• Pioneered the mathematical and physical basis for self-focusing lasers, which are important in nonlinear optical devices and laser fusion.
• Built his own harpsichord and taught himself to play it and the piano.
• "He has such an outgoing and patient personality that graduate students wanted to work with him, even on difficult quantum electronic topics," says Larry G. DeShazer, who received tenure at the University of Southern California based on an experimental problem suggested by Marburger.

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JOHN H. MARBURGER III: SCIENCE ADVISER

Pioneered the mathematical and physical basis for self-focusing lasers, which are important in nonlinear optical devices and laser fusion. Built his own harpsichord and taught himself to play it and the piano. "He has such an outgoing and patient personality that graduate students wanted to work with him, even on difficult quantum electronic topics," says Larry G. DeShazer, who received tenure at the University of Southern California based on an experimental problem suggested by Marburger.

Image: TOM WOLFF

A corner office on the fifth floor of a nondescript building a few blocks from the White House is adorned with large photographs of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on one wall and an illustration of an American flag on another. Almost nothing decorative conveys the impression that this is the office of the president's science adviser--no scale models of space shuttles, no plastic double helices. Not even a plaster bust of Einstein.

But on a small wooden table in the middle of the room sits an object that resembles a modernist sculpture--or the structural framework of a new Frank Gehry museum. Asked about the object, John H. ("Jack") Marburger III lights up. "The thing that's interesting about it is how nonintuitive the shapes are," he marvels. It is a collection of electromagnetic coils for a proposed fusion generator, and the twisted rings do not form the symmetric ovals expected in a series of coils. "No draftsman would ever come up with a design like that for an electromagnetic machine," he adds.

This article was originally published with the title Man of Two Cultures.

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