Val Logsdon Fitch
Encyclopedia
Val Logsdon Fitch is an American
nuclear physicist
. A native of Merriman
, Nebraska
, he graduated from Gordon High School and attended Chadron State College
for three years before being drafted into the U.S. army in 1943. He later graduated from McGill University
with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
in 1948 and completed his Ph.D. in physics
in 1954 from Columbia University
. In World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. He is a member of the faculty at Princeton University
.
Fitch and co-researcher James Watson Cronin were awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics
for a 1964 experiment using the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron
at Brookhaven National Laboratory
that proved that certain subatomic reactions do not adhere to fundamental symmetry principles. Specifically, they proved, by examining the decay of K-mesons, that a reaction run in reverse does not merely retrace the path of the original reaction, which showed that the reactions of subatomic particles are not indifferent to time. Thus the phenomenon of CP violation
was discovered.
Fitch is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
.
, on March 10, 1923. He was the youngest of three children. His father, Fred Fitch, was badly injured in a horse riding accident and could no longer work on his ranch. Therefore the family moved to the nearby town of Gordon, Nebraska
, where he entered the insurance business.
As a soldier during World War II
, he was sent to Los Alamos
to work on the Manhattan Project
. While there he met many of the greats of physics including Enrico Fermi
, Niels Bohr
, James Chadwick
, Isidor Isaac Rabi
and Richard C. Tolman
. In the three years he worked there in the lab of Ernest Titterton, he became well acquainted with the techniques of experimental physics.
After the war he was offered a graduate assistantship at Cornell University
, but needed to finish his undergraduate degree, which he did at McGill University
. For his graduate degree he went to Columbia University
, where he worked under Jim Rainwater. For his thesis he designed and built an experiment to measure the gamma-rays emitted from mu-mesic atoms (i.e. atoms in which an electron is replace by a muon).
After obtaining his doctorate his interest shifted to strange particles and K mesons. He took a position at Princeton University
, where he spent the next 20 years studying K mesons. Unexpectedly, he discovered that the decay of neutral K mesons did not respect CP symmetry (Simultaneously exchanging left and right and particles and anti-particles). For this discovery he and his student James Cronin
received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
nuclear physicist
Nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei. The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power generation and nuclear weapons technology, but the research has provided application in many fields, including those...
. A native of Merriman
Merriman, Nebraska
Merriman is a village in Cherry County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 118 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Merriman is located at ....
, Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, he graduated from Gordon High School and attended Chadron State College
Chadron State College
Chadron State College is a four-year public college in the Nebraska State College System in Chadron, Nebraska. The college is located in the northern part of the Nebraska Panhandle, in the Pine Ridge area....
for three years before being drafted into the U.S. army in 1943. He later graduated from McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
in 1948 and completed his Ph.D. in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
in 1954 from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. In World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. He is a member of the faculty at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
.
Fitch and co-researcher James Watson Cronin were awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
for a 1964 experiment using the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron
Alternating Gradient Synchrotron
The Alternating Gradient Synchrotron is a particle accelerator located at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, USA....
at Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...
that proved that certain subatomic reactions do not adhere to fundamental symmetry principles. Specifically, they proved, by examining the decay of K-mesons, that a reaction run in reverse does not merely retrace the path of the original reaction, which showed that the reactions of subatomic particles are not indifferent to time. Thus the phenomenon of CP violation
CP violation
In particle physics, CP violation is a violation of the postulated CP-symmetry: the combination of C-symmetry and P-symmetry . CP-symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same if a particle were interchanged with its antiparticle , and left and right were swapped...
was discovered.
Fitch is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nontechnical online magazine that covers global security and public policy issues, especially related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction...
.
Biography
Val Fitch was born on a cattle ranch in Cherry County, NebraskaNebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, on March 10, 1923. He was the youngest of three children. His father, Fred Fitch, was badly injured in a horse riding accident and could no longer work on his ranch. Therefore the family moved to the nearby town of Gordon, Nebraska
Gordon, Nebraska
Gordon is a city in Sheridan County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 1,612 at the 2010 census.- Geography :Gordon is located at ....
, where he entered the insurance business.
As a soldier during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he was sent to Los Alamos
Los Alamos
-United States:*Los Alamos, California*Los Alamos, New Mexico**Los Alamos Ranch School, boys' school**Los Alamos National Laboratory**Los Alamos County, New Mexico**Los Alamos Museum, unofficial name of the Bradbury Science Museum was a large floating dry dock...
to work on the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
. While there he met many of the greats of physics including Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
, Niels Bohr
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...
, James Chadwick
James Chadwick
Sir James Chadwick CH FRS was an English Nobel laureate in physics awarded for his discovery of the neutron....
, Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance.-Early years:...
and Richard C. Tolman
Richard C. Tolman
Richard Chace Tolman was an American mathematical physicist and physical chemist who was an authority on statistical mechanics. He also made important contributions to theoretical cosmology in the years soon after Einstein's discovery of general relativity...
. In the three years he worked there in the lab of Ernest Titterton, he became well acquainted with the techniques of experimental physics.
After the war he was offered a graduate assistantship at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, but needed to finish his undergraduate degree, which he did at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
. For his graduate degree he went to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he worked under Jim Rainwater. For his thesis he designed and built an experiment to measure the gamma-rays emitted from mu-mesic atoms (i.e. atoms in which an electron is replace by a muon).
After obtaining his doctorate his interest shifted to strange particles and K mesons. He took a position at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, where he spent the next 20 years studying K mesons. Unexpectedly, he discovered that the decay of neutral K mesons did not respect CP symmetry (Simultaneously exchanging left and right and particles and anti-particles). For this discovery he and his student James Cronin
James Cronin
James Watson Cronin is an American nuclear physicist.Cronin was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Cronin and co-researcher Val Logsdon Fitch were awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for a 1964 experiment that proved that certain subatomic...
received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
.
Personal life
Fitch has two sons from his first marriage with Elise Cunningham, who died in 1972, and three step children with his second wife, Daisy Harper, who he married in 1976.Publications
- Fitch, V. "Some Notes on Wideband Feedback Amplifiers", Los Alamos National LaboratoryLos Alamos National LaboratoryLos Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy CommissionUnited States Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
), (March 16, 1949). - Fitch, V. "A High Resolution Scale-of-four", Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy CommissionUnited States Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
), (August 25, 1949). - Fitch, V. L. "CP Violation, Neutral Currents, and Weak Equivalence", Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy CommissionUnited States Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
), (March 23, 1972). - Cester, R.; Fitch, V. L.; Montag, A.; Sherman, S.; Webb, R. C. & M. S. Witherell. "Results on the Performance of a Broad Band Focussing Cherenkov Counter", Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
, (1980).
External links
- Photograph, Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical InformationOffice of Scientific and Technical InformationThe Office of Scientific and Technical Information is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy...
, United States Department of EnergyUnited States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...