| Carl Anderson | |
| Birth Date: | 3 September 1905 |
| Birth Place: | New York City, US |
| Death Place: | San Marino, California, US |
| Resting Place: | Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills |
| Alma Mater: | California Institute of Technology (BS, PhD) |
| Children: | 2 |
| Fields: | Particle physics |
| Work Institutions: | California Institute of Technology (1930–1976) |
| Thesis Title: | Space-Distribution of X-ray Photoelectrons Ejected from the K and L Atomic Energy-Levels |
| Thesis Url: | https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/4075/ |
| Thesis Year: | 1930 |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Robert Millikan |
Carl David Anderson (September 3, 1905 – January 11, 1991) was an American experimental physicist who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Victor Hess for his discovery of the positron,[1] which confirmed the existence of antimatter.
Carl David Anderson was born on September 3, 1905, in New York City, to Swedish immigrants, Carl David Anderson Sr. and Emma Adolfina Ajaxson.[2]
Anderson studied physics and engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), receiving his B.S. in 1927 and his Ph.D. in 1930.[2]
Anderson spent the entirety of his career at Caltech; he was Research Fellow (1930–1933) and Assistant Professor to Associate Professor of Physics (1933–1939), before finally becoming Professor of Physics in 1939—a position he held until his retirement in 1976.[3]
In 1946, Anderson married Lorraine Bergman, with whom he had two sons.[2]
Anderson died on January 11, 1991, in San Marino, California, at the age of 85. His remains were interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California. He was a Christian.[4]
Under the supervision of Robert Millikan, Anderson began investigations into cosmic rays during the course of which he encountered unexpected particle tracks in his (modern versions now commonly referred to as an Anderson) cloud chamber photographs that he correctly interpreted as having been created by a particle with the same mass as the electron, but with opposite electric charge.
This discovery, announced in 1932 and later confirmed by others, validated Paul Dirac's theoretical prediction of the existence of the positron. Anderson first detected the particles in cosmic rays. He then produced more conclusive proof by shooting gamma rays produced by the natural radioactive nuclide ThC'' (208Tl)[5] into other materials, resulting in the creation of positron-electron pairs.
For this work, Anderson shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Victor Hess.[6] Fifty years later, Anderson acknowledged that his discovery was inspired by the work of his Caltech classmate, Chung-Yao Chao, whose research formed the foundation from which much of Anderson's work developed but was not credited at the time.[7]
In 1936, Anderson and his first graduate student, Seth Neddermeyer, discovered the muon[8] (or 'mu-meson', as it was known for many years), a subatomic particle 207 times more massive than the electron, but with the same negative electric charge and spin 1/2 as the electron, again in cosmic rays.
Anderson and Neddermeyer at first believed that they had seen a pion, a particle which Hideki Yukawa had postulated in his theory of the strong interaction. When it became clear that what Anderson had seen was not the pion, the physicist I. I. Rabi, puzzled as to how the unexpected discovery could fit into any logical scheme of particle physics, quizzically asked "Who ordered that?" (sometimes the story goes that he was dining with colleagues at a Chinese restaurant at the time).
The muon was the first of a long list of subatomic particles whose discovery initially baffled theoreticians who could not make the confusing "zoo" fit into some tidy conceptual scheme. Willis Lamb, in his 1955 Nobel Prize Lecture, joked that he had heard it said that "the finder of a new elementary particle used to be rewarded by a Nobel Prize, but such a discovery now ought to be punished by a 10,000 dollar fine."[9]
| Country | Year | Institute | Award | Citation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1936 | Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences | Nobel Prize in Physics | "For his discovery of the positron" | |||
| 1937 | Franklin Institute | Elliott Cresson Medal | "For the discovery of the positron" | [10] |
| Country | Year | Institute | Type | Section | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1938 | American Philosophical Society | Member | Mathematical and Physical Sciences | [11] | ||
| 1938 | National Academy of Sciences | Emeritus | Physics | [12] | ||
| 1950 | American Academy of Arts and Sciences | Member | Mathematical and Physical Sciences | [13] |
