Salpeter, Edwin Ernest (1924- )

Austrian-born Australian astronomer who worked in quantum electrodynamics and nuclear physics with German-born US physicist Hans Bethe. In 1951 Salpeter explained how the ‘triple-alpha’ reaction could make carbon from helium in stars. He then investigated the effects of nuclear physics on stellar evolution and derived the initial mass function (the rate of formation of stars of different mass in the Galaxy) from stellar evolution and the observed abundances of stars of different luminosities. He has also worked on the formation of dust grains and molecules in the interstellar medium. More recently he has been interested in polar caps on neutron stars, clusters of galaxies, and problems in biophysics and epidemiology.

Salpeter emigrated from Austria to Australia in his teens and received his BSc and MSc at the University of Sydney. He earned his PhD at the University of Birmingham in England and has been at Cornell University since 1948.