Ivar Giaever

Ivar Giaever (/ˈjeɪvər/ YAY-ver;^[1] Norwegian: Ivar Giæver, pronounced [ˈîːvɑr ˈjæːvər]; April 5, 1929 – June 20, 2025) was a Norwegian-American physicist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leo Esaki and Brian Josephson. One half of the prize was awarded jointly to Esaki and Giaever "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively".^[2]

Ivar Giaever
Giaever in 2005
Born	Ivar Giæver (1929-04-05)April 5, 1929 Bergen, Hordaland, Norway
Died	June 20, 2025(2025-06-20) (aged 96) Schenectady, New York, US
Citizenship	Norway United States (1964–2025)
Alma mater	Norwegian Institute of Technology (MEng) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (PhD) University of Cambridge
Known for	Discovering tunneling in superconductors (1960)
Spouse	Inger Skramstad ​ ​ (m. 1952; died 2023)​
Children	4
Awards	Oliver E. Buckley Prize (1965) Nobel Prize in Physics (1973)
Scientific career
Fields	Condensed matter physics Biophysics
Institutions	GE Canada (1954–1958) General Electric Research Laboratory (1958–1988) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (from 1988) University of Oslo (from 1988)

Education and career

Giaever earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim in 1952. In 1954, he emigrated from Norway to Canada, where he was employed by the Canadian division of General Electric. He moved to the United States four years later, joining General Electric's Corporate Research and Development Center in Schenectady, New York, in 1958. He lived in Niskayuna, New York, since then, taking up US citizenship in 1964. While working for General Electric, Giaever earned a Ph.D. degree at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1964. In 1988, he left General Electric to become a professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also became a professor at the University of Oslo, sponsored by Statoil.^[3]

Giaever's research later in his career was mainly in the field of biophysics. In 1969, he studied biophysics for a year at the University of Cambridge through a Guggenheim Fellowship. He continued to work in this area after he returned to the US, founding the company Applied BioPhysics, Inc. in 1993.^[3][4]

The Nobel Prize

The work that led to Giaever's Nobel Prize was performed at General Electric in 1960. Following on Esaki's discovery of electron tunnelling in semiconductors in 1958, Giaever showed that tunnelling also took place in superconductors, demonstrating tunnelling through a very thin layer of oxide surrounded on both sides by metal in a superconducting or normal state.^[5] Giaever's experiments demonstrated the existence of an energy gap in superconductors, one of the most important predictions of the BCS theory of superconductivity, which had been developed in 1957.^[6] Giaever's experimental demonstration of tunnelling in superconductors stimulated the theoretical physicist Brian Josephson to work on the phenomenon, leading to his prediction of the Josephson effect in 1962. Esaki and Giaever shared half of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Josephson received the other half.^[7]

He had co-signed a letter from over 70 Nobel laureate scientists to the Louisiana State Legislature supporting the repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act.^[8]

Other prizes

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Giaever was also awarded the Oliver E. Buckley Prize by the American Physical Society in 1965, the Golden Plate Award by the American Academy of Achievement in 1966,^[9] and the Zworykin Award by the National Academy of Engineering in 1974.^[10]

In 1985, he was awarded an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, later part of Norwegian University of Science and Technology.^[11]

He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.^[12]

Global warming

Giaever was a climate change denier, who has fueled doubt on climate change,^[13] for example calling it a "new religion". However, he had presented no strong evidence to support this position.^[14] On 13 September 2011, he resigned from the American Physical Society after the organization called the evidence of damaging global warming "incontrovertible".^[15]

Giaever was a science advisor with American conservative and libertarian think tank The Heartland Institute.^[16]

Personal life and death

Giaever was married to his childhood sweetheart Inger (née Skramstad) from 1952 until her death on September 12, 2023, at the age of 94.^[17] They had four children.

Giaever was an atheist.^[18]

Giaever died on June 20, 2025, at the age of 96.^[19]

Selected publications

• Giaever, Ivar (1960). "Energy Gap in Superconductors Measured by Electron Tunneling". Physical Review Letters. 5 (4): 147. Bibcode:1960PhRvL...5..147G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.5.147.
• Giaever, Ivar (1960). "Electron Tunneling Between Two Superconductors". Physical Review Letters. 5 (10): 464. Bibcode:1960PhRvL...5..464G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.5.464.
• Giaever, Ivar (1974). "Electron tunneling and superconductivity". Reviews of Modern Physics. 46 (2): 245. Bibcode:1974RvMP...46..245G. doi:10.1103/RevModPhys.46.245.
• Giaever, Ivar (2016). "I Am The Smartest Man I Know": A Nobel Laureate's Difficult Journey, World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-3109-17-9.