Clarence Zener
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Clarence Melvin Zener (December 1, 1905 - July 15, 1993) was the American physicist who first described the electrical property exploited by the Zener diode, which Bell Labs then named after him. Zener was a theoretical physicist with a background in mathematics who also wrote on a range of subjects including superconductivity, metallurgy, and geometric programming.
Zener was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and earned his PhD in physics from Harvard in 1930 with the thesis Quantum Mechanics of the Formation of Certain Types of Diatomic Molecules. He taught at several American universities before working at the Watertown Arsenal during World War II. He taught at University of Chicago (1945-1951), worked at Westinghouse (1951-1965) taught at Texas A&M University (1966-1968), and then at Carnegie-Mellon (1968-1993).
External links
- Pictures of Zener (http://www.aip.org/history/esva/catalog/esva/Zener_Melvin.html)
- Geometric programming (http://www.mpri.lsu.edu/textbook/Chapter3.htm)de:Clarence Melvin Zener