Descriptive Summary
Scope and Content of Collection
Biography
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Restrictions
Descriptive Summary
Languages:
English
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla 92093-0175
Title: Maria Goeppert Mayer Papers
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0020
Physical Description:
7.5 Linear feet
(15 archives boxes, 1 flat box and 1 map case folder)
Date (inclusive): 1906-1996 (bulk 1930-1972)
Abstract: Papers of Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize winning physicist and professor at the University of California, 1960-1964. The
collection includes correspondence, biographical information, reprints, manuscript drafts, notebooks, teaching materials,
subject files, news clippings and photographs.
Scope and Content of Collection
Papers of Maria Goeppert Mayer, Nobel Prize winning physicist and professor at the University of California, 1960-1964. The
collection includes correspondence, biographical information, reprints, manuscript drafts, notebooks, teaching materials,
subject files, news clippings and photographs.
Accessions Processed in 1988: Mayer's papers contain a relative abundance of correspondence and her research notebooks. There
are scant manuscript materials related to her numerous publications.
Arranged in seven series: 1) CORRESPONDENCE, 2) REPRINTS, WRITINGS, AND LECTURES, 3) RESEARCH NOTEBOOKS AND CLASS LECTURES,
4) TEACHING MATERIALS, 5) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 6) NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS and 7) SUBJECT MATERIALS.
Accession Processed in 1997
Arranged in two series: 8) PHOTOGRAPHS and 9) AWARDS, CERTIFICATES AND DIPLOMAS.
Accession Processed in 2015
Arranged in four series: 10) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 11) CORRESPONDENCE, 12) WRITINGS BY MAYER and 13) PHOTOGRAPHS.
Biography
Maria Goeppert Mayer was born on June 28, 1906 in Kattowitz, Germany, to Friedrich and Maria (nee Wolff) Goeppert. In 1910
she moved with her parents to Gottingen where her father taught pediatrics at the University. She enrolled at the University
at Gottingen in the spring of 1924 with the expectation of pursuing a career in mathematics, but soon became attracted to
physics and the developing field of quantum mechanics. In 1930 Mayer took her doctorate in theoretical physics under the direction
of Nobel prize winners Max Born, James Franck, and Adolf Windaus.
While completing her studies at Gottingen she met and married Joseph Edward Mayer, an American post-doctoral fellow working
in physical chemistry under James Franck. Together they moved to Baltimore, Maryland where Joseph taught at the Johns Hopkins
University. In 1939 they went to Columbia University. There Maria worked under the direction of Harold Urey at the S.A.M.
(Strategic Alloy Metals) Laboratory which researched the separation of isotopes of uranium. She co-authored a text entitled
STATISTICAL MECHANICS (1940) with her husband. After the war she took a professorship of physics at the Institute for Nuclear
Studies, University of Chicago. During this period Mayer began a long correspondence with Edward Teller.
In 1948, Mayer began work on nuclear shell structure and the meaning of the "magic numbers"- those nuclei that have a special
number of protons. She postulated these numbers to be the shell numbers of a shell model, a "nuclear counterpart to the closed
shells of electrons" at the atomic level. In 1950 she met and began a collaboration with Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen which
led to the publication of the book entitled ELEMENTARY THEORY OF NUCLEAR SHELL THEORY (1955). In 1963, Maria Mayer was awarded
the Nobel Prize jointly with Hans Jensen for their work on the Shell Model.
Maria Goeppert Mayer came to the University of California, San Diego, in 1960 as a professor of physics. At San Diego she
taught while conducting research in nuclear physics under grants administered by Keith Brueckner. During this period Mayer
publically encouraged young women to pursue careers in the sciences. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences,
the Akademie der Wissenschafter in Heidelberg, and the Philosophical Society. After a protracted illness, she died on February
20, 1972.
Publication Rights
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Preferred Citation
Maria Goeppert Mayer Papers, MSS 20. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
Acquisition Information
Acquired 1972-2014.
Restrictions
Mayer's Nobel medal in Box 15 is restricted. Permission to view this item is required in advance from the director of Special
Collections & Archives.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Nuclear shell theory
Thermodynamics
Photographic prints -- 20th century
Physicists -- Biography
Physics -- Study and teaching
Nuclear physics -- Study and teaching
Superconductivity
Quantum theory
University of California, San Diego -- History -- Archives
University of California, San Diego. Department of Physics
Bohr, Niels, 1885-1962 -- Correspondence
University of California, San Diego -- Faculty -- Archives
Teller, Edward, 1908-2003 -- Correspondence
Mayer, Maria Goeppert, 1906-1972 -- Archives
Jensen, Johannes, 1934- -- Correspondence
Born, Max, 1882-1970 -- Correspondence
Revelle, Roger, 1909-1991 -- Correspondence