Maria Göppert Mayer
German-born American theoretical physicist (1906-1972)
Maria Goeppert Mayer: from Göttingen quantum theory to nuclear shells
Training in a changing physics
Maria Goeppert Mayer entered the University of Göttingen in 1924 intending to study mathematics, but the new field of quantum mechanics drew her toward physics. Guided by Max Born, she completed a doctorate in theoretical physics in 1930. That training gave her a mathematical foundation she would later apply to the structure of atomic nuclei.
Research across American institutions
After moving to the United States in 1930, she continued publishing despite rules that limited employment for a professor’s spouse. She worked at Johns Hopkins, moved to Columbia in 1939, taught at Sarah Lawrence during the war and studied uranium isotope separation at Columbia. Her scientific career crossed several institutions before she held a substantial nuclear-physics role in Chicago and at Argonne.
The shell model and recognition
In Chicago, Goeppert Mayer began investigating unusually stable numbers of protons and neutrons in 1948. She developed an explanation based on nuclear energy levels, while Hans Jensen and colleagues reached a similar account independently. After a 1960 move to the University of California, San Diego, she shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries about nuclear shell structure.
Data and sources
Nobel Prize: Maria Goeppert Mayer, biographical account ↗