Maria Goeppert Mayer

Maria Goeppert Mayer (German: [maˈʁiːa ˈɡœpɐt ˈmaɪɐ] ⓘ; <a href="/facts/Birth_name/FctFJcbg">née</a> Göppert; June 28, 1906 – February 20, 1972) was a German-American <a href="/facts/Physicist/cQcgvSIm">physicist</a> who shared the 1963 <a href="/facts/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics/o6w1nCbr">Nobel Prize in Physics</a> with <a href="/facts/J._Hans_D._Jensen/lQC1Gcsl">J. Hans D. Jensen</a> and <a href="/facts/Eugene_Wigner/HvWgw4KX">Eugene Wigner</a>. One half of the prize was awarded jointly to Goeppert Mayer and Jensen for their model of the <a href="/facts/Atomic_nucleus/orpIm5Xl">atomic nucleus</a>, known as the <a href="/facts/Nuclear_shell_model/1Qgep495">nuclear shell model</a>. She was the second woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics, the first being <a href="/facts/Marie_Curie/EGjeuJ14">Marie Curie</a> in 1903. In 1986, the <a href="/facts/Maria_Goeppert-Mayer_Award/9vCsmBwq">Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award</a> for early-career women physicists was established in her honor.
A graduate of the <a href="/facts/University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen/UTUodvX1">University of Göttingen</a>, Goeppert Mayer wrote her doctoral thesis on the theory of possible <a href="/facts/Two-photon_absorption/BaEbrAKj">two-photon absorption</a> by atoms. At the time, the chances of experimentally verifying her thesis seemed remote, but the development of the <a href="/facts/Laser/jk6PTvvT">laser</a> in the 1960s later permitted this. Today, the unit for the two-photon <a href="/facts/Absorption_cross_section/bBB3uV1p">absorption cross section</a> is named the Goeppert Mayer (GM) unit.
Maria Goeppert married chemist <a href="/facts/Joseph_Edward_Mayer/7syQj0gk">Joseph Edward Mayer</a> and moved to the United States, where he was an associate professor at <a href="/facts/Johns_Hopkins_University/56US0mHw">Johns Hopkins University</a>. Strict rules against <a href="/facts/Nepotism/qAb01mob">nepotism</a> 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 <a href="/facts/Double_beta_decay/ILmpbfqS">double beta decay</a> in 1935. In 1937, she moved to <a href="/facts/Columbia_University/Hlf1gw53">Columbia University</a>, where she took an unpaid position. During <a href="/facts/World_War_II/2efV5L1U">World War II</a>, she worked for the <a href="/facts/Manhattan_Project/gtg8yRK2">Manhattan Project</a> at Columbia on <a href="/facts/Isotope_separation/07rvF6NA">isotope separation</a>, and with <a href="/facts/Edward_Teller/9g3Mr9Mp">Edward Teller</a> at the <a href="/facts/Los_Alamos_Laboratory/8eL6rj8N">Los Alamos Laboratory</a> on the development of <a href="/facts/Thermonuclear_weapon/T9zFe3H0">thermonuclear weapons</a>.
After the war, Goeppert Mayer became a voluntary associate professor of physics at the <a href="/facts/University_of_Chicago/z6zRMUmV">University of Chicago</a> (where her husband and Teller worked) and a senior physicist at the university-run <a href="/facts/Argonne_National_Laboratory/EAoR1Rnm">Argonne National Laboratory</a>. 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 <a href="/facts/J._Hans_D._Jensen/lQC1Gcsl">J. Hans D. Jensen</a> and <a href="/facts/Eugene_Wigner/HvWgw4KX">Eugene Wigner</a>. In 1960, she was appointed full professor of physics at the <a href="/facts/University_of_California,_San_Diego/srMClpNv">University of California, San Diego</a>.

Maria Goeppert Mayer open-in-new

Maria Goeppert Mayer