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Robert Curtis Retherford (1912–1981) was an American physicist. He was a graduate student of Willis Lamb at Columbia Radiation Laboratory. Retherford and Lamb performed the famous experiment (now known as the Lamb–Retherford experiment) revealing Lamb shift in the fine structure of hydrogen, a decisive experimental step toward a new understanding of quantum electrodynamics.

See also

• Quantum electrodynamics
• Lamb shift

References

1. Lamb, Jr, W. E.; Retherford, R. C. (1947). "Fine Structure of the Hydrogen Atom by a Microwave Method". Physical Review. 72 (3): 241–243. Bibcode:1947PhRv...72..241R. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.72.241.
2. Schweber, Silvan (1994). "Chapter 5". QED and the Men Who Did it: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga. Princeton University Press. p. 215. ISBN 978-0691033273.

• 20th-century American physicists
• 1912 births
• 1981 deaths
• Columbia University alumni