Owen Chamberlain

genus. July 10, 1920
American physicist Owen Chamberlain was born in San Francisco (California), the son of Edward Chamberlain, a radiologist at the hospital at Stanford University, and Genevieve LUCINDA (Owen) Chamberlain. When the boy was 10 years old, his family moved to Philadelphia, where he received his secondary education. He received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1941. and enrolled in graduate school at UC Berkeley. However, after the U.S. entry into World War II, he interrupted training for participation in the Manhattan Project, the secret program of the atomic bomb. He studied the isotopes of uranium in Berkeley under the guidance of Ernest O. Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, and in 1943. was sent to Los Alamos, where he continued to work and attended the first test bomb in 1945
After the war, W. specializing in particle physics at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, focusing on the diffusion of slow neutrons in liquids. Simultaneously, he resumed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago under the leadership of Enrico Fermi, and received his doctorate in 1948. In the same year he accepted an invitation to return to Berkeley professor of physics, becoming an assistant professor in 1950, an associate professor in 1954. and full professor in 1958
In Berkeley v. advantage of a university cyclotron, a new high-energy particle accelerator, in order to investigate the scattering of fast protons and neutrons. In the early 50-ies. He began working with Emilio Segre, a colleague at Berkeley, with whom he met during the war in Los Alamos, and with the research team that included Clyde Weigand and Thomas Ipsilantis. Segre was a representative of the renowned Italian School of Physics, established under the leadership of Fermi in the University of Rome in the 30-ies. Joint work has led to the discovery of the antiproton, theoretically predicted double proton, but with opposite electric charge and some other properties of the inverse.
In 1928, Mr.. English physicist P.A.M. Dirac predicted the existence of antiparticles (something like a mirror image of conventional particles such as electrons and protons), based on the equations that he derived by combining the theory of relativity of Albert Einstein to the quantum theory. If there is no experimental confirmation of the existence of antiparticles was not accepted by all. Confidence grew, when four years later, Karl D. Anderson discovered the positron, the double negative electron, but with a positive charge (ie. antielectron). Positron observed in cosmic rays, high-energy radiation bombarding the Earth from space. This discovery stimulated the search for other antiparticles with the newly built particle accelerators. Since antiparticles arise in the collision of accelerated erosion of the core particle and the target for such particles require more energy. For heavy particles, like antiprotons, required more energy than they provide are available at the time boosters.
. The situation changed with the construction of Berkeley bevatron, the most powerful at that time a particle accelerator capable of accelerating particles to energies of billions of electron volts
. With this setup C., Segre, and their colleagues have accelerated protons to an energy of 6.2 billion electron-volts, and they bombarded the copper atoms. While in theory this energy was sufficient, . get antiprotons, . their expected number of small, . lifetime short and, . besides, . them extremely difficult to find among the wreckage, . remaining after the collision, . among whom were a large number of other subatomic particles.,
. Solving the problem of detection and identification was a major accomplishment C., Segre, and their entire study group
. They developed a complex and intricate system consisting of magnets and magnetic focusing devices, which allocates particles with mass, charge and velocity of the antiproton, from all the rest. Electronic counters and timers measured the velocity of particles, . when they passed the path of a given length, the annihilation of a proton - antiproton recorded with the help of the emulsion (this was the final confirmation of other measurements), in addition, . used other means to eliminate possible errors,
. Emulsion fixed the track incoming antiproton and finish annihilation that resembled a star, where the role of rays performed tracks annihilation products. Turned out that the products of annihilation mesons are approximately five units on each act of annihilation.
In 1955, when the accumulated number of convincing (40) detection (only one of about 30 thousand. particles was antiprotons, and one antiproton was observed approximately every 15 minutes), scientists announced the discovery of the antiproton. 'Bevatron - this is the only energy source big enough to get antiprotons, - said the latest H. - Even the stars is a million times colder than necessary, while the hydrogen bomb, which is basically nothing like a star, belongs to another category '. This experiment also showed that antiprotons do not arise by themselves, but always in pairs proton - antiproton, just as positrons appear only in pairs of electron - positron. This observation confirmed the theory of Dirac and convinced scientists that there are other anti-particles, irrespective of whether they can be observed.
In the months that followed the main experiments, H. colleagues conducted related studies, using a variety of photographic techniques to get more shots of the proton-antiproton annihilation. Guggenheim Fellowship allowed him to hold in 1957 at the Physics Department, University of Rome, where he continued to study the antiproton, partly in collaboration with Edoardo Amaldi, another physicist from the original group of Fermi 30-ies. Upon returning to Berkeley B. was promoted to full professor of physics, and the following year he was invited to attend a semester at Harvard as a lecturer in physics.
'For the discovery of the antiproton' W. Segre and received in 1959. Nobel Prize in Physics. In his speech, Eric Hultц?n from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences paid tribute to H. and his 'ingenious methods of detection and analysis of new particle'. In his Nobel lecture B. summarized the results of the work he has done together with colleagues. 'Since the proton and the neutron - close relatives - he said - it was expected that the opening antineutron quickly followed the discovery of the antiproton. It would be natural to assume that there is an antiparticle for all charged particles'.
Staying in Berkeley, H. continued to work in the field of particle physics, exploring the interaction of antiprotons with hydrogen and deuterium, the scattering of pi mesons and the possibility of obtaining antineutron of antiprotons.
In 1943, Mr.. CH. married Beatrice Babette Cooper, they had three daughters and a son. The marriage was annulled in 1978. CH. - Member of the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences