Julian Schwinger - Biography

Biography

Julian Seymour Schwinger was born in New York City, to a Polish Jewish family, who had immigrated to America. Both his father and his mother's parents were prosperous clothing manufacturers, although the family business declined after the 1929 Wall Street Crash. The family followed the Orthodox Jewish tradition. He attended Townsend Harris High School and then the City College of New York as an undergraduate before transferring to Columbia University, where he received his B.A. in 1936 and his Ph.D. (overseen by I.I. Rabi) in 1939 at the age of 21. He worked at the University of California, Berkeley (under J. Robert Oppenheimer), and was later appointed to a position at Purdue University.