New York City in the period of
1922 to 1979 provided the streets, schools, entertainment,
culture and ethnic diversity for many future scientists. I was
born in New York on July 15, 1922 of immigrant parents. My
father, Morris, operated a hand laundry and venerated learning.
Brother Paul, six years older, was a tinkerer of unusual skill. I
started my schooling in 1927 at PS 92 on Broadway and 95th Street
and received my Ph.D. in 1951 about one mile north, at Columbia
University. In between there were neighborhood junior and senior
high schools and the City College of New York. There I majored in
chemistry but fell under the influence of such future physicists
as Isaac Halpern and my high school friend, Martin J. Klein. I
graduated in 1943 and proceeded promptly to spend three years in
the U.S. Army where I rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the
Signal Corps. In September of 1946 I entered the Graduate School
of Physics at Columbia, chaired by I.I. Rabi.
The Columbia Physics Department was constructing a 385 MeV
Synchrocyclotron at their NEVIS Laboratory, located in
Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York. Construction was aided by the
Offce of Naval Research and "NEVIS" eventually proved to be an
extremely productive laboratory, as judged by physics results and
students produced.
I joined that project in 1948 and worked with Professor Eugene T.
Booth, the director of the-cyclotron project. My thesis
assignment was to build a Wilson Cloud Chamber. Rabi invited many
experts to Columbia to assist the novice staff in what was, for
Columbia, a totally new field. Gilberto Bernardini came from Rome
and John Tinlot came from Rossi's group at MIT. Somewhat later,
Jack Steinberger was recruited from Berkeley. After receiving my
Ph.D. in 1951 I was invited to stay on, which I did, for the next
28 years. Much of my early work on 1 ions was carried out with
Tinlot and Bernardini.
In 1958, I was promoted to Professor and took my first sabbatical
at CERN where I organized a group to do the "g-2" experiment.
This CERN program would continue for about 19 years and involve
many CERN physicists (Picasso, Farley, Charpak, Sens, Zichichi, etc.). It was
also the initiation of several collaborations in CERN research
which continued through the mid-70s.
I became Director of the Nevis Labs in 1961 and held this
position until 1978. I have been a guest scientist at many labs
but did the bulk of my research at Nevis, Brookhaven, CERN and
Fermilab. During my academic career at Columbia (1951 - 1979) I
have had 50 Ph.D. students, 14 are professors of physics, one is
a university president and the rest with few exceptions, are
physicists at national labs, in government or in industry. None,
to my knowledge, is in jail. In 1979, I became Director of the
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory where I supervised the
construction and utilization of the first superconducting
synchrotron, now the highest energy accelerator in the
world.
I have three children with my first wife, Florence Gordon.
Daughter Rena is an anthropologist, son Jesse is an investment
banker and daughter Rachel a lawyer. I now live with my second
wife Ellen at the Fermilab Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, where
we keep horses for riding and chickens for eggs. I have been
increasingly involved in development via scientific collaboration
with Latin America, with science education for gifted children
and with public understanding of science. I helped to found and
am on the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Mathematics and
Science Academy, a three year residence public school for gifted
children in the State of Illinois.
Honors
Leon Lederman is
the recipient of fellowships from the Ford, Guggenheim, Ernest
Kepton Adams and National Science Foundations. He is a founding
member of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (to AEC, DOE)
and the International Committee on Future Accelerators. He has
received the National Medal of Science (1965) and the Wolf Prize
for Physics (1982) among many other awards.
Honorary D.Sc's have been awarded to Leon M. Lederman by City
College of New York, University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of
Technology, Northern Illinois University, Lake Forest College and
Carnegie Mellon University.
From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1981-1990, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Gösta Ekspong, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1988
I retired from Fermilab in 1989 to join the faculty of the University of Chicago as Professor of Physics. In 1989 I was appointed Science Adviser to the Governor of Illinois. I helped to organize a Teachers' Academy for Mathematics and Science, designed to retrain 20,000 teachers in the Chicago Public Schools in the art of teaching science and mathematics. In 1991 I became President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Honors
D.Sc.'s have been awarded among others by the universities at
Pisa, Italy and Guanajuarto, Mexico. Elected to the National
Academies of Science in Finland and in Argentina. Serves on
thirteen (non-paying) Boards of Directors of museums, schools,
science organizations and government agencies.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1991
Leon M. Lederman
