When his interests veered more toward theoretical than
applied physics, Bardeen decided to leave his secure job
with Gulf Oil and enter the doctoral program in mathematics
at Princeton University, to which many eminent
German-Jewish mathematicians and physicists, including
Albert Einstein, had flocked in an effort to escape
Nazi Germany. He completed his doctorate in mathematical
physics there in 1936, doing much of his research under
his major professor, E. P. Wigner, who supervised
the work of many students who later became some of the
world’s most celebrated figures in solid-state physics.