Editing John Bardeen (section)

==Education and early life==
Bardeen was born in [[Madison, Wisconsin]], on May 23, 1908.<ref name="Biography of John Bardeen">{{cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1956/bardeen-bio.html |title=Biography of John Bardeen |access-date=November 1, 2007 |publisher=The Nobel Foundation }}</ref> He was the son of [[Charles Russell Bardeen|Charles Bardeen]], the first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School.

Bardeen attended [[University of Wisconsin High School]] in Madison. He graduated from the school in 1923 at age 15.<ref name="Biography of John Bardeen"/> He could have graduated several years earlier, but this was postponed because he took courses at another high school and because of his mother's death. Bardeen entered the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin]] in 1923. While in college, he joined the [[Zeta Psi]] fraternity. He raised a part of the needed membership fees by playing billiards. Bardeen was initiated as a member of [[Tau Beta Pi]] engineering honor society. Not wanting to be an academic like his father, Bardeen chose engineering. He also felt that engineering had good job prospects.<ref name="John Bardeen 1">{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/bardeen/index.html |title=Biography of John Bardeen 1 |access-date=December 24, 2007 |publisher=PBS}}</ref>

Bardeen received his [[Bachelor of Science]] degree in [[electrical engineering]] in 1928 from the University of Wisconsin.<ref name="CV of Bardeen">{{cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1972/bardeen-cv.html |title=Curriculum Vitae of John Bardeen| access-date=November 1, 2007 |publisher = The Nobel Foundation }}</ref> Despite taking a year off to work in Chicago, he graduated in 1928.<ref name="genius in action">{{cite web |url=http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/17406 |title=John Bardeen: genius in action |access-date=January 7, 2008 |author=David Pines |date=May 1, 2003 |publisher=physicsworld.com |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071020192456/http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/17406 <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = October 20, 2007}}</ref> Taking all the graduate courses in physics and mathematics that had interested him, Bardeen graduated in five years instead of the usual four. This allowed him time to complete his master's thesis, supervised by Leo J. Peters. He received his [[Master of Science]] degree in electrical engineering in 1929 from Wisconsin.<ref name=mathgene/><ref name="CV of Bardeen"/>

Bardeen furthered his studies by staying on at Wisconsin, but he eventually went to work for [[University of Pittsburgh Applied Research Center|Gulf Research Laboratories]], the research arm of the [[Gulf Oil]] Corporation that was based in [[Pittsburgh]].<ref name="washpost"/> From 1930 to 1933, Bardeen worked there on the development of methods for the interpretation of magnetic and gravitational surveys.<ref name="Biography of John Bardeen"/> He worked as a geophysicist. After the work failed to keep his interest, he applied and was accepted to the graduate program in mathematics at [[Princeton University]].<ref name="John Bardeen 1"/>

As a graduate student, Bardeen studied mathematics and physics. Under physicist [[Eugene Wigner]], he wrote his [[thesis]] on a problem in [[solid-state physics]]. Before completing his thesis, he was offered a position as junior fellow of the [[Harvard Society of Fellows|Society of Fellows at Harvard University]] in 1935. He spent the next three years there, from 1935 to 1938, working with to-be [[List of Nobel laureates in Physics|Nobel laureates in physics]] [[John Hasbrouck van Vleck]] and [[Percy Williams Bridgman]] on problems in cohesion and electrical conduction in metals,and also did some work on level density of nuclei. He received his [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in [[mathematical physics]] from Princeton in 1936.<ref name="Biography of John Bardeen"/>