American physicist Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. (born 1915) was both an experimentalist and theoretician, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the separated-oscillatory-field method and its use in the hydrogen maser.

Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr., was born in Washington, D.C., on August 27, 1915. His father, a West Point graduate, was an officer in the Army Ordnance Corps, and, as is characteristic of life in the military, the Ramsey family moved frequently from place to place. Norman, a gifted student, benefited from these moves as he was twice advanced a grade when he enrolled in a new school. As a high school student in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Ramsey became interested in science and won a scholarship to the University of Kansas; however, his father was transferred to Governor's Island, New York, so Ramsey entered Columbia University at age 16 and graduated in 1935 with a Bachelor of...