Wilson, Kenneth Geddes (1936-2013), an American physicist, was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize for physics for his method of analyzing the behavior of matter when it changes form–for example, from water to steam. His work described a mathematical method for analyzing the interaction between neighboring atoms and molecules.
Wilson was born on June 8, 1936, in Waltham, Massachusetts. He entered Harvard University, where he studied mathematics, and received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1961. He spent a year at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1963, he was appointed assistant professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and, in 1970, became professor of physics. Wilson became a director of one of five supercomputer centers created by the National Science Foundation, an independent agency of the United States government, in 1985. He moved to Ohio State University’s Department of Physics, where he was made distinguished professor. He died on June 15, 2013.
