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| Conyers Herring | |
|---|---|
| Name | Conyers Herring |
| Birth date | 18 November 1914 |
| Birth place | Oklahoma City |
| Death date | 26 June 2009 |
| Death place | Palo Alto, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Solid state physics, Theoretical physics, Condensed matter physics |
| Institutions | Princeton University, Bell Labs, Cornell University, Stanford University |
| Alma mater | Princeton University, University of Oxford |
| Doctoral advisor | Eugene Wigner |
| Notable students | Philip W. Anderson, John S. Slater |
Conyers Herring was an influential American physicist known for foundational work in solid state physics and condensed matter physics. He made key theoretical contributions to the understanding of electronic band structure, magnetism, and transport phenomena, and shaped research directions at institutions such as Princeton University, Bell Labs, Cornell University, and Stanford University. Herring's students and collaborators included leading figures in 20th-century physics associated with Nobel Prize–winning developments and major research centers like Los Alamos National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Harvard University.
Born in Oklahoma City in 1914, Herring attended preparatory schools before matriculating at Princeton University, where he studied under faculty connected to figures such as John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner. He completed graduate work at Princeton University and undertook further study at University of Oxford under traditions linked to Paul Dirac and Rudolf Peierls. Herring's doctoral education placed him in the intellectual milieu of World War II–era physics alongside contemporaries affiliated with Los Alamos National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the wartime scientific mobilization involving institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Imperial College London.
Herring held appointments at Princeton University and later at Bell Labs, where he worked in proximity to researchers associated with William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain. He served on the faculty of Cornell University and engaged with research groups that included collaborators from Columbia University, Yale University, and University of Chicago. In subsequent years Herring was affiliated with Stanford University and participated in exchanges with international centers such as University of Cambridge, École Normale Supérieure, and Max Planck Society institutes. His career intersected with industrial research and government laboratories including National Bureau of Standards and Sandia National Laboratories, and he advised graduate students who later worked at Bell Labs, IBM Research, and AT&T.
Herring made seminal contributions to electronic band theory, introducing techniques and concepts that influenced work by Lev Landau, Felix Bloch, and Philip W. Anderson. He developed methods for understanding energy bands, Brillouin zone topology, and Fermi surface geometry used by researchers at University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, Rutgers University, and University of California, Berkeley. Herring's analysis of symmetry and degeneracy resonated with group-theory approaches from Hermann Weyl and Eugene Wigner and informed modern treatments by authors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University Press–affiliated theorists. His studies of magnetic materials connected to experiments at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Bell Labs, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and his work on transport and scattering complemented efforts by Enrico Fermi–influenced theorists and experimental programs at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Herring's influence extended through students and collaborators who became prominent at Harvard University, Caltech, Cornell University, University of Minnesota, and research enterprises such as Bell Labs and IBM Research; his legacy persists in textbooks, courses at MIT, Stanford University, and Princeton University, and in modern research on topological materials pursued at Harvard University and University of Cambridge.
Herring received recognition from professional bodies and government institutions linked to the history of 20th-century physics, including honors connected with National Academy of Sciences, awards presented by the American Physical Society, and fellowships in organizations like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His career overlapped with prize networks involving recipients such as Niels Bohr, Richard Feynman, and Robert Hofstadter, and his standing was noted in contexts involving medals and citations administered by groups such as American Institute of Physics and national research councils. Herring's reputation was cited in obituaries and memorials produced by institutions including Princeton University, Cornell University, and national laboratories like Argonne National Laboratory.
- "Theory of the Thermoelectric Power of Metals," contributions published in journals associated with Physical Review and preprints circulated among groups at Bell Labs and Princeton University that influenced work by L. D. Landau and J. M. Ziman. - Papers on band structure and Fermi surfaces appearing in venues read by researchers at Cornell University, University of Cambridge, and University of Chicago; these works were cited alongside studies by Felix Bloch, Walter Kohn, and John C. Slater. - Lectures and review articles used in graduate courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, and Stanford University and compiled with reference to texts from Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press.