César Lattes

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César Lattes
University of São Paulo
Known forDiscovery of the pion
SpouseMartha Lattes
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions

Cesare Mansueto Giulio Lattes (11 July 1924 – 8 March 2005), also known as César Lattes, was a Brazilian experimental physicist, one of the discoverers of the pion, a composite subatomic particle made of a quark and an antiquark.

Life

Lattes was born to a family of Italian

Marcelo Damy de Souza Santos and Jayme Tiomno. At the age of 25, he was one of the founders of the Brazilian Center for Physical Research (Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas) in Rio de Janeiro
.

From 1946 to 1948, Lattes launched on his main research line by studying

photographic plates to register the rays, and reveal more 'pion decay events'. A year later, working with Eugene H. Gardner (1913-1950[1]) at UC Berkeley, Lattes was able to detect the artificial production of pions in the lab's cyclotron, by bombarding carbon atoms with alpha particles
. He was just 24 years old.

In 1949, Lattes returned as a professor and researcher with the

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian Center for Physical Research. After another brief stay in the United States
(from 1955 to 1957), he returned to Brazil and accepted a position at his alma mater, the Department of Physics of the University of São Paulo.

In 1967, Lattes accepted a position of full professor with the new "Gleb Wataghin" Institute of Physics at the

High Energies and Leptons. In 1969, he and his group discovered the mass of the so-called fireballs, a phenomenon induced by naturally occurring high-energy collisions, and which was detected by means of special lead
-chamber nuclear emulsion plates invented by him, and placed at the Chacaltaya peak of the Bolivian Andes.

Lattes retired in 1986, when he received from the Unicamp the titles of doctor

professor emeritus. After retirement he continued to live in a house in the suburban area very near to the University's campus. He died of a heart attack on March 8, 2005 in Campinas, São Paulo
.

Legacy

Lattes is one of the most distinguished and honored Brazilian physicists, and his work was fundamental for the development of atomic physics. He was also a great scientific leader of Brazilian Physics and was one of the main personalities behind the creation of the important

Brazilian National Research Council (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico). Due to his contribution in this process, the Brazilian national science data-base, Lattes Platform
was named after him.

He figures as one of the few Brazilian scientists in the

UNICAMP
decided to give his name to the central library.

Quote

"Science should be universal, without a doubt. However, one should not believe unconditionally in this."

Culture

Gilberto Gil's Grammy-winning 1998 album Quanta includes a song dedicated to Lattes, called "Ciência e Arte".

References

  1. doi:10.1063/1.3067133
    .
  2. ^ "Prizes and Awards". The World Academy of Sciences. 2016.

Bibliography

Further reading

External links
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