Subject Guide: Jewish Nobel Prize Laureates

Some of the laureates featured in our collections:

Max Born

• The 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics was divided equally between Born "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction" and Walther Bothe "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith."
• Archive highlights:
  • Max Born correspondence 1925-1935 (AR 1984) [Collection has been digitized and is available online.]
  • Max Born. 1962-1970 (AR 1225 C) [Collection has been digitized and is available online.]
• Library highlights:
  • My life : recollections of a Nobel laureate / by Max Born. Scribner, 1978.
  • Briefwechsel 1916-1955. Albert Einstein, Hedwig und Max Born / by Albert Einstein & Max Born; commentary by Max Born. Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1969.
  • The end of the certain world : the life and science of Max Born : the Nobel physicist who ignited the quantum revolution / by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan. Basic Books, 2005.

Albert Einstein

• The 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect."
• Archive highlights:
  • Albert Einstein Collection (AR 136) [Collection has been digitized and is available online.]
• Library highlights:
  • Elie Cartan-Albert Einstein : letters on absolute parallelism, 1929-1932 / by Elie Cartan and Albert Einstein. English translation by Jules Leroy and Jim Ritter. Princeton University Press, 1979.
  • Albert Einstein / by Banesh Hoffmann [Collection has been digitized and is available online.]
    • Article on the life and work of Albert Einstein as a scientist and a Jew, based on a lecture at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York
  • The travel diaries of Albert Einstein : the Far East, Palestine & Spain, 1922-1923 / edited by Ze'ev Rosenkranz. Princeton University Press, 2018.

James Franck

• The 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Franck and Gustav Ludwig Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom."
• Archive highlights:
  • James Franck Collection, 1930-1949 (AR 2977)
  • Photo of Albert Einstein with James Franck and unidentified man.
• Library highlights:
  • James Franck at Göttingen / by O. Oldenberg. From American Journal of Physics, vol. 39, 1971.
  • Aufrecht im Sturm der Zeit : der Physiker James Franck, 1882-1964 / by Jost Lemmerich.

  • Ein Geburtstagsgruss an Max Born / by James Franck. Detached from Physikalische Blaetter, v. 18, no. 12; Dec. 1962.

Albert Abraham Michelson

• The 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Abraham Michelson "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid."
• Archive highlights:
  • Albert Abraham Michelson. (n.d.), photographer unknown. [Photo is digitized and available online.]
• Library highlights: 
  • Einstein, Michelson, and the "crucial" experiment / by Gerald James Holton. Detached from Isis 60 (2) (Summer, 1969).
  • Michelson and the speed of light / by Bernard Jaffe. Greenwood Press, 1979.
  • The master of light : a biography of Albert A. Michelson / by Dorothy Michelson Livingston. Scribner, 1973.