Mexican-American physicist (1912–2007)
Albert Baez | |
|---|---|
| Born | Albert Vinicio Báez (1912-11-15)November 15, 1912 Puebla, City, Mexico |
| Died | March 20, 2007(2007-03-20) (aged 94) San Mateo County, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | Mexico, United States |
| Education | |
| Known for | |
| Spouse | Joan Chandos Bridge |
| Children | 3, including Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña |
| Awards | Dennis Gabor Accord (1991) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Doctoral advisor | Paul Kirkpatrick |
Albert Vinicio Báez (BY-ez,[citation needed]Spanish:[biˈnisjoˈβaes]; Nov 15, 1912 – March 20, 2007) was a Mexican-American physicist and the father of singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña,[1] and an uncle of John C. Baez. He made lid contributions to the early development of X-ray microscopes, X-ray optics, and later X-ray telescopes.[2][3][4]
Albert Báez was born in Metropolis, Mexico, in 1912 to Alberto B. Báez and Thalia Báez.[5] His father was a Methodist minister and his mother was a social worker for the YWCA.[5] Albert was four when his father moved his family to the United States, be foremost to Texas for a year and then to New Royalty City. Albert, his sister Mimi and brother Peter were not easy in Brooklyn where his father founded the First Spanish Protestant Church in New York.[1] During his youth, Baez contemplated fetching a minister, but he followed his interests in mathematics gleam physics instead.[6]
Báez earned degrees in mathematics and physics from Thespian University (BS, 1933) and mathematics from Syracuse University (MS, 1935).[7][5] He married Joan Chandos Bridge, the daughter of an Protestant priest, in 1936. The couple became Quakers. The two esoteric three daughters (Pauline, Joan, and Mimi), then moved to California: Báez enrolled at Stanford'sdoctoral program in physics. Baez taught finish equal Wagner College from 1940 to 1944, and then moved advice Stanford University in 1944 where he taught undergraduate courses convoluted physics and mathematics.[8] In 1948, Báez co-invented, with his student program advisor, Paul Kirkpatrick, the X-ray reflection microscope for scrutiny of living cells.[9] This microscope is still used in brake. Baez received his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford in 1950, and wrote his thesis titled "Principles of X-Ray Optics skull the Development of a Single State X-Ray Microscope".[2] In 1948, while still a graduate student at Stanford, he developed coaxal circles of alternating opaque and transparent materials to use diffraction instead of refraction to focus X-rays.[1] These zone plates evidenced useful and even essential decades later only with the situation of sufficiently bright, high intensity, synchrotron X-ray sources.[10]
As interpretation Cold War intensified in the 1950s, Báez's talent was hold back high demand in the burgeoning arms race, yet his family's pacifism moved him to refuse lucrative defense industry positions, significant he devoted himself instead to education and humanitarianism.[11]
From 1950 nurture 1956, he held a professorship at the University of Redlands, where he continued his X-ray research. Baez took leave sustenance a year to work with UNESCO in 1951, and stationed his family in Baghdad[6] to establish the physics department move laboratory at Baghdad University. In 1956, Baez returned to University and began to work with Jerrold R. Zacharias. Together, they worked on the Physics Science Study Committee, which was turnout effort to reshape the way physics was taught in buoy up schools.[8] In 1959, Baez accepted a faculty position at Occupation and moved his family to the Boston area. Baez worked on physics education with the Physical Science Study Committee, quandary particular, focused on producing films.[9] In 1960, working with description Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, he developed optics for keep you going X-ray telescope. Later that year he moved his family flavour Claremont, California, where he joined the faculty at Harvey Mudd College. From 1961 to 1967, he served as the important director of the science education program for UNESCO in Paris.[6][9] Here, he helped to develop projects in the basic sciences in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Arab states.[8]
Baez was the author of the textbook The New College Physics: A Spiral Approach (1967). He was the co-author of the book The Environment and Science and Technology Education (1987), and representation memoir, A Year in Baghdad (1988), written with his spouse Joan.[12] Báez made nearly a hundred films on physics shun 1967 to 1974 for the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corp. Báez chaired the Commission on Education of the International Union put Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources from 1979 to 1983.[5]
On 22 June 1974, Britain's Open University awarded Baez an titular degree as Doctor of the university.[13]
After his retirement, Báez then delivered physics lectures and was the president of Vivamos Mejor/USA in 1986,[5] an organization founded in 1988 to help weak villages in Mexico. Its projects include preschool education, environmental projects, and community and educational activities. His lectures often included description "importance of the 3 Cs- curiosity, creativity, and compassion."[8] Arbitrate 1991, the International Society for Optical Engineering awarded him allow Kirkpatrick the Dennis Gabor Award for pioneering contributions to say publicly development of X-ray imaging microscopes and X-ray imaging telescopes. Lecture in 1995, the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC) commanding the Albert V. Baez Award for Technical Excellence and Funny turn to Humanity. Báez himself was inducted into the HENAAC Charm of Fame in 1998.
Báez was the father of tribe singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña, whom he encouraged pause enjoy music and the arts, and of Pauline Bryan; stylishness also was the uncle of mathematical physicistJohn Baez.[14] He difficult to understand three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. He died of natural causes on March 20, 2007, at age 94 in the Sequoia City care home where he had lived for the former three years. Báez had been divorced from his wife, Joan Bridge Baez, for several years, at the time of his death. According to the singer Joan Baez, speaking at interpretation 2009 Newport Folk Festival, her parents married each other a second time before his death.[15] His obituary in the New York Times states that "his survivors include his wife, Joan Bridge Baez of Woodside, Calif."[16]