Burton Richter

Burton Richter (March 22, 1931 – July 18, 2018)^[3][4] was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by Samuel Ting for which they won Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976. This discovery was part of the November Revolution of particle physics. He was the SLAC director from 1984 to 1999.

Burton Richter
Born	(1931-03-22)March 22, 1931 Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
Died	July 18, 2018(2018-07-18) (aged 87) Stanford, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	MIT
Known for	J/ψ meson
Spouse	Laurose Becker (m. 1960; 2 children)
Awards	E. O. Lawrence Award (1975) Nobel Prize in Physics (1976) Enrico Fermi Award (2012) National Medal of Science (2012)
Scientific career
Institutions	Stanford University Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Doctoral advisor	Bernard T. Feld^[1]^[2]

Life and work

A native of New York City, Richter was born into a Jewish^[5] family in Brooklyn, and was raised in the Queens neighborhood of Far Rockaway.^[6] His parents were Fanny (Pollack) and Abraham Richter, a textile worker.^[7] He graduated from Far Rockaway High School, a school that also produced fellow laureates Baruch Samuel Blumberg and Richard Feynman.^[8] He attended Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, then continued on to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1952 and his PhD in 1956. He then joined the faculty of Stanford University, becoming a full professor in 1967.^[9] Richter was director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) from 1984 to 1999. He was a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences Emeritus of Stanford University.^[10]

As a professor at Stanford, Richter designed the SPEAR (Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetric Ring) particle accelerator with the help of another Stanford physics professor, David Ritson.^[11] When eventually resources were secured, Richter led the building of SPEAR, with the support of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. With it he led a team that discovered a new subatomic particle he called a ψ (psi). This discovery was also made by the team led by Samuel Ting at Brookhaven National Laboratory, but he called the particle J. The particle thus became known as the J/ψ meson. Richter and Ting were jointly awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.^[6]

During 1975 Richter spent a sabbatical year at CERN where he worked on the ISR experiment R702.^[12]

In 1987, Richter received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.^[13]

Richter was a member of the JASON advisory group and served on the board of directors of Scientists and Engineers for America, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.^[10]

Richter was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2003.^[14]

In May 2007, he visited Iran and Sharif University of Technology.^[15]

Richter 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.^[16]

In 2012, President Barack Obama announced that Burton Richter was a co-recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award, along with Mildred Dresselhaus.^[10]

In 2014, President Obama also awarded Richter the 2012 National Medal of Science. His citation read, "For pioneering contributions to the development of electron accelerators, including circular and linear colliders, synchrotron light sources, and for discoveries in elementary particle physics and contributions to energy policy."^[17][18]

In 2013, Richter commented on an open letter from Tom Wigley, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira, and James Hansen, that Angela Merkel was "wrong to shut down nuclear".^[19]

In 2014, Richter was among the residents of a continuing care retirement center who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against a continuing care retirement home's financial practices.^[20][21]

Richter died on July 18, 2018, in Stanford, California, at the age 87.

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• List of independent discoveries

References

1. Burton Richter (1956). (PDF) (Thesis). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
2. "PDS login". library.mit.edu.
3. Weil, Martin (21 July 2018). "Obituaries - Burton Richter, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, dies at 87". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
4. "Nobel Prize-winning physicist Burton Richter dies at 87". Stanford News (Press release). Stanford News. 2018-07-19. Retrieved 2018-07-20.
5. Shalev, Baruch A. (2002). 100 Years of Nobel Prizes. The Americas Group. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-935047-37-0
6. Crease, Robert P.; Mann, Charles C. (October 26, 1986). "In Search of the Z Particle". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-02. Burton Richter was born in Brooklyn 55 years ago, but grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens.
7. "Burton Richter facts, information, pictures - Encyclopedia.com articles about Burton Richter". www.encyclopedia.com.
8. Schwach, Howard (April 15, 2005). . The Wave. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-02. Burton Richter graduated from Far Rockaway High School in 1948.
9. "Burton Richter | American physicist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-09-15.
10. "President Obama Names Scientists Mildred Dresselhaus and Burton Richter as the Enrico Fermi Award Winners". January 11, 2012.
11. Peter C. Allen (Winter 1980). "Deeper and Deeper into the Atom" (PDF). Sandstone and Tile. 4 (2). Stanford Historical Society. Retrieved 15 September 2019.
12. Chalmers, Matthew (August 15, 2018). "Burton Richter (1931-2018)". Retrieved August 20, 2018.
13. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
14. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
15. Erdbrink, Thomas (June 6, 2008). "Iran makes the sciences a part of its revolution". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 27, 2010.
16. "A Letter from America's Physics Nobel Laureates" (PDF).
17. "Burton Richter, 2012 National Medal of Science, Physical Sciences". National Science & Technology Medal Foundation. 2019. Retrieved 15 Sep 2019.
18. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2014-11-20), President Obama Bestows National Medal of Science on SLAC Director Emeritus and Nobelist Burton Richter, retrieved 2019-09-15
19. "Environmental scientists tout nuclear power to avert climate change - CNN.com". CNN. November 3, 2013.
20. Burton Richter, Linda Collins Cork, Georgia L. May, Thomas Merigan, Alfred Spivack, Janice R. Anderson v. CC-Palo Alto, Inc. (United States District Court for the Northern District of California), Text.
21. "RICHTER v. CC-PALO ALTO, | Case No. 5:14... | 20141125f09 | Leagle.com". Leagle. Retrieved 2019-09-15.

Publications

• Barber, W. C.; Richter, B.; Panofsky, W. K. H.; O'Neill, G. K. & B. Gittelman. "An Experiment on the Limits of Quantum Electro-dynamics", High-Energy Physics Laboratory at Stanford University, Princeton University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), Office of Naval Research, (June 1959).
• Richter, B. "Design Considerations for High Energy Electron – Positron Storage Rings", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (November 1966).
• Boyarski, A. M.; Coward, D.; Ecklund, S.; Richter, B.; Sherden, D.; Siemann, R. & C. Sinclair. "Inclusive Yields of pi{sup +}, pi{sup -}, K{sup +}, and K{sup -} from H{sub 2} Photoproduced at 18 GeV at Forward Angles", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (1971).
• Richter, B. "Total Hadron Cross Section, New Particles, and Muon Electron Events in e{sup +}e{sup -} Annihilation at SPEAR", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA)), (January 1976).
• Richter, B. "Forty-five Years of e{sup +}e{sup -} Annihilation Physics: 1956 to 2001", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, United States Department of Energy, (August 1984).
• Richter, B. "Charting the Course for Elementary Particle Physics", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, United States Department of Energy, (February 16, 2007).
• Richter, B. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Changes and Energy in the 21st Century. Second Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1-107-67372-4

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Burton Richter.

• Burton Richter on Nobelprize.org   including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1976 From the Psi to Charm – The Experiments of 1975 and 1976
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 1976
• Richter Burton, Nobel Luminaries Project, The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot
• SLAC Flickr album
• NIF Secretary of Energy Board
• Honoring Burton Richter at APS April 2019
• Persis Drell, Vera Luth, and Maury Tigner, "Burton Richter", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2022)

Preceded by Wolfgang Panofsky

SLAC Director 1984–1999

Succeeded by Jonathan M. Dorfan