The Innerspace/Outerspace Connection: History and Progress Report
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Former faculty member at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, former director of Nevis Laboratory and Fermilab, Leon M. Lederman is Pritzker Professor of Science, Illinois Institute of Technology, and science advisor to the governor of Illinois. Born and bred in New York City, Lederman received his B.A. from City College in 1943, majoring in chemistry with a minor in physics, and (after a stint in the U.S. Army) his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University in 1951. Lederman spent the next twenty-eight years at Columbia, directing Columbia's Nevis Labs from 1961 to 1978, and doing research there and elsewhere around the world. He became the second director of Fermilab (Chicago) in 1979. In 1989 he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, and is now at IIT.
In 1983 he received the Wolf Prize, and in 1988 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Mel Schwartz (Distinguished Science Lecturer, September 26, 1992) and Jack Steinberger. His work: With over two hundred research papers to his credit, Dr. Lederman is perhaps best known for his discovery of the B-quark (Wolf Prize) and the muon neutrino (Nobel Prize). Increasingly he has dealt with the more administrative aspects of high energy physics in particular and science in general. He was initiator and founding member of the governmental High Energy Physics Advisory Panel. During his term a director of Fermilab, the TEVATRON (the first superconducting synchrotron) was constructed and the SSC (the superconducting supercollider) was proposed. He has recently served as chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was founding trustee of a· residential public school for gifted children, and co-chairman of the board of a teacher's academy. Finally, he has worked for investment in science and technology enterprises in Illinois.
(Text taken from the Distinguished Scientist Lecture Series Program 1993-1994).
Keywords
physics
Creation Date
February 26, 1994
Recommended Citation
Lederman, Leon M., "The Innerspace/Outerspace Connection: History and Progress Report" (1994). DSLS 1993-1994. 5.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/dsls_1993_1994/5