Born: December 29, 1915 (Miskolz, Austria-Hungary), Candidate Lax got his degree in mechanical engineering from Cooper Union. After Cooper Union he transferred to Brown University, in 1942, where he began earning a PhD in applied math. It was at this time that he received his draft notice into the Army.

A self-directed individual, while born in a foreign country which generally would have disqualified him for OCS, Candidate Lax managed to get himself into the Signal Corps, and from there into Army Signal OCS, and from there into radio school. Once he received his commission he was assigned as a military math teacher, after which he was subsequently assigned to radar school, until eventually he was reassigned on extended detached duty to the MIT Radar Lab. He worked there from March 1944 on to the end of the war, essentially on the L’il Abner radar, AN/TPS-10, an X-band height-finder radar system. Overseeing nearly the entire project, he went from building a breadboard model to integrating the various parts and demonstrating it for the military. It's success was impressive, and in November 1944 L’il Abner was quickly put into production. By the time the Battle of Okinawa got underway the system was already in the field and being used. Seen by the distance of time, it is clear that Lieutenant Lax's interesting military career revolved around his essentially acting as a civilian scientist in uniform, an inspired choice on the part of the Army for a Signal OCS graduate.

After the war, as a civilian again, Benjamin Lax returned to school one more time, this time to obtain his PhD in Physics from MIT. Upon completing his degree he went on to a career largely involved in solid-state physics.

Education

1941: BS, Cooper Union (Mechanical Engineering)

1949: PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Physics)

Major Positions

1946–1951: United States Air Force, Researcher, Cambridge Research Center

1951–1953: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Researcher, Lincoln Laboratory

1953–1955: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head, Ferrites Group, Lincoln Laboratory

1955–1957: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head, Solid State Group, Lincoln Laboratory

1957–1958: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Associate Head, Communications Division, Lincoln Laboratory

1958–1964: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Head, Solid State Division, Lincoln Laboratory

1964–1965: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Associate Director, Lincoln Laboratory

1965–1986: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor of Physics

1986–present: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Emeritus of Physics

Other Positions

1944–1946: MIT Radiation Laboratory, Researcher

1960–1981: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director, Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory

1981–present: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Director Emeritus and Physicist, Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory

Selected Part-Time Positions

1963–1967: Member, Council, American Physical Society

1964–1981: Member, IEEE-APS-OSA Joint Council on Quantum Electronics

1966–1968: Chair, IEEE-APS-OSA Joint Council on Quantum Electronics

1970–1981: Member, Solid State Science Panel, National Research Council

Selected Awards and Honors

1960: American Physical Society, Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize

1969: National Academy of Sciences, Member

Archival Resources

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Oral History Interviews

1986: Available Online -

1991: Available Online -