Hofstadter

American  

[hof-stat-er, -stah-ter] / ˈhɒfˌstæt ər, -ˌstɑ tər /

noun

1. Richard, 1916–70, U.S. historian.

2. Robert, 1915–90, U.S. physicist: Nobel Prize 1961.

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Hofstadter Scientific  

/ hŏf′stăt′ər /

1. American physicist who determined the inner structure of protons and neutrons (1948) and in 1961 shared with German physicist Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer the 1961 Nobel Prize for physics.

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Example Sentences

On the CBS sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," characters Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter wrestled with the same idea across three episodes in Season 5.

From Science Daily • Dec. 28, 2025

Ambigrams are the product of tweaking and iteration, the details of which Mr. Hofstadter narrates in detail.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025

By the time Hofstadter wrote that, the Red Scare had subsided, its loudest voices pushed to the fringe of U.S. politics.

From Slate • Mar. 17, 2025

In 1991 Douglas Hofstadter, the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach, organized scientists to write letters to the Nobel Committee recommending Wu for the physics prize.

From Scientific American • Mar. 16, 2023

There’s something to this, of course, but Martin Gardner, Douglas Hofstadter, and Raymond Smullyan are three obvious counter-examples.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos