Edwin E. Salpeter AKA Edwin Ernest Salpeter Born: 3-Dec-1924 Birthplace: Vienna, Austria Died: 26-Nov-2008 Location of death: Ithaca, NY Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male Religion: Jewish Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Astronomer, Physicist Party Affiliation: Democratic Nationality: United States Executive summary: Quantitative electron microscopic autoradiography Edwin E. Salpeter fled Austria with his family as a boy, and was raised in Australia, but his career as a physicist was in America. He theorized about a "triple-alpha" reaction that could convert helium to carbon in stars, and wrote about the formation of dust grains and molecules in the interstellar medium, and nuclear physics as a factor in stellar evolution. He studied under Rudolf Peierls and Martin Schwarzschild, and researched quantum electrodynamics and nuclear physics in collaboration with Hans Bethe, leading to their Bethe-Salpeter equation. With his wife, neurobiologist Miriam Mark Salpeter, and postdoctoral student Luis Bachmann, Salpeter developed quantitative electron microscopic autoradiography, a new method for detecting radiologic decay in tagged molecules. Both of his parents were physicists, and his father studied with Erwin Schr�dinger. Wife: Miriam Mark Salpeter (neurobiologist, b. 1929, m. 1950, d. 2000) Daughter: Judy Salpeter Daughter: Shelley Salpeter (physician) Wife: Antonia Shouse Salpeter
High School: Sydney Boys High School, Sydney, Australia (1940) University: BS Physics, University of Sydney (1944) University: MS Physics, University of Sydney (1946) University: PhD Physics, University of Birmingham (1948) Teacher: Physics, Cornell University (1948-57) Professor: Physics, Cornell University (1957-2008)
Hans A. Bethe Prize 1999
Crafoord Prize 1997 (with Fred Hoyle) Bruce Medal 1987 Karl Schwarzschild Medal 1985
Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal 1973 American Astronomical Society American Physical Society Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee MoveOn.org Science Debate 2008 Naturalized US Citizen Austrian Ancestry
Jewish Ancestry
Asteroid Namesake 11757 Salpeter
Author of books:
Highlights of Modern Astrophysics: Concepts and Controversies (1986, with Stuart L. Shapiro and Saul A. Teukolsky)
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