Melvin Schwartz

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Melvin Schwartz

Melvin Schwartz Born: 2-Nov-1932
Birthplace: New York City
Died: 28-Aug-2006
Location of death: Ketchum, ID
Cause of death: Hepatitis [1]

Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Researcher of neutrinos

American physicist Melvin Schwartz studied under Isidor Isaac Rabi at Columbia University, and suggested in the 1950s that physicists could more easily study neutrinos (elementary particles with zero electric charge and virtually no mass) if these difficult-to-isolate submicroscopic particles were concentrated. His experiments led to the design and construction of devices capable of filtering out other atomic debris, leaving only neutrinos. Using such a device, the proton accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Schwartz and his colleagues Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger discovered the muon neutrino in a series of "two neutrino experiments" from 1961-62. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988, and retired to Idaho in 1997, where he died in 2006.

[1] Parkinson’s disease complicated by hepatitis C, according to news reports at the time, though Parkinson’s is not a fatal disease.

Brother: Bernard Schwartz
Wife: Marilyn (one son, two daughters)
Son: David Schwartz
Daughter: Diana Schwartz Bodell
Daughter: Betty Schwartz Marcon

High School: Bronx High School of Science, Bronx, NY (1949)
University: BS, Columbia University (1953)
University: PhD Physics, Columbia University (1958)
Teacher: Physics, Columbia University (1958-63)
Professor: Physics, Columbia University (1963-66)
Professor: Physics, Stanford University (1966-83)
Professor: Physics, Columbia University (1991-94)
Professor: I. I. Rabi Professor of Physics, Columbia University (1994-97)

APS Howard Hughes Prize 1964
Nobel Prize for Physics 1988 (with Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger)
Alexander Hamilton Medal 1995
Brookhaven National Laboratory Researcher (1991-97)
Digital Pathways Founder and CEO (1979-91)
Hienergy Technologies Scientific Advisory Board
OptiMEMS Scientific Advisory Board
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, 1959-63
American Physical Society
Guggenheim Fellowship 1966-67
National Academy of Sciences
National Science Foundation Fellowship, 1953-56
Quincy Ward Boese Fellowship 1954-55
Risk Factors: Hepatitis C, Parkinson's

Author of books:
The Neurtinos (1964, physics)

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