astronomy

Norman Myles Kroll

Norman Myles Kroll is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Norman Myles Kroll rather than just read about it. In short: Norman Myles Kroll (6 April 1922, Tulsa, Oklahoma – 8 August 2004, La Jolla, California) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his pioneering work in QED. Life Kroll received in 1942 his bachelor's degree from Columbia University after 2 years of study, having studied from 1938 to 1940 at Rice University in Houston.

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Reference excerpt

Norman Myles Kroll (6 April 1922, Tulsa, Oklahoma – 8 August 2004, La Jolla, California) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his pioneering work in QED.

Life Kroll received in 1942 his bachelor's degree from Columbia University after 2 years of study, having studied from 1938 to 1940 at Rice University in Houston. During WW II he did theoretical radar research (magnetron theory), during 1943–1945, at Columbia under the supervision of Willis Lamb and I. I. Rabi. In 1943 Kroll received his master's degree and in 1948 his PhD from Columbia University with Lamb as thesis advisor.

He collaborated with Lamb on their famous paper "On the Self-Energy of a Bound Electron," which was published in 1949 in the Physical Review and reprinted by Dover Publications in 1959 as part of Selected Papers on Quantum Electrodynamics. Based on Kroll's thesis work, the paper provided the first theoretical explanation of the Lamb shift in QED and became one of the most important landmarks of the field. In the academic year 1948–1949 he was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he, with Robert Karplus, calculated the QED two-loop contributions for the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. Kroll was, with Lamb, one of the first (including Victor Weisskopf and his student Bruce French) to calculate the relativistic Lamb shift (after Hans Bethe made a rough, non-relativistic estimate for it). This work was part of the pioneering efforts that led to the QED formalism developed by Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Kroll became at Columbia an assistant professor in 1949 and was promoted to associate professor and then full professor before leaving for UCSD.

In 1962, UCSD recruited Kroll to become one of its physics department's founding members and thereby bring to UCSD the prestige and recognition of a world leader in research. During his four decades at UCSD, Kroll continued his research in QED, developed with Marshall Rosenbluth a theory of the free electron laser, and participated in the design of particle accelerators. In addition, he made numerous contributions to the development of UCSD as one of the nation's leading research universities and twice served as chair of UCSD's physics department, from 1963 to 1965 and from 1983 to 1988. In 1960–1981 he was a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group. Among his doctoral students are Robert Mills and Eyvind Wichmann. Upon his death, Kroll was survived by his wife, four children, and nine grandchildren.

Honors In the academic year 1955–1956 he was a Sloan Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow at the University of Rome. He was elected in 1974 to the National Academy of Sciences. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Selected publications with Lamb: Kroll, Norman M.; Lamb, Willis E. (1949). "On the self-energy of the bound electron". Physical Review. 75 (3): 388–398. Bibcode:1949PhRv...75..388K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.75.388. with Karplus: Karplus, Robert; Kroll, Norman M. (1950). "Fourth-order corrections in quantum electrodynamics and the magnetic moment of the electron". Physical Review. 77 (4): 536–549. Bibcode:1950PhRv...77..536K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.77.536. with Malvin A. Ruderman: Kroll, Norman M.; Ruderman, Malvin A. (1954). "A Theorem on photomeson production near threshold and the suppression of pairs in pseudoscalar meson theory". Physical Review. 93 (1): 233–238. Bibcode:1954PhRv...93..233K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.93.233. with Walter Wada: Kroll, Norman M.; Wada, Walter (1955). "Internal pair production associated with the emission of high-energy gamma rays". Physical Review. 98 (5): 1355–1359. Bibcode:1955PhRv...98.1355K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.98.1355. with Eyvind H. Wichmann: Wichmann, Eyvind H.; Kroll, Norman M. (1956). "Vacuum polarization in a strong coulomb field". Physical Review. 101 (2): 843–859. Bibcode:1956PhRv..101..843W. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.101.843. Kroll, Norman M. (1965). "Excitation of Hypersonic Vibrations by Means of Photoelastic Coupling of High-Intensity Light Waves to Elastic Waves". Journal of Applied Physics. 36 (1): 34–43. Bibcode:1965JAP....36...34K. doi:10.1063/1.1713918. with Tsung-Dao Lee and Bruno Zumino: Kroll, Norman M.; Lee, T. D.; Zumino, Bruno (1967). "Neutral vector mesons and the hadronic electromagnetic current". Physical Review. 157 (5): 1376–1399. Bibcode:1967PhRv..157.1376K. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.157.1376. ISBN 9780817633424.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link) with Kenneth M. Watson: Kroll, Norman M.; Watson, Kenneth M. (1973). "Charged-particle scattering in the presence of a strong electromagnetic wave" (PDF). Physical Review A. 8 (2): 804–809. Bibcode:1973PhRvA...8..804K. doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.8.804. S2CID 121322367. with Marvin Douglas: Douglas, Marvin; Kroll, Norman M. (1974). "Quantum electrodynamical corrections to the fine structure of helium". Annals of Physics. 82 (1): 89–155. Bibcode:1974AnPhy..82...89D. doi:10.1016/0003-4916(74)90333-9. with Philip L. Morton and Marshall N. Rosenbluth: Kroll, N.; Morton, P.; Rosenbluth, M. (1981). "Free-electron lasers with variable parameter wigglers" (PDF). IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics. 17 (8): 1436–1468. Bibcode:1981IJQE...17.1436K. doi:10.1109/JQE.1981.1071285. S2CID 1089168. Archived from the original on September 25, 2017.

References

External links Oral history interview with Norman Myles Kroll on 28 June 1986, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives - interview conducted in La Jolla, California

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Norman Myles Kroll

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Norman Myles Kroll claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Norman Myles Kroll before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Norman Myles Kroll ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Norman Myles Kroll

In research: Norman Myles Kroll appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Norman Myles Kroll in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Norman Myles Kroll is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1922 births, 2004 deaths, 20th-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Norman Myles Kroll outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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Frequently asked questions

What is Norman Myles Kroll in simple terms?

Norman Myles Kroll (6 April 1922, Tulsa, Oklahoma – 8 August 2004, La Jolla, California) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his pioneering work in QED. Life Kroll received in 1942 his bachelor's degree from Columbia University after 2 years of study, having studied from 1938 to 1940 a…

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Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

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Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

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