Donald D. Clayton
Donald D. Clayton | |
---|---|
Born | Shenandoah, Iowa, U.S. | March 18, 1935
Died | January 3, 2024 | (aged 88)
Alma mater | California Institute of Technology |
Awards | NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, Alexander von Humboldt Award |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astrophysics |
Institutions | Rice University |
Thesis | Studies of certain nuclear processes in stars (1962) |
Doctoral advisor | William Alfred Fowler |
Doctoral students | Stanford E. Woosley[1] |
Donald Delbert Clayton (March 18, 1935 – January 3, 2024) was an American
Clayton also authored a novel, The Joshua Factor (1985), a parable of the origin of mankind utilizing the mystery of solar neutrinos; a science autobiography and a memoir; and a history of the origin of each isotope, Handbook of Isotopes in the Cosmos (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003).
Clayton died on January 3, 2024, at the age of 88.[9]
National honors
- Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1992)[10]
- Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society (1991)[11]
- NASA Public Service Group Achievement Award for the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Team on NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (1992)[12]
- Jesse Beams Medal of the American Physical Society (1998)[13]
- South Carolina Governor's Award for Excellence in Science (1994)[14]
- Alexander von Humboldt Award (1977 and 1982) sponsored by Max Planck Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg[15]
- Author of one of the 50 most influential research papers of the 20th century selected by American Astronomical Society and author in the AAS Centennial Volume[16]
Clayton was elected to
Early life and education
Clayton was born on March 18, 1935, in a modest rented duplex on Walnut Street in
At the urging of his SMU professors, he applied as a physics research student to
He established himself at Caltech as a new worker in the field of
Academic history
A historic connection of Clayton's academic career to NASA's Apollo Program arose through establishment by Rice University of its Department of Space Science in 1963. This action by Rice University provided the academic position assumed by Clayton in 1963. Clayton described this good fortune in his autobiography.[19]: 159–163 His academic research into five fields of astrophysics championed by him is detailed in section 5 below. Foundational academic positions at Caltech, Rice University and Clemson University were augmented by international breadth: seven-year-long academic affiliations in Cambridge (1967–1974) and later in Heidelberg (1976–82),[19]: 178 as well as by visiting summer positions in Cardiff UK (1976, 1977)[19]: 369 as well as sabbatical leaves in Cambridge (1971), Heidelberg (1981) and Durham University UK (1987).[19]: 439–442
Following his two-year (1961–63) postdoctoral research fellowship at Caltech, Clayton was awarded an Assistant Professorship, one of the four founding faculty members in Rice University's newly created Department of Space Science (later renamed Space Physics and Astronomy). There he initiated a graduate-student course explaining nuclear reactions in stars as the mechanism for the creation of the atoms of our chemical elements. His pioneering textbook based on that course (Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis, McGraw-Hill 1968) earned ongoing praise. In 2018, 50 years after its first publication, it is still in common usage[23] in graduate education throughout the world. At Rice Clayton was awarded the newly endowed Andrew Hays Buchanan Professorship of Astrophysics in 1968 and held that endowed professorship for twenty years until responding to the opportunity to guide a new astrophysics program at Clemson University in 1989. During the 1970s at Rice University Clayton guided Ph.D. theses of many research students who achieved renown, especially Stanford E. Woosley, William Michael Howard, H. C. Goldwire, Richard A. Ward, Michael J. Newman, Eliahu Dwek, Mark Leising and Kurt Liffman. Senior thesis students at Rice University included Bradley S. Meyer and Lucy Ziurys, both of whom forged distinguished careers in the subjects of those senior theses. Historical photos of several students can be seen on Clayton' s photo archive for the history of nuclear astrophysics.[24] Clayton followed the historic Apollo 11 mission while on holiday with his family in Ireland while traveling to Cambridge UK for his third research summer there.
Letters in winter 1966 from W.A. Fowler unexpectedly invited Clayton to return to Caltech in order to coauthor a book on
During (1977–84) Clayton resided part-time annually at the
In 1989 Clayton accepted a professorship at Clemson University to develop a graduate research program in astrophysics there.
Eventually a unique new goal became to assemble from his large personal collection of photographs a web-based archive for the history of nuclear astrophysics[45] and to donate the original photographs[46] to the Center for the History of Physics, a wing of the American Institute of Physics. The thrusts of Clayton's career at Clemson University are well represented on that Photo Archive by photos between 1990 and 2014. Following his retirement from academic duties in 2007, Clayton remained quite active in research problems involving condensation of dust within supernovae[47] and has also published a scientific autobiography, Catch a Falling Star. Clayton's published refereed research papers prior to 2011 are listed at http://claytonstarcatcher.com/files/documents/JournalPub.pdf
Personal
Clayton married three times: in 1954 in Dallas[48] to Mary Lou Keesee (deceased 1981, Houston) while they were students at SMU;[19]: 98–100 in 1972 in St. Blasien, Germany to a young German woman, Annette Hildebrand (divorced 1981, Houston);[19]: 300–301 in 1983 in the Rice University Chapel, finally to the former Nancy Eileen McBride[19]: 412–413 who was trained in art and in architecture and is today an artist.[49] His children with Mary Lou were Donald Jr and Devon (deceased); with Annette was Alia Fisher; and with Nancy was Andrew.
Clayton resided with Nancy in historic G. W. Gignilliat House (1898) in Seneca, South Carolina. Clayton's mother and father had both been born on family farms in Fontanelle IA to parents[19]: 6–9 who had lived their entire lives on Fontanelle farms. Their own parents had immigrated to Iowa near 1850 from England and Germany. Two of Clayton's great grandfathers (Kembery and Clayton) fought in the Civil War (North). Robert M. Clayton fought in Sherman's Army at the battle of Atlanta.[50]
While at Rice University, Clayton was introduced by patron of the arts Dominique de Menil to Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, and they jointly conceived of a film about one scientist's deepening realizations during a cosmological life, a sequence of experiences which Clayton proposed[19]: 245–249 to provide for that project. In summer 1970 Clayton spent two weeks in Rome working daily with Rossellini [51][52] on that effort, which failed owing to insufficient financial support or to insufficiently theatrical plan.[53] Clayton's published early memoir The Dark Night Sky: a personal adventure in cosmology[54] laid out his plan for that film.
References
- ^ "Spacalum.rice.edu".
- .
- doi:10.1086/190176.
- ^ Chapter 7 of Clayton's 1968 textbook, Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis]
- ^ doi:10.1086/149849.
- ^ American Astronomical Society Centennial Issue, Astrophysical Journal 525, 1–1283 (1999)
- ^ Clayton led a letter writing campaign in spring 1979 with colleague Reuven Ramaty, NASA astrophysicist, described by Clayton in his autobiography, Catch a Falling Star, p.386–387, to persuade prominent scientists to urge inclusion of Gamma Ray Observatory in the approved NASA budget.
- .
- ^ "Donald D. Clayton". Urban Funeral Home, Inc. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
- ^ "NASA Headquarters Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "Leonard Medal of Meteoritical Society". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "OSSE Meeting at Northwestern University April 1993". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "Jesse W. Beams Medal, American Physical Society Southeastern Section". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "South Carolina Governor's Award for Excellence in Science". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "Donald Clayton". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ "Arnold Wolfendale and Donald Clayton". Clemson University. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
- ^ "SMU President Kenneth Pye and Clayton". Clemson University. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
- ^ ISBN 9781440161032.
- ISBN 0812905857.
- ^ Note: Mary Lou Clayton was hired by Mathew Sands on the Ford Foundation project for these lectures. Donald Clayton contributed time to help identify the physics vocabulary that Feynman used. See Catch a Falling Star, p. 142
- ISBN 9781440161032.
- ^ University of Chicago Press, reprint edition 1983
- ^ "Photo Archive In Nuclear Astrophysics: Photo List". Clemson.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
- ISBN 9781440161032.
- ^ Fred Hoyle, Home is where the wind blows (University Science Books, Mill Valley CA 1994) p. 372-376
- S2CID 38865963.
- S2CID 222372611.
- doi:10.1086/180429.
- doi:10.1086/153750.
- S2CID 38856879.
- .
- doi:10.1086/156450.
- doi:10.1086/182767.
- S2CID 121956963.
- Bibcode:1982QJRAS..23..174C.
- Bibcode:1988LPSC...18..637L.
- S2CID 189781053.
- doi:10.1086/165816.
- doi:10.1086/163326.
- ^ Clayton's own words in Catch a falling star op cit attest to his sense of vindication over this issue:(1) The telephone rings in s-process stardust, p 400-401; (2)"Comic battle over the Leonard Medal, p. 489–491
- S2CID 28129416.
- ^ Mark Leising, Dieter Hartmann and Bradley S. Meyer: Catch a Falling Star photo p. 494
- ^ "Presolar Grain workshop 2012". Presolar.wustl.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
- ^ "Photo Archive In Nuclear Astrophysics". Clemson.edu. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
- ^ "Clayton Collection". American Institute of Physics. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
- .
- ^ : 99
- ^ "Nancy Clayton - Arclay Art- Web Page". Arclay.us. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
- ^ National Archives, Muster Roll, 43rd Company, Army of Ohio Infantry
- ^ "1970 Clayton and Rosselini in Sardinia". Clemson University. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
- ^ "PHOTO ARCHIVE IN NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS". Clemson.edu. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
- ^ No documentation exists for this failure, so this conclusion is based on Clayton's memory of it in his autobiography
- ^ Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co. (1975): A book columnist for the Washington Post wrote on March 21, 1976: "Altogether more personal (than other books on cosmology that he was reviewing), The Dark Night Sky alternates cosmology with affable reminiscence. Clayton knows the rapture of astronomy and uses it to shuttle engagingly back and forth between Copernicus, Einstein, Stonehenge, the Milky Way and punts on Cambridge's Cam. A brooding, ecumenical enthusiast, Clayton dreads the vacant interstellar spaces as much as he loves galaxies, Texas, and the maple tree he planted a quarter of a century ago. His is a book of brainy charm"