Leon M. Lederman

Infobox Scientist
name =Leon M. Lederman

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imagesize = 160px
birth_date = July 15, 1922 (age 86)
birth_place = New York
nationality = United States
field = Physics
known_for = Neutrinos, bottom quark
Awards = Nobel Prize in Physics, 1988

Leon Max Lederman (born July 15, 1922) is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work with neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998.

Career

Lederman received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1943, and received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1951. He then joined the Columbia faculty and eventually became Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. He took an extended leave of absence from Columbia in 1979 to become Fermilab's director. He resigned from Columbia and Fermilab in 1989 and taught briefly at the University of Chicago before moving to the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he currently serves as the Pritzker Professor of Science. In 1991, Lederman became President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Lederman is also one of the main proponents of the "Physics First" movement. Also known as "Right-side Up Science" and "Biology Last," this movement seeks to rearrange the current high school science curriculum so that physics precedes chemistry and biology.

A former president of the American Physical Society, Lederman also received the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize and the Ernest O. Lawrence Medal. Lederman serves as President of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He was called a "modern day Leonardo Da Vinci" by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

Among his achievements are the discovery of the muon neutrino in 1962 and the bottom quark in 1977. These helped establish his reputation as among the top particle physicists.

In 1988, Lederman received the Nobel Prize for Physics along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger for "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino". [ The Nobel Foundation. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1988/index.html . "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988." Retrieved 29.7.2008 ] Among the Nobel Prize and other honors, Lederman received the National Medal of Science (1965), the Cresson Medal for Physics (1976), the Wolf Prize for Physics (1982) and the Enrico Fermi Award (1993).

Personal Life

Lederman was born in New York to a family of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He has three children with his first wife, Florence Gordon, and now lives with his second wife, Ellen, in Batavia, Illinois. [ Lederman, Leon M. "Leon M. Lederman - Autobiography." http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1988/lederman-autobio.html Retrieved 29.7.2008. Published 1988, The Nobel Foundation. ]

Publications

* "" by Leon M. Lederman, Dick Teresi (ISBN 0-385-31211-3)
* "From Quarks to the Cosmos" by Leon Lederman and David N. Schramm (ISBN 0-7167-6012-6)
* "Portraits of Great American Scientists" Leon M. Lederman, et al (ISBN 1-57392-932-8)
* "Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe" Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill (ISBN 1-59102-242-8)

External links

* [http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/lederman.html Biography and Bibliographic Resources] , from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
* [http://www-ed.fnal.gov/samplers/hsphys/people/lederman.html Fermilab's Leon M. Lederman webpage]
* [http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1988/ The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988]
* [http://nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=411 Video Interview with Lederman from the Nobel Foundation]
* [http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1988/lederman-autobio.html Leon M. Lederman – Autobiography]
* [http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/leon_max_lederman.html Timeline of Nobel Prize Winners in Physics webpage for Leon Max Lederman]
* [http://www-ed.fnal.gov/lml/Leon_life.html "Story of Leon" by Leon Lederman]
* [http://www.honeywellscience.com Honeywell - Nobel Interactive Studio]
* [http://www.fi.edu/winners/1976/lederman_leon.faw?winner_id=3329 1976 Cresson Medal recipient] from The Franklin Institute.