Kurt Gottfried (May 17, 1929 – August 25, 2022) was an Austrian-born American physicist who was professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University.
He was known for his work in the areas of quantum mechanics and particle physics and was also a co-founder with Henry Way Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
[5][6] Gottfried studied with Victor Weisskopf at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1952 to 1955, completing his Ph.D. thesis, Investigations Based on the Bohr-Mottelson Nuclear Model.
[4] Gottfried married Sorel Dickstein in 1955, whom he credits as being instrumental in the founding of the Union of Concerned Scientists and an invaluable collaborator over the course of his life.
[14] They introduced the use of the density matrix to connect production mechanisms to the decay patterns and described the influence of competing processes ("absorption") on the reactions.
[19] Gottfried is known for his work in the 1970s on charmonium, with Estia J. Eichten, Toichiro Kinoshita, Ken Lane and Tung-Mow Yan.
[29][30] Issues of particular concern to Gottfried are nuclear arms control,[5] scientific integrity in the face of government pressure,[4] and human rights.
[35] Gottfried, Kendall, Hans Bethe, Richard Garwin, and others strongly critiqued the U.S. "Star Wars" missile defense program.
[38] Gottfried and Bruce G. Blair edited the resulting book, representing the thinking of fifteen leading analysts.