The Boston Globe - 31.07.2019

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2019 The Boston Globe C11

Obituaries

By Martin Weil
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — John
Robert Schrieffer, one of three
Americans who shared the No-
bel Prize in physics for their
theory explaining superconduc-
tivity, a near-miraculous pro-
cess in which electric current
flows without resistance, died
July 27 at a nursing facility in
Tallahassee, Fla. He was 88.
Family members confirmed
his death to the Associated
Press but did not give a precise
cause.
Superconductivity, in addi-
tion to being one of nature’s
puzzles, also offered great
promise to daily life when Dr.
Schrieffer began his research in
the late 1950s. It allowed the
large-scale transmission and
application of electric currents
without the costs incurred in
propelling electrons against re-
sistance, even in conducting
materials.
Electromagnets depend on
the creation of powerful electri-

cal currents. Much modern

equipment that requires strong

magnetic fields, which are in-

duced by electrical currents, re-

lies on superconducting tech-

nology. Even copper wire, one

of the best known conventional

conductors, can overheat with

excessive current, constraining

the amount of current it can

carry.

Many electrical devices used

in medicine and other fields

can employ extremely high cur-

rents, by use of equipment

cooled to temperatures at

which superconductivity sets

in.

Among physicists, the theo-

ry that accounted for the mys-

teries of superconductivity be-

came known as the BCS theory,

for its three creators: John

Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper, and

Dr. Schrieffer. They shared the

Nobel in 1972.

When the theory was devel-

oped in 1957, Dr. Schrieffer was

working on his dissertation at

the University of Illinois under

Bardeen, who had received a

Nobel Prize the previous year as

an inventor of the transistor.

Bardeen also enlisted Cooper,

who had just received his PhD

and was working at the Insti-

tute for Advanced Study in

Princeton, N.J.

Although the phenomenon

of superconductivity had been

long known, it continued to

mystify scientists. A key ques-

tion involved how and why ma-

terials suddenly transitioned

fromstandardconductorsto

superconductors.

Cooper made a major contri-

bution involving the coupling

of electrons into what are now

known as Cooper pairs.

In an account prepared by

the American Physical Society,

an important idea came to Dr.

Schrieffer while riding the New

York City subway to a physics

meeting early in 1957. He real-

ized that all the Cooper pairs in

a superconductor could be de-

scribed by just one of the ‘‘wave

functions’’ that characterize

quantum mechanics. (Wave

functions are essentially mathe-

matical expressions of the idea

that matter can exist as both

waves and particles.)

The three protagonists of

BCS then blended all of their

ideas, creating a complete theo-

ry. ‘‘Well,’’ the usually taciturn

Bardeen was said to have de-

clared, ‘‘I think we’ve explained

superconductivity.’’

Their work was submitted

for publication to the Physical

Review, where it appeared in

December 1957 under the

straightforward title ‘‘Theory of

Superconductivity.’’

John Robert Schrieffer was

born in Oak Park, Ill., on May

31, 1931. While he was a boy,

the family moved to Manhas-

set, a Long Island suburb of

New York, and then to Eustis,

Fla., where his father entered

the citrus business.

Dr. Schrieffer explored sci-

ence through work with rockets

and ham radio, and entered

MIT to study electrical engi-

neering. After two years, he

switched to physics, graduating

in 1953. He received his doctor-

ate from Illinois in 1957 and

worked overseas as a researcher

at the University of Birming-

ham in England and the Niels

Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.

He taught at the University

of Chicago, University of Illi-

nois, and University of Pennsyl-

vania, and in 1980 joined the

University of California at San-

ta Barbara, where he was direc-

tor of the Institute for Theoreti-

cal Physics.

Twelve years later, he moved

to Florida State University,

where he was chief scientist at

the National High Magnetic

Field Laboratory before retiring

in 2006.

In 1960, he married Anne

Grete Thomsen, whom he met

in Denmark when she was 14

and he was 24, according to the

Tallahassee Democrat. Her fa-

ther reportedly forbade them to

date until she was 18, when

they married. They had three

children, and she died in 2013.

A complete list of survivors was

not immediately available.

A tragic incident shadowed

Dr. Schrieffer’s later life, one

that his friends found bewilder-

ing and difficult to compre-

hend.

On Sept. 24, 2004, while

driving his Mercedes-Benz from

San Francisco to Santa Barbara,

Schrieffer slammed into the

rear of a van at more than 100

miles per hour. One of the van’s

passengers was thrown and

killed, and seven others were

injured. One of the passengers

died a month later. (In a civil

suit, attorneys contended that

his death was caused by the

crash.)

Dr. Schrieffer had nine prior

speeding tickets and was driv-

ing with a suspended Florida li-

cense. He offered a tearful apol-

ogy in the courtroom, pleaded

no contest to a charge of vehic-

ular manslaughter, and was

sentenced to two years in pris-

on.

Dr.JohnRobertSchrieffer,88;sharedphysicsNobelforworkonsuperconductivity

By Sam Roberts
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YORK — In the late
1950s, just as the doll Barbie
was making her debut as a
teenager with unrealistic physi-
cal dimensions, Neil Estern in-
vented Patti Playpal.
Where Barbie stood less
than a foot tall, Patti, measur-
ing 36 inches head to toe, was
life-size, as far as a 3-year-old
was concerned. And unlike Bar-
bie, an idealized plastic figure
of young female beauty, Patti
looked like most any toddler
girl — an all-vinyl companion
who could share real clothing
and imaginary adventures with
a human playmate.
The Playpal line proved
enormously popular; today col-
lectors buy them for hundreds
of dollars and even more.
Within a few years, Mr. Es-
tern had turned from toymaker
to full-time professional sculp-
tor of monumental works,
working out of a studio in
Brooklyn Heights. But as he did
so, he maintained his commit-
ment to verisimilitude, whether
depicting a charismatic Presi-
dent Franklin D. Roosevelt or
an effervescent Mayor Fiorello
H. La Guardia of New York, his
impetuosity in full flower.
Mr. Estern, who created
sculptures of some of the na-
tion’s leading public figures,
works that can be seen today in
major cities, died on July 11 in
Sharon, Conn., not far from
where he lived in West Corn-
wall. He was 93. His daughter,
Victoria Estern Jadow, said the
cause was renal failure.
Twice president of the Na-
tional Sculpture Society, Mr. Es-
tern rejected the cultural snob-
bery of colleagues who suggest-
ed that art couldn’t be very
good if it was understandable
to the average museumgoer.
“Art wasn’t meant to be a
mystery,” he told The New York
Times in 1996.
His other public works,
mostly cast in bronze, include
sculptures of Eleanor
Roosevelt, at the National Ca-
thedral in Washington; Freder-
ick Law Olmsted and Calvert
Vaux, installed in one of their
creations, Prospect Park in
Brooklyn; Irving Berlin, at the
Music Box Theater in Manhat-

tan and at the National Portrait

Gallery in Washington; and

Senator Claude Pepper, at the

Pepper Museum in Tallahassee,

Fla.

Mr. Estern also created the

bronze bust of John F. Kennedy

in Grand Army Plaza in Brook-

lyn; several busts of public fig-

ures, President Carter among

them, that appeared on the cov-

er of Time magazine; and the

composition “Expulsion From

Paradise” at the Brooklyn Mu-

seum.

Probably his best known

work is his 8-foot-11 figure of

President Roosevelt, found in

one of four outdoor rooms at

the Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Memorial in West Potomac

Park in Washington.

Roosevelt, who lost the use

of his legs to polio, is seated in a

chair, like the one with tiny

wheels that he used at his Hud-

son Valley home in Hyde Park,

N.Y. His Navy cape covers one

leg and his floppy trousers the

other, suggesting a withered

limb beneath. Mr. Estern de-

picted him as a wartime presi-

dent unhobbled by his disabili-

ty but close to death.

“My sharpest, clearest mem-

ory of FDR,” Mr. Estern once

said, “is a man in a cape, toward

the end of his life, at once vul-

nerable and yet strong, in fail-

ing health and at the same time

the hero.”

He worked on the Roosevelt

project for more than a decade.

It also includes a separate stat-

ue of Eleanor Roosevelt and an-

other of the president’s beloved

Scottish terrier, Fala.

Diane Smook, a photogra-

pher, documented the creation

of the Roosevelt sculptures for a

book by Kelli Peduzzi, “Shaping

a President: Sculpting for the

Roosevelt Memorial” (1997).

“In each stage of creation, I

was struck by the forceful

personae emerging out of inert

substances,” Smook said in a

statement after Mr. Estern’s

death. She said the completed

sculpture captured “both the

president’s forceful personality

andthehumanfrailtieshe

strove to keep hidden.”

The memorial was dedicat-

ed by President Clinton in

1997. Its other rooms hold
      sculptures by Leonard Baskin,

Robert Graham, Thomas Har-

dy, and George Segal.

The La Guardia sculpture,

inspired by a stem-winding

speech that the mayor delivered

at Mr. Estern’s high school

graduation, portrays La Guar-

dia in mid-stride, mouth open

and gesticulating vigorously.

The bronze statue was based

on a plaster model by Mr. Es-

tern for a commission years

earlier by the Port Authority of

New York and New Jersey for

LaGuardia Airport. Funds ran

out, and the airport statue was

never realized.

Some Greenwich Village res-

idents preferred a more states-

manlike version of La Guardia

created by a local resident, John

Bennett. But Mr. Estern’s model

was embraced by the communi-

ty board and the city’s Art Com-

mission and dedicated in 1994

on the east side of La Guardia

Place.

Neil Carl Estern was born on

April 18, 1926, in Brooklyn to

Marc J. and Molly (Sylbert) Es-

tern. His father, a son of Jewish

parents from Russia, had emi-

grated from Turkey, where he

had made and repaired string

musical instruments in Con-

stantinople. The elder Estern,

who spoke nine languages, be-

came a labor mediator in the

toy industry. Neil Estern’s

mother was of Austrian descent

and born in the United States.

Raised in Flatbush, Neil was

only 6 when he molded his first

clay creations from a lump that

his father had brought home to

distract him while the boy was

confined to bed during a brief

illness.

He earned a Bachelor of Fine

Arts and a Bachelor of Science

degree in education in 1948

from the Tyler School of Fine

Arts (now the Tyler School of

Art and Architecture), which is

based at Temple University in

Philadelphia. He also studied at

the Barnes Foundation in Phila-

delphia and in Pietrasanta, Ita-

ly.

In 1948, he married Anne

Graham, who survives him. In

addition to their daughter, he is

also survived by two sons, Peter

and Evan; and three grandchil-

dren.

Mr. Estern found early suc-

cess designing dolls; the Patti

Playpal line, for which his wife

assembled the wardrobe, was

created for the Ideal toy compa-

ny. But he longed to see the

great monuments of Florence

and Rome that he had studied

in art history classes.

“After graduation, I began to

make dolls and quickly rose to

the top of that field,” he said in

2004 in an interview with the

National Sculpture Society to

be published this summer in

Sculpture Review. “That sup-

ported my sculpture and en-

abled me to go to Italy.”

He received his first public

commission in 1965, he re-

called, after the Kennedy family

had declined an offer by the

Brooklyn borough president to

install an eternal flame in hon-

or of the assassinated President

Kennedy. The family decided

that one such flame, at Arling-

ton National Cemetery, was

enough.

Instead, Brooklyn officials

selected Mr. Estern’s design for

a bronze portrait bust of Kenne-

dy on an oblong marble plinth,

which now stands in a circular

court in Grand Army Plaza.

While he strove for realism,

Mr. Estern acknowledged that

his work was also influenced to

a “subtle, unconscious” degree

by his personal feelings about

the subject.

When Life magazine com-

missioned him to illustrate a

cover story in 1971 about J. Ed-

gar Hoover by Tom Wicker of

The Times, titled “The Emperor

of the FBI,” Mr. Estern repre-

sented Hoover as a Roman po-

tentate carved in marble.

“It was a caricature and em-

phasized a bit of what I thought

was his evil side,” Mr. Estern

said. “There are some innate el-

ements, some vibrations that

person is sending out that I ab-

sorb and want to get into the

sculpture. Something below the

surface is going to make that

piece of sculpture unique.”

NeilEstern,93;toymakerbecame

sculptorofprominentpublicartworks

TED THAI/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

Mr. Estern, with models of his statues of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

By Dave Skretta
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAWRENCE, Kan. — Max
Falkenstien, the affable and
silver-tongued ‘‘Voice of the
Jayhawks’’ who brought Kan-
sas football and basketball into
the homes of fans for six de-
cades, died Monday. He was
95.
The school announced his
death in a statement.
Mr. Falkenstien did his first
broadcast of a Kansas basket-
ball game during the 1946
NCAA Tournament in Kansas
City, where the Jayhawks
played Oklahoma A&M. He
took over as the play-by-play
voice the following spring and

would hold the job for 39 years

before switching to the com-

mentator’s role in 1984.

He retired from Jayhawk

Radio Network broadcasts af-

ter the 2005-06 basketball sea-

son.

‘‘I’ve known Max since

1985, and back then, even be-

ing young in the profession, I

quickly realized that Max was

as big a part of the great histo-

ry of KU basketball and foot-

ball as the players and coaches

were,’’ Jayhawks basketball

coach Bill Self said. ‘‘He was an

absolute joy to be around, and

he will be remembered as an

absolute treasure. He was

loved by everyone.’’

Mr. Falkenstien was a bank-

er by trade, retiring from the

Douglas County Bank in Law-

rence in 1994. But his passion

was broadcasting the Jay-

hawks, and fans across the

country simply adored him.

He’s the only non-player to

have a jersey — No. 60 — hang-

ing in the rafters of Allen

Fieldhouse.

‘‘He was one of a kind,’’ said

former basketball coach Larry

Brown, who guided the Jay-

hawks to the 1988 national ti-

tle. ‘‘When I got the job at Kan-

sas, coach (Dean) Smith told

me about all the great people

at KU, the love they had for the

school and for basketball.

When you talk about those

great people, and everyone

connected with all that tradi-

tion, Max is one of the first

people you think about.’’

Mr. Falkenstien, whose fa-

ther worked for Kansas Athlet-

ics for 33 years, was born and

raised in Lawrence and enlist-

ed in the Army Air Corps after

high school. He earned a

mathematics degree from Kan-

sas in 1948, a full two years af-

ter he was on the microphone

for his first basketball game.

Mr. Falkenstien also did TV

play-by-play commentary for

the Big Eight’s basketball

game of the week in the 1960s

and ‘70s, and for three decades

he hosted football and basket-

ball coaches’ shows for every-

one from Pepper Rodgers and

Mike Gottfried to Ted Owens

and Roy Williams.

‘‘Just the mention of his

name will always make me

smile,’’ Williams said.

His last football broadcast

came in 2005, the Jayhawks’

win over Houston in the Fort

Worth Bowl, and his final bas-

ketball broadcast came on

March 17, 2006, when Bradley

upset Kansas in the first round

of the NCAA Tournament.

Over those 60 years, Mr. Falk-

enstien’s downhome voice

broadcast games featuring the

likes of Gale Sayers and John

Riggins, Wilt Chamberlain and

Danny Manning.

Mr. Falkenstien continued

to sit courtside for home bas-

ketball games for many more

years.

‘‘His personal touch made

every fan, player, coach, and

administrator feel like they

were part of the KU family,’’

Self said. ‘‘I hope Max realized

the positive impact he had on

KU and everyone connected

with it. He’ll be missed but his

legacy will never be forgotten.’’

Mr. Falkenstien leaves his

wife of 70 years, Isobel, a son,

Kurt, a daughter, Jane, three

grandchildren, and five great-

grandchildren.

MaxFalkenstien,95,radiobroadcasterand‘VoiceoftheJayhawks’for60years