Douglas D. Osheroff

Spotting superfluid helium-3 near absolute zero (1971-1972)

• Anthony Leggett's theory of how helium-3 atoms interact and order themselves in the new superfluid, developed in the 1970s to explain the Cornell discovery, earned him a share of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics.^[3],[12]
• The superfluid A transition (2.444 mK) and A-B transition (1.896 mK) on helium-3's melting curve are reference points of PLTS-2000, the temperature scale used from 0.9 thousandths of a kelvin to 1 kelvin.^[5],[13]
• At Bell Labs, Osheroff and colleagues worked out the magnetic structure of frozen helium-3, later confirmed by neutron scattering, and with Gerry Dolan he found the weak-localization effect that theorists had just predicted.^[1],[7]
• On the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, a simple experiment he ran in his kitchen sink cast doubt on a leading theory of how foam broke off the shuttle's fuel tank.^[9],[11]
• After the Columbia report he criticized NASA's 'normalization of deviance', in which repeated problems came to seem normal, and said he wanted the board to state that NASA's culture had to change.^[10]
• In May 2008 he was one of 20 physics Nobel laureates who wrote to President George W. Bush urging emergency funding to reverse cuts to basic research at the Energy Department, NSF and NIST.^[16]

We make no numerical claims. Superfluid helium-3 exists only within about two thousandths of a degree of absolute zero and has no commercial or medical use, so any number would be invented. Its value is knowledge. Before 1972 superfluidity was known only in helium-4. Helium-3 showed that neutral atoms can pair up the way electrons do in superconductors, but with pairs that carry spin and orbital motion, giving the liquid an inner structure no earlier superfluid had. It became a testing ground for ideas about unusual superconductors and the early universe, its theory helped earn Anthony Leggett the 2003 Nobel Prize, and its transitions now anchor the temperature scale below 1 kelvin. Osheroff's later work on solid helium-3, weak localization and glasses added to condensed matter physics. His service on the Columbia investigation and his teaching carried the habits of careful experiment into public life.

Fundamental science

No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.

• —

  Other

  Context: his father's parents were Jewish immigrants who left Russia shortly after 1900. Between 1881 and 1924 more than 2.5 million East European Jews left their homelands, driven by persecution and lack of opportunity; why his own family left is not recorded.^{[1],[14],[15]}

In his Nobel autobiography Osheroff calls his family ethnically mixed. His father, William Osheroff, a physician, was the son of Jewish immigrants who left Russia shortly after 1900. His mother, Bessie Anne (Ondov) Osheroff, a nurse, was the daughter of a Lutheran minister whose parents came from what is now Slovakia. He says he grew up above all in a medical family. We found no source on his religious practice or personal relationship to Judaism. He meets this site's standard of at least one Jewish parent, though not the traditional rule of descent through the mother. The Jewish Virtual Library lists him as a Jewish laureate with a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother.^{[1],[6],[8],[17]}

1. August 1, 1945

   Born in Aberdeen, Washington, the second of five children of a physician father of Russian Jewish descent and a nurse mother.^[1],[2],[6]

2. 1963

   Enters Caltech, where he takes Richard Feynman's famous two-year undergraduate physics course.^[1],[6]

3. 1967

   Earns his bachelor's degree at Caltech and starts graduate school at Cornell, where he soon joins David Lee's low-temperature group.^[1],[4],[7]

4. August 1970

   Marries Phyllis Liu, a biochemist from Taiwan he met in his first days at Cornell, two weeks after she earns her PhD.^[1],[4]

5. November 24, 1971

   Sees the first kink in his helium-3 pressure chart; on 29 November it repeats at the same pressure and a second transition appears.^[4]

6. April 20, 1972

   Magnetic resonance measurements in a new cell show the B transition is in the liquid; in June the A transition proves to be in the liquid too. Helium-3 has become superfluid.^[3],[4]

7. September 1972

   Joins Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, where he spends 15 years studying superfluid and solid helium-3.^[1],[8]

8. 1973

   Receives his PhD from Cornell University.^[7],[8]

9. 1976

   Shares the Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize with Lee and Richardson for the discovery.^[6],[18]

10. June 1981

    Named a MacArthur Fellow; the same year he shares the American Physical Society's Oliver E. Buckley Prize.^[6],[7],[19]

11. 1987

    Leaves Bell Labs for Stanford University, where he later chairs the physics department from 1993 to 1996.^[1],[8]

12. December 10, 1996

    Receives the Nobel Prize in Physics with David Lee and Robert Richardson for discovering superfluidity in helium-3.^[2],[3],[5]

13. August 26, 2003

    Co-authors the report of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, on which he served as one of 13 members.^[7],[9],[10]

1. 1.Douglas D. Osheroff - Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Les Prix Nobel 1996, Nobel Foundation, 1997), 1996
2. 2.Douglas D. Osheroff - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
3. 3.The Nobel Prize in Physics 1996 - Press release (9 October 1996) · Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org, 1996
4. 4.Superfluidity in 3He: Discovery and Understanding (Nobel Lecture, 7 December 1996) · NobelPrize.org (from Nobel Lectures, Physics 1996-2000, World Scientific), 1996
5. 5.Award ceremony speech, Nobel Prize in Physics 1996 · NobelPrize.org, 1996
6. 6.Aberdeen native Douglas D. Osheroff named co-recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics on October 9, 1996 (John Caldbick) · HistoryLink.org, 2017
7. 7.Douglas D. Osheroff, Physicist, Class of June 1981 · John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
8. 8.Douglas Dean Osheroff papers, 1969-2017 (SC1181), collection guide · Stanford University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives (Online Archive of California)
9. 9.Columbia Accident Investigation Board Synopsis (Jennifer Troxell, NASA History Office) · NASA, 2004
10. 10.What NASA Needs: Better management, new mission, says Columbia panelist · Stanford Magazine, 2004
11. 11.Board to suggest repairs for shuttle insulation (Ralph Vartabedian, 22 June 2003) · Southeast Missourian, 2003
12. 12.The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003 - Press release (7 October 2003) · Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences / NobelPrize.org, 2003
13. 13.Supplementary Information for the Realization of the PLTS-2000 · Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, Consultative Committee for Thermometry
14. 14.A Century of Immigration, 1820-1924 (From Haven to Home: 350 Years of Jewish Life in America) · Library of Congress
15. 15.Pogroms (Holocaust Encyclopedia) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
16. 16.A Letter from America's Physics Nobel Laureates to President George W. Bush (6 May 2008) · FIRE website, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, 2008
17. 17.Jewish Nobel Prize Laureates · Jewish Virtual Library
18. 18.Simon Memorial Prize (list of recipients) · Wikipedia
19. 19.Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (list of recipients) · Wikipedia