Kenneth Case

Kenneth Myron Case (September 23, 1923 – February 1, 2006) was an American physicist and applied mathematician, best known for his use of the mathematical methods of quantum field theory (as developed in the 1940s) and transport theory (in part from the Manhattan Project) to a wide range of applied problems, especially many relevant to U.S. national security. He was an early member of the JASON advisory group.

Early life and education Case was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Manhattan. His father was a successful businessman who owned a paint manufacturing company. His mother was from an affluent family of German-Austrian Jews. Case, under the original family name Cassoff, attended the Ethical Culture School and then Fieldston. When he was in high school, his parents changed the family name to Case in the belief that this would improve their son's prospects. Ken was accepted for undergraduate studies at Harvard and matriculated in 1941, exempted from the World War II draft by extreme nearsightedness. that was subsequently cited more than 500 times.

Case's changed academic affiliations in 1969, when he moved to Rockefeller University in an arrangement that also made him a frequent presence in Princeton at IAS. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975.

Retirement and death He retired from Rockefeller in 1988 and, with his wife Pat, moved to La Jolla, California, where he held an adjunct faculty position at UCSD until his death in 2006 at age 82.