Norman K. Glendenning

Norman K. Glendenning passed away on 5 September 2022 at the age of 91, after a long illness. He was a distinguished nuclear theorist and a founding member of the Nuclear Theory Group in the Nuclear Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

Norman received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and his PhD from Indiana University. He spent a year after his PhD at Los Alamos before joining LBNL as a staff scientist in 1958 at the invitation of Glenn Seaborg. He was one of the first physics hires in what was then the Nuclear Chemistry Division. He was promoted to senior staff scientist in 1963 and remained on the staff until his retirement in 1994. He remained active after retirement as senior scientist emeritus, continuing his research in nuclear astrophysics. He became a Fellow of the APS in 1968, received an Alexander von Humboldt Award for Senior US Scientists in 1994, and was a guest professor at the Laboratoire de Physique Theorique, Orsay, the University of Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, the JW Goethe University Frankfurt, and the Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich.

Norman was an expert on direct reactions, working closely with groups at the newly commissioned 88-inch Cyclotron to study the theory of low-energy nuclear transfer reactions with heavy ions. Later in his career, he became interested in the properties of nuclear matter, first in connection with the Bevalac, which soon led to his inquiry into the internal constitution of neutron stars.

During his long and fruitful career, he repeatedly defined new directions of research in the overlapping areas of nuclear physics and relativistic astrophysics. He was the first to propose the existence of a solid crystal in the core of neutron stars, consisting of a mixture of quark and hadronic matter. This mixed phase might account for such observed phenomena as “starquakes” in pulsars and could even cause isolated neutron stars to spin up rather than spin down. Based on detailed numerical studies, Norman and collaborators were able to predict several astrophysical signals that could signal the existence of quark matter in the centers of neutron stars. These signals are detectable with radio telescopes and x-ray satellites and have attracted tremendous interest in the physics and astrophysics community. The notion quark astronomy has been coined in the literature for this kind of research.

Norman authored several monographs as well as a popular book on cosmology. Direct Nuclear Reactions (1983), Compact Stars: Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics and General Relativity (2000), and Special and General Relativity (2010) are internationally recognized as outstanding references for researchers working in the areas of nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics. His books are also popular textbooks for graduates and advanced undergraduate students entering these fields. After the Beginning (2004) and Our Place in the Universe (2007), provide a readable and accessible introduction to cosmology for both students taking a first course in cosmology as well as for the layperson.

Norman was born on 17 January 1931, in Galt, Ontario, where his father, Norman, was a foreman in a textile mill. In high school he painted and won a track medal for jumping hurdles. On his Paris sabbatical (1960–61), he met his first wife, Uta Fromme. Their children, Alan and Elke, survive them. A conference at a ski resort in Germany inspired him to take up downhill skiing at the age of 51, a natural sport for a man who ice skated to school on the Grand River. He was as elegant on skis and skates as he was on the dance floor at the Greek Taverna, where he met his second wife, Laura Louis, who survives him along with their son, Nathan. He was an inventive and accomplished French cook, music lover, and avid reader, from Aristotle to Mahfouz.