Portrait of Clifford Shull

Birthday profile

Clifford Shull

Clifford Shull, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2001)

Born
September 23, 1915
Died
March 31, 2001
Zodiac sign
Libra
Birth year
1915

About Clifford Shull

Clifford Glenwood Shull (September 23, 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – March 31, 2001) was an American physicist. == Biography == Shull attended Schenley High School in Pittsburgh, received his BS from Carnegie Institute of Technology and PhD from New York University. He worked for The Texas Company at Beacon, New York during the wartime, followed by a position in the Clinton Laboratory (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), and finally joined MIT in 1955, and retired in 1986. He died on March 31, 2001, at the age 85. == Research == Clifford G. Shull was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics with Canadian Bertram Brockhouse. The two won the prize for the development of the neutron scattering technique. He also conducted research on condensed matter. Professor Shull's prize was awarded for his pioneering work in neutron scattering, a technique that reveals where atoms are within a material like ricocheting bullets reveal where obstacles are in the dark. When a beam of neutrons is directed at a given material, the neutrons bounce off, or are scattered by, atoms in the sample being investigated. The neutrons' directions change, depending on the location of the atoms they hit, and a diffraction pattern of the atoms' positions can then be obtained.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Clifford Shull was born

Clifford Shull was born in 1915. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1915

  • Top movieThe Birth of a Nation
  • Best-selling book"The Turmoil" – Booth Tarkington

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJess Willard defeats Jack Johnson for heavyweight title in Havana
  • Top headlineLusitania sunk by German submarine — 1,198 die
  • Technology milestoneFirst transcontinental telephone call (Bell to Watson)
  • World population~1.75B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population98.4M

1915 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Clifford Shull's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19152026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Movie ticket$0.10$11.95
Population98.4M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

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Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.