Eugen Merzbacher

Who was Eugen Merzbacher?

Eugen Merzbacher was an American physicist.

Being a Jew, he emigrated in 1935 with his family from Germany to Turkey, where his father worked as a chemist. He received his licentiate from University of Istanbul in Turkey in 1943 and taught high school in Ankara for the next four years. In 1947 he moved to the United States to attend Harvard University, where he earned his M.A. and his Ph.D. with Julian Schwinger in 1950. During 1950/51, he worked at the Institute for Advanced Study. In 1951-52, Merzbacher was a visiting assistant professor at Duke University. In 1952 he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. In 1959/60, he worked at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, where he became closely acquainted with Niels Bohr; in 1967/68 he was visiting professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 1977 he was the recipient of a U. S. Senior Scientist Humboldt Award at the University of Frankfurt. In 1986 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling in Scotland. In 1991 he was Arnold Bernhard Visiting Professor at Williams College. In 1992 he received the Oersted Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers. In 2009 Merzbacher was the recipient of the Francis Slack Award from the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society.