Frederick Seitz (July 4, 1911 - March 2, 2008) is an American physicist and a solid state physics pioneer.
Seitz was the 4th president of Rockefeller University from 1968-1978, and the 17th president of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States from 1962-1969. Seitz is a recipient of the National Medal of Science, NASA's Distinguished Public Service Award, and other awards. He founded the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and several other materials research labs throughout the United States. Seitz is also the founding chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, a tobacco industry consultant and a leading skeptic about the issue of global warming.
Video Frederick Seitz
Background and private life
Born in San Francisco on July 4, 1911, Seitz graduated from Lick-Wilmerding High School in the middle of his senior year, and went on to study physics at Stanford University to earn a bachelor's degree in three years, graduating in 1932. He married Elizabeth K. Marshall on May 18, 1935.
Seitz died March 2, 2008 in New York. He survived by a son, three grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Maps Frederick Seitz
Initial career
Seitz moved to Princeton University to study the metal under Eugene Wigner, obtaining his PhD in 1934. He and Wigner pioneered one of the first quantum theories of crystals, and developed concepts in solid-state physics such as the Wigner-Seitz cell unit used in the study crystalline matter in solid state physics.
Academic career
After graduate studies, Seitz continued to work on solid state physics, publishing the Modern Solids Theory in 1940, motivated by a desire to "write cohesive accounts of various aspects of solid-state physics in order to provide a field of unity type worthy ". The Modern Theory of Solids helps to unify and understand the relationship between metallurgy, ceramics, and electronics. He is also a consultant on many projects related to World War II in metallurgy, radiation damage to solids and electronics among others. He, along with Hillard Huntington, made the first calculation of the energy of the formation and migration of vacancies and interstitials in copper, inspiring much of the work on point defects on metal. The published scope of work ranges widely, including "spectroscopy, luminescence, plastic deformation, irradiation effects, metal physics, self-diffusion, point defects in metals and insulators, and science policy".
Early in his academic career, Seitz served on the faculty of the University of Rochester (1935-1937) and after a distraction as a research physicist at General Electric Laboratories (1937-1939) he was at the University of Pennsylvania (1939-1942) and then Carnegie Institute of Technology 1942-49).
From 1946 to 1947, Seitz was director of a training program in atomic energy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He was appointed Professor of physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1949, became department chairman in 1957 and dean and vice president for research in 1964. Seitz also serves as a NATO advisor. From 1962 to 1969 Seitz served as President of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, in full-time capacity from 1965. As president of NAS, he started the University Research Association, which was contracted with the Atomic Energy Commission to build the world's largest particle accelerator. at that time, Fermilab.
He was president of Rockefeller University from 1968 to 1978 where he helped launch new research programs in molecular biology, cell biology, and neuroscience and created the MD-PhD program in conjunction with Cornell University. He retired from Rockefeller University in 1979, when he was appointed President Emeritus.
Career consulting
After Seitz published a paper on crystal darkening, DuPont requested it in 1939 for assistance with the problems they faced with chrome yellow stability. He became "deeply involved" in their research efforts. Among other things, he investigated the possibility of using non-toxic silicon carbide as a white pigment. Seitz was director of Texas Instruments (1971-1982) and Akzona Corporation (1973-1982).
Shortly before his 1979 retirement from Rockefeller University, Seitz began working as a permanent consultant for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, advising their medical research program until 1988. Reynolds previously provided "very generous" support for biomedical work at Rockefeller. Seitz later wrote that "The money was spent on basic science, medical science," and pointed to Reynolds-funded research on mad cow disease and tuberculosis. Nevertheless, later academic studies on the influence of the tobacco industry concluded that Seitz, who helped allocate Reynolds research fund of $ 45 million, "played a key role... in helping the tobacco industry generate uncertainty about the health effects of smoking." According to the tobacco industry memo from 1989, Seitz was described by an employee of Philip Morris International as "quite old and not rational enough to offer advice."
In 1984 Seitz was chairman of the founder of George C. Marshall Institute, and its chairman until 2001. The institute was founded to argue for President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, but "in the 1990s it branched off into one of the foremost notions tanks tried to dispel science's prejudices climate change. "A 1990 report co-written with Institute founders Robert Jastrow and William Nierenberg" centrally informs the Bush administration's position on human-caused climate change ". The Institute also promotes environmental skepticism more generally. In 1994, the Institute published a paper by Seitz entitled Global warming and ozone hole controversy: A challenge for scientific judgment. Seitz questioned the view that CFCs "are the biggest threat to the ozone layer". In the same paper, commenting on the dangers of inhaling secondary tobacco smoke, he concluded "there is no good scientific evidence that passive inhalation is really dangerous under normal circumstances."
Seitz is a central figure among skeptics about global warming. He is the highest ranked scientist among a group of hesitant people, who started in the early 1990s, firmly denying suggestions that global warming is a serious threat. Seitz argues that the science behind global warming can not be inferred and "definitely does not guarantee the mandatory set limits on greenhouse gas emissions ". Seitz questioned whether global warming is anthropogenic.
Seitz signed the Leipzig Declaration of 1995 and, in an open letter inviting scientists to sign the global warming petition from the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, called for the United States to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The letter was accompanied by a 12-page article on climate change followed by a style and format almost identical to contributions to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientific journal, even including the date of publication ("October 26") and volume number ("Volume 13 : 149-164 1999 "), but is not actually a publication of the National Academy. In response, the United States Academy of Sciences took the so-called New York Times as an "extraordinary move to disprove the position of one of its former presidents." The NAS also explained that "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of an expert report from the Academy."
Seitz worked extensively with Fred Singer during his consulting career for tobacco and oil companies in terms of health and climate change, respectively.
Publish
Seitz wrote numerous scientific books in his field, including Modern theory of solids (1940) and Metal physics (1943). Then he wrote books such as Theory of lattice dynamics in the harmonics approach (1971) and solid state physics . The latter, beginning in 1955, reached 60 volumes in 2008, with Seitz remaining an active editor up to volume 38 in 1984. After retiring, he wrote a book on global warming, published through the George C. Marshall Institute he co-chaired. He published his autobiography in 1994. Other works include the biographies of American physicist Francis Wheeler Loomis (1991) and Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden (1999), silicon history, and history of the United States Academy of Sciences (2007).
Criticism
In the early 1970s, Seitz became unpopular because of its support for the Vietnam war, a position most of his colleagues on the Science Advisory Committee of the President did not share. In the late 1970s, Seitz also split with his scientific colleagues on nuclear preparedness issues. Seitz is committed to "a muscular military reinforced by the most technologically advanced weapons", while the scientific community in general supports arbitration bargaining and agreement. Seitz is also very anti-communist and his support for an aggressive weapons program is a reflection of this.
In their book of Doubt Traders, the science historian Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway stated that Seitz and a group of other scientists are fighting scientific evidence and spreading confusion on many of the most important issues of our day such as the dangers of tobacco smoke, rain acids, CFCs, pesticides and global warming. Seitz says that American science has become "rigid", and its comrades become closed-minded and dogmatic. According to Oreskes and Conway, Seitz uses the normal uncertainty of scientific evidence to spread doubts about the dangers of tobacco smoke.
Seitz is also a major organizer of the famous Oregon Petition, where many signatories claim that there is no evidence that greenhouse gases are responsible for global warming. Although Seitz became a former President of the US National Academy of Sciences, NAS issued a press release stating "The petition project is a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. globally, and not his marker expert in climate science. "The journalists later found that the identity of the majority of the signatories could not be verified, as the petition committee had no process for identity authentication. Furthermore, the scientific article allegedly refuting global warming (and accompanying the petition) is actually an article not reviewed by colleagues of the "Journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons," published by Arthur Robinson, the petition co-organizer. The journal supports scientifically discredited views such as claiming that there is no link between HIV and AIDS, and not being indexed in PubMed.
Oreskes and Conway are very critical of Seitz's involvement in the tobacco industry. They claim that Seitz opposes the scientific consensus that smoking is harmful to human health, and helps create confusion and doubt about the issue.
Awards and acknowledgments
Seitz was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1952, serving as President from 1962 to 1969. He received the Franklin Medal (1965). In 1973 he was awarded the National Medal of Science "for his contribution to modern quantum theory of solid state of matter." He also received the United States Department of Defense Differentiation Service Award; National Aeronautical and Space Aeronautical Services Award; and the Compton Award, the highest award of the American Institute of Physics. In addition to Rockefeller University, 31 universities in the US and abroad were awarded the title of honor Seitz. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Seitz served on various councils of charities, including John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1976-1983) and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and (as guardian) of the American Natural History Museum (from 1975) and the Institute of International Education. He is also a member of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Other appointments for various national and international bodies include serving on the Council of Defense Science and serving as chairman of the US delegation to the United Nations Committee on Science and Technology. He also serves on the supervisory board of the Science Service, now known as the Society for Science & amp; Public, from 1971 to 1974.
In 1981, Seitz became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.
Hold position
Academic
- 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 Physical Society, Chairman (1961)
- United States National Academy of Sciences, President (1962-1969)
- Rockefeller University, President Emeritus (1968-1978)
- Physical Status of Solidi B, Editorial Board Member
Private sector
Books
- Frederick Seitz, Development of algebraic matrices of the crystallographic group , Princeton University, 1934
- Frederick Seitz, Modern theory of solids , McGraw-Hill, 1940
- Frederick Seitz, Metal Physics , McGraw-Hill, 1943
- Robert Jastrow, William Aaron Nierenberg, Frederick Seitz, Global warming: what does science say to us? , George C. Marshall Institute, 1990
- Robert Jastrow, William Aaron Nierenberg, Frederick Seitz, Scientific Perspective on the Greenhouse Problem , Marshall Press, 1990
- Frederick Seitz, Francis Wheeler Loomis: August 4, 1889 - February 9, 1976 , National Academy Press, 1991
- Frederick Seitz, On the Border, My Life in Science (American Institute of Physics, 1994)
- Nikolaus Riehl and Frederick Seitz, Stalin's Prisoners: Nikolaus Riehl and Soviet Races for Bombs (American Chemical Society and Foundation of Chemical Heritage, 1996) ISBN 0-8412-3310-1.
- This book is a translation of the book Nikolaus Riehl Zehn Jahre im goldenen KÃÆ'¤fig (Ten Years in the Golden Cage) (Riederer-Verlag, 1988); but Seitz wrote a long introduction. It contains 58 photos.
- Frederick Seitz and Norman G. Einspruch, Electronic Jin: silicon crushing history , University of Illinois Press, 1998.
- Frederick Seitz, Science matrix: journey, success, victory , Springer, 1998.
- Frederick Seitz, The inventor of the cosmic Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932) , American Philosophical Society, 1999
- Henry Ehrenreich, Frederick Seitz, David Turnbull, Frans Spaepen, Solid state physics , Academic Press, 2006
- Frederick Seitz, Highlight selection from the history of the National Academy of Sciences, 1863-2005 , University of Press of America, 2007.
- Seitz's critique of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: IPCC Second Study Report # Chapter 8
- Wigner-Seitz radius
- Wigner-Seitz Cell
- Obituaries in The Times , March 11, 2008
- President Emeritus Frederick Seitz died at 96 (Rockefeller University Newswire)
- Official biographical history of Rockefeller University (1985)
- The George C. Marshall Institute: Conversation with Dr. Frederick Seitz - September 3, 1997
- Another biography of PBS
- SourceWatch article
- Are people causing global warming?
- Vanity Fair article discusses Seitz's advocacy for the tobacco and oil industry
- Vanity Scare (TCS Daily, April 14, 2006): denial of Seitz's article on Vanity Fair
- [1] Notes on Seitz's work on health studies funded by the tobacco industry and global warming for front organizations Exxon Mobil
See also
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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