Jump to content

Ivar Giaever

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ivar Giaever
Giaever in 2005
Born
Ivar Giæver

(1929-04-05)April 5, 1929
Bergen, Vestland, Norway
DiedJune 20, 2025(2025-06-20) (aged 96)
Schenectady, New York, U.S.
Citizenship
  • Norway
  • United States (1964–2025)
Alma mater
Known forDiscovering tunnelling in superconductors (1960)
Spouse
Inger Skramstad
​
​
(m. 1952; died 2023)​
Children4
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions

Ivar Giaever (/ˈjeɪvər/ YAY-ver;[1] Norwegian: [ˈîːvɑr ˈjæːvər]; April 5, 1929 – June 20, 2025) was a Norwegian-American physicist and engineer who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leo Esaki and Brian Josephson. One half of the prize was awarded jointly to Esaki and Giaever "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively".[2]

Education and career

[edit]

Giaever earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim in 1952. In 1954, he emigrated from Norway to Canada, where he was employed by the Canadian division of General Electric. He moved to the United States four years later, joining General Electric's Corporate Research and Development Center in Schenectady, New York, in 1958. He lived in Niskayuna, New York, since then, taking up US citizenship in 1964. While working for General Electric, Giaever earned a Ph.D. degree at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1964. In 1988, he left General Electric to become a professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also became a professor at the University of Oslo, sponsored by Statoil.[3]

Giaever's research later in his career was mainly in the field of biophysics. In 1969, he studied biophysics for a year at the University of Cambridge through a Guggenheim Fellowship. He continued to work in this area after he returned to the US, founding the company Applied BioPhysics, Inc. in 1993.[3][4]

The Nobel Prize

[edit]

The work that led to Giaever's Nobel Prize was performed at General Electric in 1960. Following on Esaki's discovery of electron tunnelling in semiconductors in 1958, Giaever showed that tunnelling also took place in superconductors, demonstrating tunnelling through a very thin layer of oxide surrounded on both sides by metal in a superconducting or normal state.[5] Giaever's experiments demonstrated the existence of an energy gap in superconductors, one of the most important predictions of the BCS theory of superconductivity, which had been developed in 1957.[6] Giaever's experimental demonstration of tunnelling in superconductors stimulated the theoretical physicist Brian Josephson to work on the phenomenon, leading to his prediction of the Josephson effect in 1962. Esaki and Giaever shared half of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Josephson received the other half.[7]

He had co-signed a letter from over 70 Nobel laureate scientists to the Louisiana State Legislature supporting the repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act.[8]

Other prizes

[edit]

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Giaever was also awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Prize by the American Physical Society in 1965, the Golden Plate Award by the American Academy of Achievement in 1966,[9] and the Zworykin Award by the National Academy of Engineering in 1974.[10]

In 1985, he was awarded an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, later part of Norwegian University of Science and Technology.[11]

He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.[12]

Global warming

[edit]

Giaever was a climate change denier, who has fueled doubt on climate change,[13] for example calling it a "new religion". However, he had presented no strong evidence to support this position.[14] On 13 September 2011, he resigned from the American Physical Society after the organization called the evidence of damaging global warming "incontrovertible".[15]

Giaever was a science advisor with American conservative and libertarian think tank The Heartland Institute.[16]

Personal life and death

[edit]

Giaever was married to his childhood sweetheart Inger (née Skramstad) from 1952 until her death on September 12, 2023, at the age of 94.[17] They had four children.

Giaever was an atheist.[18]

Giaever died on June 20, 2025, at the age of 96.[19]

Selected publications

[edit]
  • Giaever, Ivar (1960). "Energy Gap in Superconductors Measured by Electron Tunneling". Physical Review Letters. 5 (4): 147. Bibcode:1960PhRvL...5..147G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.5.147.
  • Giaever, Ivar (1960). "Electron Tunneling Between Two Superconductors". Physical Review Letters. 5 (10): 464. Bibcode:1960PhRvL...5..464G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.5.464.
  • Giaever, Ivar (1974). "Electron tunneling and superconductivity". Reviews of Modern Physics. 46 (2): 245. Bibcode:1974RvMP...46..245G. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.46.245.
  • Giaever, Ivar (2016). "I Am The Smartest Man I Know": A Nobel Laureate's Difficult Journey, World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-3109-17-9.

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "GIAEVER Definition and Meaning". Dictionary.com.
  2. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973". Nobelprize.org. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. June 27, 2011. Archived from the original on June 21, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973 was divided, one half jointly to Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively" and the other half to Brian David Josephson "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects".
  3. ^ a b Lundqvist, Stig (1992). "Biography". Nobelprize.org, Bio from Nobel Lectures, Physics 1971-1980, Editor Stig Lundqvist, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1992. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and World Scientific. Archived from the original on December 14, 2010. Retrieved June 27, 2011.
  4. ^ "Giaever, Ivar - Niels Bohr Library & Archives". history.aip.org. American Institute of Physics.
  5. ^ Giaever, I. (1960). "Energy Gap in Superconductors Measured by Electron Tunneling". Physical Review Letters. 5 (4): 147–148. Bibcode:1960PhRvL...5..147G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.5.147.
  6. ^ Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972 for this theoretical advance, which bears their initials.
  7. ^ "Press Release: The 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics". Nobelprize.org. 27 June 2011. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. October 23, 1973. Archived from the original on May 17, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics to Leo Esaki, USA, Ivar Giaever, USA and Brian D Josephson, UK. The award is for their discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in solids
  8. ^ "Nobel Laureate Letter". Archived from the original on October 18, 2020. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
  9. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  10. ^ Giaever, Ivar (June 27, 2011). "Ivar Giaever Physics Department Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute". rpi.edu. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Archived from the original on December 10, 2011. Retrieved June 27, 2011. Positions Institute Professor, School of Engineering and School of Science Professor at large, University of Oslo, Norway President Applied BioPhysics, Inc., 1223 Peoples Ave, Troy, NY 12180 … Major Prizes: Oliver E. Buckley Prize 1965 Nobel Prize 1973 Zworkin Award 1974
  11. ^ "Honorary doctors at NTNU". Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
  12. ^ "Gruppe 8: Teknologiske fag" (in Norwegian). Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved October 7, 2010.
  13. ^ Jeffrey D. Corbin, Miriam E. Katz: Effective strategies to counter campus presentations on climate denial. Eos. 93, 27, 2012, doi:10.1029/2012EO270007
  14. ^ Strassel, Kimberley A. (June 26, 2009). "The Climate Change Climate Change The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere". wsj.com. The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on July 4, 2011. Retrieved June 26, 2011. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion."
  15. ^ War of words over global warming as Nobel laureate resigns in protest. The Telegraph. September, 25, 2011.
  16. ^ "Ivar Giaever Profile". The Heartland Institute. May 31, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
  17. ^ "Inger Giaever Obituary". Legacy.com. The Daily Gazette. September 24, 2023. Retrieved May 19, 2024.
  18. ^ Giaever, Ivar (November 2016). "I Am The Smartest Man I Know": A Nobel Laureate's Difficult Journey. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-3109-17-9.
  19. ^ "Nobel Prize winner Ivar Giæver has died". vg.no (in Norwegian). July 3, 2025. Retrieved July 3, 2025.
[edit]
Wikiquote has quotations related to Ivar Giaever.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ivar_Giaever&oldid=1299570399"