Sheldon Datz was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, son of Clara and Jacob Datz. He went to Stuyvesant High School

Stuyvesant High School

Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...

 and received degrees in Chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 and University of Tennessee

University of Tennessee

The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...

. He did early work inventing the molecular beam technique with Dr. Ellison Taylor which later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...

 for Dudley R. Herschbach

Dudley R. Herschbach

Dudley Robert Herschbach is an American chemist at Harvard University. He won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C...

, Yuan T. Lee

Yuan T. Lee

Yuan Tseh Lee, Ph.D. is a chemist. He was the first Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate, who, along with the Hungarian-Canadian John C. Polanyi and American Dudley R. Herschbach won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1986 "for their contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"...

 and John Charles Polanyi

John Charles Polanyi

John Charles Polanyi, PC, CC, FRSC, O.Ont, FRS, born January 23, 1929) is a Canadian chemist who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for his research in chemical kinetics. Polanyi was educated at Manchester University, and did postdoctoral research at the National Research Council in Canada and...

. He shared the Fermi Award in 2000 with Sidney Drell

Sidney Drell

Sidney David Drell is an American theoretical physicist and arms control expert. He is a professor emeritus at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Drell is a noted contributor in the field of quantum electrodynamics and particle...

 and Herbert York

Herbert York

Herbert Frank York was an American nuclear physicist. He held numerous research and administrative positions at various United States government and educational institutes.-Biography:...

.

He served in the Navy and moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...

, upon the opening of federal nuclear facilities there after the Second World War. He was married to Jonna Holm Datz and was the father of two children.

External links

• AIPS obituary (Subscription required)