Douglas D. Osheroff

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Douglas D. Osheroff
Douglas D. Osheroff
Douglas D. Osheroff
Born August 1, 1945 (1945-08-01) (age 62)
Aberdeen, Washington
Nationality American
Fields physics
Institutions Stanford University
Alma mater Cornell
Known for superfluidic
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Physics

Douglas Dean Osheroff (born August 1, 1945) is an American physicist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 with David Lee and Robert C. Richardson for discovering the superfluidic nature of 3He. This discovery was made in 1971, while Osheroff was a graduate student at Cornell.

Osheroff, born in Aberdeen, Washington, earned his Bachelor's degree in 1967 from Caltech, where he was a student of Richard Feynman. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1973.

He now teaches at Stanford University in the Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, where he served as chair for a period of time. His research is focused on phenomena that occur at extremely low temperatures.

Osheroff was selected to serve on the Space Shuttle Columbia investigation panel, serving much the same role as Richard Feynman did on the Space Shuttle Challenger panel.

He currently serves on the board of advisors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.

Osheroff is left-handed, and he often blames his slight quirks and eccentricities on it. He is also an avid photographer and introduces students at Stanford to medium-format film photography in a freshman seminar titled "The Technical Aspects of Photography." In addition, he has taught the Stanford introductory physics course on electricity and magnetism on multiple occasions, most recently in Spring 2008.

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