Daniel Kleppner
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Daniel Kleppner (December 16, 1932 – June 16, 2025) was an American physicist who was the Lester Wolfe Professor Emeritus of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder and co-director of the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms. His areas of science included atomic, molecular, and optical physics, and his research interests included experimental atomic physics, laser spectroscopy, and high precision measurements.[1]
Together with Robert J. Kolenkow, he authored a popular textbook An Introduction to Mechanics for advanced students.[2]
Biography
Parents
Kleppner's father was Otto Kleppner, founder of an advertising agency.[3]
Education and career
Kleppner graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in 1953 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He also attended Cambridge University in England with a B.A. in 1955, and Harvard University, he attended the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with a Ph.D. in 1959.[4]
In the 1950s, Kleppner became a physics doctoral student at Harvard University, where he worked under Norman Ramsey. Here, Kleppner took the concepts behind an ammonia maser and applied them to a hydrogen maser, which became his Ph.D. thesis. Kleppner did important research into Rydberg atoms.[5]
Later, he became interested in creating a hydrogen Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). In 1995, a group of researchers, including Kleppner's former students, made a BEC using rubidium atoms. It was not until 1998 that Kleppner and Tom Greytak finally created a hydrogen BEC.[6]
Kleppner died in Palo Alto, California on June 16, 2025, at the age of 92.[7][8]
Honors and awards
Kleppner was the recipient of many awards including
- 1991 Lilienfeld Prize,
- 1991 William F. Meggers Award,[9]
- 1997 Oersted Medal,
- 2005 Wolf Prize in Physics,[10]
- 2006 National Medal of Science
- 2007 Frederic Ives Medal,
- 2014 Benjamin Franklin Medal,[11] and
- 2017 American Physical Society Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research.[12]
Within MIT he won the institute's prestigious James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, conferring him the title of Killian Award Lecturer[13] for 1995-1996.[14]
He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986,[15] a Fellow of OSA in 1992,[16] the French Academy of Sciences in 2004,[17] and the American Philosophical Society in 2007.[18]
Books
Kleppner and Robert J. Kolenkow wrote An Introduction to Mechanics in 1973. 40 years later, Kleppner and Kolenkow returned to edit and publish a second edition in 2013.
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Kleppner and his thesis adviser (and Nobel laureate) Norman Ramsey wrote the text Quick Calculus, joined for the 3rd edition by MIT professor Peter Dourmashkin:
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Selected publications
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References
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". review of An Introduction to Mechanics by Kleppner & Kolenkow, 4:08 to 6:46 in video
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External links
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- Faculty page at MIT
- Interview with Daniel Kleppner (Video)
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- 1932 births
- 2025 deaths
- Harvard University alumni
- 21st-century American physicists
- Williams College alumni
- American optical physicists
- Wolf Prize in Physics laureates
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
- National Medal of Science laureates
- Members of the French Academy of Sciences
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Fellows of the American Physical Society
- Members of the American Philosophical Society
- Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates