize in Physics 1963 NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2026. Fri. 14 Aug 2026 https://www.nobelprize.org/stories/women-who-changed-science/maria-goeppert-mayer/ Quotes about Maria Goeppert Mayer To follow in her father’s footsteps and become the seventh-generation professor in his family, Maria Goeppert Meyer patched together a career of volunteer work unique in the annals of the Nobel Prize. In all, she worked for thirty years for three prestigious American universities—as an unpaid volunteer. She taught, supervised graduate students, served on committees, and published articles—but did not receive a university salary until ten years after her Nobel Prize-winning project. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Maria Goeppert Mayer The Physics Teacher 33 7 October 1995 424–429 https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/pte/article-abstract/33/7/424/271361 External links Robert G. Sachs, Maria Goeppert Mayer 1906–1972: A Biographical Memoir https://www.nasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/mayer-maria.pdf National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs 1979 live https://web.archive.org/web/20131017045225/http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mayer-maria.pdf October 17, 2013 Category:1906 births Category:1972 deaths Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Immigrants to the United States Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty Category:Manhattan Project people Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Science Category:Nobel laureates from Germany Category:Nobel laureates from the United States Category:Nobel laureates in Physics Category:Physicists from Germany Category:Physicists from the United States Category:University of Göttingen alumni Category:Women academics from Germany Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Women born in the 1900s Category:Women Nobel laureates Category:Women scientists from Germany Category:Women scientists from the United States