Val Logsdon Fitch
Val Logsdon Fitch | |
---|---|
CP-violation | |
Awards | E. O. Lawrence Award (1968) John Price Wetherill Medal (1976) Nobel Prize in Physics (1980) National Medal of Science (1993) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Particle physics |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Studies of X-rays from Mu-Mesonic Atoms (1954) |
Doctoral advisor | James Rainwater |
Val Logsdon Fitch (March 10, 1923 – February 5, 2015) was an American
Born on a cattle ranch near
Early life
Val Logsdon Fitch was born on a cattle ranch near Merriman, Nebraska, on March 10, 1923, the youngest of three children of Fred Fitch, a cattle rancher, and his wife Frances née Logsdon, a school teacher.[1] He had an older brother and sister.[2] The family farm was about 4 square miles (10 km2) in size.[1] The ranch was small; his father specialized in raising breeding stock.[3] Soon after his birth, his father was badly injured in a horse riding accident and could no longer work on his ranch, so the family moved to the nearby town of Gordon, Nebraska, where his father entered the insurance business.[1] Here he attended school,[1] graduating from Gordon High School in 1940 as valedictorian.[4][5]
Manhattan Project
Fitch attended
The Army sent Fitch to the Manhattan Project's
Academic career
His wartime experiences led Fitch to decide to become a physicist.
Fitch designed and built an experiment to measure the
In 1949, Fitch married Elise Cunningham, a secretary who worked in the laboratory at Columbia. They had two sons. Elise died in 1972, and in 1976 he married Daisy Harper Sharp, thereby acquiring two stepdaughters and a stepson.
Fitch conducted much of his research at the
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Fitch received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1968, the John Price Wetherill Medal in 1976 and the National Medal of Science in 1993.[4] He was a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the JASON defense advisory group.[16] He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1964[17] and a Member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966.[18][19] In 1981, Fitch became a founding member of the World Cultural Council[20] and received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[21] He was president of the American Physical Society from 1988 to 1989, and he served on a number of governmental science and science policy committees, including the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1970 to 1973.[5]
Fitch is one of the 20 American recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics to sign a letter addressed to President George W. Bush in May 2008, urging him to "reverse the damage done to basic science research in the Fiscal Year 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill" by requesting additional emergency funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.[22]
He died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 91 on February 5, 2015.[5][10]
Publications
- Fitch, V. "Some Notes on Wideband Feedback Amplifiers", Los Alamos National Laboratory, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (March 16, 1949).
- Fitch, V. "A High Resolution Scale-of-four", Columbia University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (August 25, 1949).
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Val Fitch – Biographical". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
- ^ a b c d e f "Interview with Val Fitch by Finn Aserud on December 18, 1986". Niels Bohr Library and Archives, American Institute of Physics. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ^ "Interview with Val Fitch". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ^ a b c "Val Fitch". Soylent Communications. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ^ a b c d Zandonella, Catherine (February 6, 2015). "Nobel laureate and Princeton physicist Val Fitch dies at age 91". Princeton University.
- ^ Keefer, Louis E. "The Army Specialized Training Program In World War II". Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ^ . Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- OCLC 35087719. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- .
- ^ a b c d Dennis Overbye (February 10, 2015). "Val Fitch, Who Discovered Universe to Be Out of Balance, Is Dead at 91". The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2015.
Val Fitch, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for work that revealed a surprising imbalance in the laws of nature and helped explain why the collision of matter and antimatter has not destroyed everything in the universe, died on Thursday at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 91. ...
- ^ "Val Logsdon Fitch | Department of Physics". phy.princeton.edu. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
- ^ "Nobel laureate and Princeton physicist Val Fitch dies at age 91". Princeton University. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
- .
- Cronin, James W. (December 8, 1980). "CP Symmetry Violation – The Search for Its Origin (Nobel lecture)"(PDF). Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ^ "Matter, Antimatter, and Why are We Here: CP violation may be the reason" (PDF). FermiNews. April 17, 1998. Retrieved May 15, 2015.
- ^ Horgan, John (April 16, 2006). "Rent-a-Genius". The New York Times.
- ^ "APS Fellow Archive".
- ^ "Val L. Fitch, Princeton University. March 10, 1923 - February 5, 2015". www.nasonline.org. National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
- ^ "Val Logsdon Fitch". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved December 21, 2021.
- ^ "About Us". World Cultural Council. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
- American Academy of Achievement.
- ^ "A Letter from America's Physics Nobel Laureates" (PDF).
External links
- Oral history interview transcript with Val Fitch on 18 December 1986, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
- "Interview with Val Fitch". Nobel Foundation. March 17, 2009. Retrieved May 15, 2015. Video interview.
- Val Logsdon Fitch on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1980 The Discovery of Charge – Conjugation Parity Asymmetry
- "Val Fitch's Interview". Voices of the Manhattan Project. Atomic Heritage Foundation. March 26, 2008. Retrieved May 15, 2015. Video interview.