Norman F. Ramsey: Genealogy of dissertation advisors and students

There are many modes of information flow in the sciences: books, journals, conferences, research and development, acquisition of companies, co-workers, students, and professors in schools of higher learning. In the sciences, dissertation students learn from their dissertation advisor (or chairperson or mentor) and the other dissertation committee members and vice-versa; the committee members learn from the student. This paper describes the genealogy (the line of descent) of dissertation students, their advisor(s), and sibling students of people in the atomic clock field. Specifically, this paper focuses on Nobel Prize winner, and pioneer in the atomic clock field, Dr. Norman F. Ramsey (1915-2011) whose dissertation advisor-genealogy traces back through Isador Isaac Rabi (Ph.D. in 1927), Albert Wills (Ph.D. in 1897), and Arthur Webster (Ph.D. in 1890), to Herman Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (M.D. in 1842) as shown in Figure 1. The dissertation advisors listed in Figure 1 had other students; including famous names such as Hertz, Schottky, Pupin, Goddard, Kronig, and Quimby. Dr. Ramsey advised and graduated 77 dissertation students from 1946 to 1986, leaving a critical mass of trained physicists to continue his legacy in the atomic clock and many other fields.