Leon M. Lederman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leon Max Lederman (born July 15, 1922 in New York) is an American experimental physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 for his work on 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.
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.
Dr. 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. Dr. Lederman serves as President of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists[1]. He was called a "modern day Leonardo Da Vinci" by the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology.
He is also one of the founders of The Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy where he is the resident scholar.
[edit] Publications
- The God Particle : If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? 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)
[edit] External links
- Fermilab's Leon M. Lederman webpage
- The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988
- Leon M. Lederman – Autobiography
- Timeline of Nobel Prize Winners in Physics webpage for Leon Max Lederman
- Story of Leon by Leon Lederman
- Honeywell - Nobel Interactive Studio
 |
This article about a physicist of the United States is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Categories: United States physicist stubs | 1922 births | Living people | Columbia University alumni | Columbia University faculty | Nobel laureates in Physics | American physicists | University of Chicago faculty | American mathematicians | National Medal of Science recipients | Jewish American scientists | People from New York City | Illinois Institute of Technology faculty | Enrico Fermi Award recipients | Inductees of the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit | Wolf Prize in Physics recipients | City University of New York people
