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Leon M. Lederman

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Scientist

The Resume

    (July 15, 1922-October 3, 2018)
    Born in The Bronx, New York
    Professor of Physics at Columbia (1958-79)
    Director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (1978-89)
    Founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Institute (1986)
    Headed teams that discovered the neutral K-meson (1956) muon neutrino (1962) and bottom quark (1977)
    Awarded the National Medal of Science (1965)
    Co-recipient (with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger) of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1977)

Why he might be annoying:

    He announced the discovery of a new subatomic particle, the upsilon meson (1976); when further research indicated that the particle did not exist, it was punningly dubbed the 'oops-Leon' meson.
    He was one of the main backers of the superconducting supercollider, which was cancelled by Congress after $2 billion had been spent.
    As an atheist, he came to regret popularizing 'the God particle' as a nickname for the Higgs boson.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He served in the US Army Signal Corps during World War II.
    He enjoyed teaching introductory physics to non-science majors.
    A colleague called him 'The best ambassador of physics to the general public since Einstein.'
    He quipped, 'Physics is not religion. If it were, we would have a much easier time raising money.'

Credit: C. Fishel


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