Carl David Anderson (September 3rd 1905 with New York - January 11th 1991 with Los Angeles) was a American Physicien . He received in 1936 the Nobel Prize of physics for the description of the Positron, predicted by Paul Dirac.
Studies
Anderson is born in New York, it is the son of immigrants Swedish. It makes studies of engineer and physique to the Caltech where it obtains his (Bachelor in 1927 then a Doctorat in 1930.
Academic career
Under the direction of Robert A. Millikan, it begins research on the cosmic rays during which it notes unexpected traces of particles on his photographs taken in a Cloud chamber that it interprets, rightly, as coming from a particle having a mass identical to that of the electron but whose electric Charge is opposite. This discovery, announced in 1932 then confirmed by others, validates the theoretical prediction of Paul Dirac on the existence of the Positron. Anderson obtains the first direct proof of the existence of the positrons by bombarding materials with gamma rays produced by carburizes Thorium (ThC
It is also in 1936 qu ' Anderson and its first doctorand, Seth Neddermeyer, discovers the Muon (or “meson”, as it was indicated during many years), a particle 207 times more massive than the electron. Anderson and Neddermeyer think first of all of having discovered the pawn, a particle that Hideki Yukawa had postulated in its theory of the strong Interaction. When it becomes obvious that what Anderson discovered is not the pawn, the theorist of physics I.I. Rabi, perplexed as for the fitting of this discovery in the logic diagram of the Physique of the particles, put the famous question:
- “Who ordered that ? ” (Which ordered that?)
(It is told sometimes that it raised this question whereas it dined with colleagues in a Chinese restaurant). The Muon was the first of a long list of particles whose discovery disturbed the theorists who did not manage to insert so much of new particles in a logic diagram. Willis Lamb declared that he had heard that “any discoverer of a new elementary particle should not be rewarded by a Nobel Prize any more, but rather condemned to a fine of 10 000 $”
Carl Anderson made all his career with the Caltech. At the time of the Second world war it undertook research in the field of the rocket S. It died on January 11th, 1991, it rests with the cemetery of Forest Lawn on the hills of Hollywood to Los Angeles.
Major publication
- C.D. Anderson, " Positive The Electron" , Phys. rev. 43 , 491 (1933)
Sources
- National American Biography, vol. 1, pp. 445-446.
External bonds
- Biography of Anderson on the site of the Nobel Prize
- Annotated bibliography for Carl David Anderson from the Alsos DIGITAL Library for Nuclear Exits
- Tomb of Carl Anderson
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