| more general categories |
information about this item |
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| 10. Noble Prize |
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10. Noble Prize |
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Physics (209) |
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| 11. Award Year |
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11. Award Year |
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1963 (11) |
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| 12. Winner Type |
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12. Winner Type |
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Person (904) |
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| 13. Gender |
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13. Gender |
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Female (51) |
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| 14. Birth Year |
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14. Birth Year |
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1906 (11) |
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| 15. Place of Birth |
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15. Place of Birth |
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Katowice (1) |
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| 16. Death Year |
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16. Death Year |
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1972 (6) |
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| 17. Place of Death |
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17. Place of Death |
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San Diego (2) |
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| 19. Given Name |
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19. Given Name |
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M (50) |
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| 20. Family Name |
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20. Family Name |
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M (84) |
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| 23. Religion |
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23. Religion |
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Apostasy in Catholicism (17) |
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| 24. Age at Award Time |
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24. Age at Award Time |
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58 (25) |
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| 32. Occupations |
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32. Occupations |
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Physicists (206) |
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| 34. Citizens |
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34. Citizens |
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Germany (98) |
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| 37. Worked for College or University |
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37. Worked for College or University |
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University of California San Diego (3) |
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| 42. Affilliation with College or University |
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42. Affilliation with College or University |
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Alumni (20) |
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Short-term academic staff (13) |
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Long-term academic staff (45) |
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Short-term academic staff (38) |
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Long-term academic staff (16) |
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| 44. Memberships |
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44. Memberships |
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American Academy of Arts and Sciences (531) |
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American Philosophical Society (126) |
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American Physical Society (113) |
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Heidelberg Academy for Sciences and Humanities (28) |
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National Academy of Sciences (334) |
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| 45. Other Awards |
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45. Other Awards |
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Fellow of the American Physical Society (107) |
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National Women's Hall of Fame (7) |
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| complete name: |
Maria Goeppert-Mayer Mayer |
| nobel prize: |
physics |
| award year: |
1963 |
| together with: |
J. Hans D. Jensen |
| together with: |
Eugene Wigner |
| prize share: |
Prize share: 1/4 |
| rational: |
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1963 was divided, one half awarded to Eugene Paul Wigner "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles", the other half jointly to Maria Goeppert Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure." |
| biography: |
Biography |
| laureate facts: |
Facts |
| laureate lecture: |
Lecture |
| given name: |
Maria |
| family name: |
Mayer |
| occupation: |
physicist |
| occupation: |
university teacher |
| occupation: |
nuclear scientist |
| field of work: |
physics |
| work location: |
Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N Charles St, Baltimore, MD, 21218-2688, United States of America |
| notable work: |
nuclear shell model |
| description: |
Maria Goeppert-Mayer Mayer was a German-born American theoretical physicist, and Nobel laureate in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus. She was the second female Nobel laureate in physics, after Marie Curie. A graduate of the University of Göttingen, Goeppert Mayer wrote her doctorate on the theory of possible two-photon absorption by atoms. At the time, the chances of experimentally verifying her thesis seemed remote, but the development of the laser permitted this. Today, the unit for the two-photon absorption cross section is named the Goeppert Mayer (GM) unit. Maria Goeppert married Joseph Edward Mayer and moved to the United States, where he was an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University. Strict rules against nepotism prevented Johns Hopkins University from taking her on as a faculty member, but she was given a job as an assistant and published a landmark paper on double beta decay in 1935. In 1937, she moved to Columbia University, where she took an unpaid position. During World War II, she worked for the Manhattan Project at Columbia on isotope separation, and with Edward Teller at the Los Alamos Laboratory on the development of the Teller's "Super" bomb. After the war, Goeppert Mayer became a voluntary associate professor of Physics at the University of Chicago (where Teller and her husband worked) and a senior physicist at the nearby Argonne National Laboratory. She developed a mathematical model for the structure of nuclear shells, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963, which she shared with J. Hans D. Jensen and Eugene Wigner. In 1960, she was appointed full professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego. |
| image copyright: |
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive. |
| image citation: |
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1963. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2018. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1963/summary/> |
| date birth: |
1906 |
| date death: |
1972 |
| usual name: |
Maria Mayer |
