Jerome Isaac Friedman | |
---|---|
Born | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | March 28, 1930
Alma mater | University of Chicago |
Known for | Experimental proof of quarks |
Spouse | Tania Letetsky-Baranovsky (m. 1956; 4 children) [1] |
Awards | President's Medal of the IOP (2000) Nobel Prize in Physics (1990) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | MIT |
Doctoral advisor | Enrico Fermi |
Jerome Isaac Friedman (born March 28, 1930) is an American physicist. He is institute professor and professor of physics, emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Henry Kendall and Richard Taylor, "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics.", [2] work which showed an internal structure for protons later known to be quarks. Friedman sits on the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists .
Born in Chicago, Illinois to Lillian (née Warsaw) and Selig Friedman, a sewing machine salesman, Friedman's Jewish [3] parents emigrated to the U.S. from Russia. Jerome Friedman excelled in art but became interested in physics after reading a book on relativity written by Albert Einstein. He turned down a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago in order to study physics at the University of Chicago. Whilst there he worked under Enrico Fermi, and eventually received his Ph.D. in physics in 1956. In 1960, he joined the physics faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1968–69, commuting between MIT and California, he conducted experiments with Henry W. Kendall and Richard E. Taylor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center which gave the first experimental evidence that protons had an internal structure, later known to be quarks. For this, Friedman, Kendall and Taylor shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is an institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Friedman is also a member of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists . [4]
In 2003, he was one of 22 Nobel laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto. [5] He is an atheist. [6]
Friedman is one of the 20 American recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics to sign a letter addressed to President George W. Bush in May 2008, urging him to "reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill" by requesting additional emergency funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. [7]
Prof Friedman appeared on an episode of Da Ali G Show, where Sacha Baron Cohen interviews Jerome as a fictional character called Ali G. [8]
Robert Hofstadter was an American physicist. He was the joint winner of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his consequent discoveries concerning the structure of nucleons".
The up quark or u quark is the lightest of all quarks, a type of elementary particle, and a significant constituent of matter. It, along with the down quark, forms the neutrons and protons of atomic nuclei. It is part of the first generation of matter, has an electric charge of +2/3 e and a bare mass of 2.2+0.5
−0.4 MeV/c2. Like all quarks, the up quark is an elementary fermion with spin 1/2, and experiences all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. The antiparticle of the up quark is the up antiquark, which differs from it only in that some of its properties, such as charge have equal magnitude but opposite sign.
The down quark is a type of elementary particle, and a major constituent of matter. The down quark is the second-lightest of all quarks, and combines with other quarks to form composite particles called hadrons. Down quarks are most commonly found in atomic nuclei, where it combines with up quarks to form protons and neutrons. The proton is made of one down quark with two up quarks, and the neutron is made up of two down quarks with one up quark. Because they are found in every single known atom, down quarks are present in all everyday matter that we interact with.
Burton Richter was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by Samuel Ting for which they won Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976. This discovery was part of the November Revolution of particle physics. He was the SLAC director from 1984 to 1999.
Sheldon Lee Glashow is a Nobel Prize-winning American theoretical physicist. He is the Metcalf Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Boston University and Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, emeritus, at Harvard University, and is a member of the board of sponsors for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr. was an American physicist who was awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of the separated oscillatory field method, which had important applications in the construction of atomic clocks. A physics professor at Harvard University for most of his career, Ramsey also held several posts with such government and international agencies as NATO and the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Among his other accomplishments are helping to found the United States Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab.
Clifford Glenwood Shull was an American physicist.
William Daniel Phillips is an American physicist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1997, with Steven Chu and Claude Cohen-Tannoudji.
David Jonathan Gross is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. Gross is the Chancellor's Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) of the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and was formerly the KITP director and holder of their Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics. He is also a faculty member in the UCSB Physics Department and is affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California. He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Jack Steinberger was a German-born American physicist noted for his work with neutrinos, the subatomic particles considered to be elementary constituents of matter. He was a recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Leon M. Lederman and Melvin Schwartz, for the discovery of the muon neutrino. Through his career as an experimental particle physicist, he held positions at the University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University (1950–68), and the CERN (1968–86). He was also a recipient of the United States National Medal of Science in 1988, and the Matteucci Medal from the Italian Academy of Sciences in 1990.
Martin Lewis Perl was an American chemical engineer and physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 for his discovery of the tau lepton.
Henry Way Kendall was an American particle physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990 jointly with Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics."
In particle physics, deep inelastic scattering is the name given to a process used to probe the insides of hadrons, using electrons, muons and neutrinos. It was first attempted in the 1960s and 1970s and provided the first convincing evidence of the reality of quarks, which up until that point had been considered by many to be a purely mathematical phenomenon. It is an extension of Rutherford scattering to much higher energies of the scattering particle and thus to much finer resolution of the components of the nuclei.
Electron scattering occurs when electrons are displaced from their original trajectory. This is due to the electrostatic forces within matter interaction or, if an external magnetic field is present, the electron may be deflected by the Lorentz force. This scattering typically happens with solids such as metals, semiconductors and insulators; and is a limiting factor in integrated circuits and transistors.
The MIT Department of Physics has over 120 faculty members, is often cited as the largest physics department in the United States, and hosts top-ranked programs. It offers the SB, SM, PhD, and ScD degrees. Fourteen alumni of the department and nine current or former faculty members have won the Nobel Prize in Physics.The Department of Physics was born when MIT founder William Barton Rogers proposed in 1865 to bring our Mens et Manus philosophy to life by creating a new laboratory of physics and mechanics in another department’s back room.
Kurt Gottfried was an Austrian-born American physicist who was professor emeritus of physics at Cornell University. He was known for his work in the areas of quantum mechanics and particle physics and was also a co-founder with Henry Way Kendall of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He wrote extensively in the areas of physics and arms control.
Arie Bodek is an American experimental particle physicist and the George E. Pake Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester.
Richard Edward Taylor,, was a Canadian physicist and Stanford University professor. He shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics with Jerome Friedman and Henry Kendall "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics."
Sow-Hsin Chen, was a Hoklo Taiwanese physicist and Professor Emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was a recognized pioneer in the research of the dynamic properties of supercooled and interfacial water with the use of neutron scattering techniques. As an educator, he was recognized for his training of young scientists in the use of those same techniques. Regarding hydrogen storage, his research focused on the use of activated carbon to allow hydrogen to be stored at room temperature.
Martin Breidenbach is an American professor of particle physics and astrophysics, emeritus, at Stanford University. His research interests have included e+e- colliding beam physics, detector optimization, and electromagnetic calorimeters.