Emilio Segrè
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Emilio Gino Segrè
Nobel Prize in Physics 1959
Born: 1 February 1905, Tivoli, Italy
Died: 22 April 1989, Lafayette, CA, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Prize motivation: “for their discovery of the antiproton”
Prize share: 1/2
Work
The matter around us has a kind of mirror image—antimatter. A particle and its antiparticle have an opposite electrical charge, among other things. The electron’s antiparticle positron was the first to be discovered. With high concentrations of energy, a pair of particles and antiparticles can be created, but when a particle and an antiparticle meet, both are annihilated and their mass is converted into radiation. In a 1955 experiment with a powerful particle accelerator, Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain confirmed the existence of the proton’s antiparticle, the antiproton.
Six days, six prizes
Don't miss the Nobel Prize announcements on 5–12 October. All announcements are streamed live here on nobelprize.org.
