Charles Kittel

Charles Kittel (* 1916 in New York) is an American physicist. He was a Professor at University of California, Berkeley from 1951 and he is Professor Emeritus since 1978^[1].

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Life and work

Charles Kittel studied at the University of Cambridge, England, where he obtained his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1938. He published his thesis in 1941 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) between 1945 and 1947. During World War II, he joined the Submarine Operations Research Group (SORG). From 1947 to 1951, he worked for Bell Laboratories, New Jersey, USA, especially on ferromagnetism.

From 1951 to 1978, he worked at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught and did research in the field of solid-state physics, a part of condensed matter physics. He was awarded three times with Guggenheim Fellowships in 1945, 1956 and 1963^[2].

Kittel is known to physics students worldwide on account of his classic text Introduction to Solid State Physics, now in its 8th edition.

Awards

• Buckley Prize for Solid State Physics, 1957
• Berkeley Distinguished Teacher Award, 1970
• Oersted Medal, American Association of Physics Teachers, 1972

Works

• Introduction to Solid State Physics, 1st ed. 1953 - 8th ed. 2005, ISBN 047141526X
• Quantum Theory of Solids, 1963, ISBN 0471490253 and (with C. Y. Fong) 1987, ISBN 0471624128
• Thermal Physics, 2nd ed. 1980, ISBN 0716710889, and (with H. Kroemer) 1980.
• Berkeley Physics Course. Mechanics. Vol. 1, with Walter Knight and Malvin A. Ruderman

References

1. ^ Biography on UC Berkeley's website.
2. ^ Alphabetical list of Fellows on John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's website.

• This article was initially translated from this Wikipedia article Charles Kittel, specifically from this version.