In 1951–53, Ruderman worked at Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory. He became an assistant professor at UC Berkeley in 1953, rising by 1964 to the rank of full professor. He moved to New York University in 1964, and to Columbia University in 1969, becoming Centennial Professor in 1980. Ruderman served as chair of the Department of Physics at Columbia in 1973–75.[2]
With Charles Kittel in 1954, Ruderman discovered the RKKY interaction for nuclear magnetic moments in certain metals (independently developed by Kasuya and Yosida, hence its name). His later research interests in astrophysics include collapsed objects in astrophysics, neutron stars, and gamma ray emission.[2]
In the early 1960s, Ruderman was a member of the committee that conceived the Berkeley Physics Course. He developed the first draft of the first volume, Mechanics, for use at Berkeley in 1963. With Charles Kittel and Walter D. Knight, he was co-author of the final published volume.[4]
In 1969, Ruderman and (independently) Gordon Baym, Christopher Pethick, and David Pines, were the first to propose that discontinuous slowings observed in neutron stars, so called starquakes, were due to the cracking of the star's solid crust, under increasing stress due to the gradual slowdown of the pulsar.[5] Ruderman died on July 20, 2024, at the age of 97.[6]
^Columbia College (Columbia University). Office of Alumni Affairs and Development; Columbia College (Columbia University) (1974–1977). Columbia College today. Columbia University Libraries. New York, New York. : Columbia College, Office of Alumni Affairs and Development.
