Leon Lederman (1922-2018) Physicist Who Expanded the Family Tree of Fundamental Particles

OBITUARY COMMENT Leon Lederman (1922-2018) Physicist who expanded the family tree of fundamental particles. eon Max Lederman’s stunning From 1982, Lederman championed the discoveries, leadership and advo- most ambitious accelerator project ever — cacy laid the foundations for particle the Superconducting Super Collider. But in Lphysics today. His discovery of the muon 1993, with construction already under way, neutrino established that there was more Congress cancelled the project during tight- than one type of neutrino. His observation budget years. The torch was passed to the of muon decay knocked down a pillar theory Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe’s about symmetry in one of the fundamen- particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, tal forces. His discovery of the long-lived Switzerland. Here, the Higgs boson was neutral kaon meson helped to home in on discovered — its popular name in the press, one of the great mysteries of physics. And the ‘God Particle’, was taken from the 1993 his discovery of bottom quarks — subatomic popular-science book Lederman co-wrote particles that make up neutrons and protons with Dick Teresi, The God Particle: If the — led researchers to uncover a third family Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? of quarks. Lederman leaves a lasting educational Self-effacing, approachable and imagina- legacy. As director of Fermilab, he intro- tive, Lederman was a consummate joke-teller. duced Saturday Morning Physics, a ten-week KEVIN FLEMING/CORBIS/GETTY KEVIN FLEMING/CORBIS/GETTY “Physics is not religion,” he used to quip. “If it physics class for high-school students, which were, we would have a much easier time rais- is still popular more than three decades on. ing money.” He had good taste in research today be called a ‘beam dump’ experiment, He started the Friends of Fermilab, a school problems and a gift for recognizing con- the researchers aimed a powerful proton outreach effort that grew into the Lederman nections and opportunities. He was also a beam at a target, producing an abundance Science Center at Fermilab. He founded the charismatic communicator; in later years, he of every type of known particle. These were Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, focused on advancing science education. He absorbed by a wall of dense material. a residential, state-supported high school, died on 3 October in Rexburg, Idaho, aged 96. The experimenters examined the debris to and he championed the ‘Physics First’ high- Lederman was born on 15 July 1922 in see whether anything interesting emerged. It school science curriculum, which teaches New York City to Jewish parents who had did: the muon neutrino, the second neutrino foundational physics before chemistry and emigrated from Russia and who were keen family to be discovered. The surprising dis- biology. on education. Lederman grew up at a time covery indicated that fundamental particles His scientific legacy continues with when Jewish scientists were fleeing immi- come in pairs, and advanced the idea that ongoing efforts to explore the particles that nent war in Europe for the United States, and symmetry is intrinsic to nature’s building he discovered. The neutrino, perhaps the he was attracted to the excitement surround- blocks. For this work, the team shared the most ubiquitous particle in the Universe, is ing the twentieth-century physics revolution 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics. still one of the least understood. Its tiny mass of which many scientists were a part. Lederman conducted experiments and quirky interactions remain puzzles. He did his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at at high-energy accelerators around the Alongside enormous neutrino detectors the City College of New York in 1943. After world, and contributed to the founding of around the world, Fermilab is leading an three years of US Army service in Europe, he the 200-gigaelectronvolt Fermi National ambitious global effort to study muon neutri- earned his PhD in physics from Columbia Accelerator Laboratory (now Fermilab) in nos beamed from Chicago to South Dakota, University in New York City in 1951. Batavia, Illinois. to understand how they oscillate from one There, he spent three decades teaching and Indeed, Lederman made Fermilab’s first flavour to another. conducting experimental research as a faculty major discovery, the bottom quark, in 1977. Several nations built dedicated accelera- member. Nature was ripe for discovery, and In an elegant experiment, his team looked tors to explore the bottom quark in detail. clever experiments with particles accelerated for particles so rare that they would result This year, Japan commissioned an ambitious to the highest energies were expected to yield from maybe one in a hundred-trillion colli- new one at the KEK laboratory in Tsukuba, the biggest discoveries. sions between an intense proton beam and a for example. Measurements of rare, bottom- From his mentor at Columbia, Nobel- target. Lederman described the new, more- quark decays seem to be harbingers of new prizewinning physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi, sensitive set-up as being as enlightening as physics beyond the standard model. Lederman learnt to distinguish observation the first telescope. They saw a signal coming Lederman, among others, is also credited (a hint of something new) from measure- from a bottom–antibottom quark pair. They with merging the sciences of the very small ment (a more precise endeavour). Lederman named the signal upsilon, after the shape of and the very big — particle physics and became the master of both, with the crea- the decay-particle trajectories, which resem- cosmology. Since Lederman’s heyday, the tivity to devise unique experiments and the bled the Greek letter. study of subatomic particles has been used tenacity to follow through on them. Lederman was the second director of to probe the early Universe and its most Lederman’s most famous work was done Fermilab from 1979 to 1989. He led the energetic phenomena. ■ in 1962 at Brookhaven National Labora- rigorous design and early operation of the tory in Long Island, New York, with two of Tevatron Collider (1983–2011), which Nigel S. Lockyer is the director of Fermilab his Columbia University colleagues, Jack was the highest-energy proton–antiproton in Batavia, Illinois. Steinberger and Mel Schwartz. In what would collider in the world for nearly three decades. e-mail: [email protected] ©2018 Spri nger Nature Li mited. All ri ghts reserved8. NOVEMBER 2018 | VOL 563 | NATURE | 185 .

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