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Simon van der Meer

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Simon van der Meer
File:Meer.jpg
Born(1925-11-24)24 November 1925
The Hague, The Netherlands
Died4 March 2011(2011-03-04) (aged 85)
Geneva, Switzerland
NationalityDutch
Alma materTU Delft
Known forStochastic cooling
AwardsNobel Prize in Physics
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
InstitutionsCERN

Simon van der Meer (24 November 1925– 4 March 2011) was a Dutch particle accelerator physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Carlo Rubbia for contributions to the CERN project which led to the discovery of the W and Z particles, two of the most fundamental constituents of matter.[1]

Biography

One of four children, Simon van der Meer was born and grew up in The Hague, the Netherlands, in the family of teachers.[2] He was educated at the city's gymnasium, graduating in 1943 during the German occupation of the Netherlands. He studied Technical Physics at the Delft University of Technology, and received an engineer's degree in 1952. After working for Philips Research in Eindhoven on high-voltage equipment for electron microscopy for a few years, he joined CERN in 1956 where he stayed until his retirement in 1990.[3]

He married Catharina M. Koopman in the mid-1960s; they had two children: Esther van der Meer (daughter) and Mathijs van der Meer (son). He also had a sister: Gay van der Meer, and a granddaughter.

Scientific work

Van der Meer invented the technique of stochastic cooling of particle beams.[4] His technique was used to accumulate intense beams of antiprotons for head-on collision with counter-rotating proton beams at 500 GeV in the Super Proton Synchrotron at CERN. Such collisions produced W and Z bosons which could be detected for the first time in 1983 by the UA1 experiment, led by Carlo Rubbia. The W and Z bosons had been theoretically predicted some years earlier, and their experimental discovery was considered a significant success for CERN. Van der Meer and Rubbia shared the 1984 Nobel Prize for their decisive contributions to the project.[5]

Van der Meer and Ernest Lawrence are the only two accelerator physicists who have won the Nobel prize.

References

  1. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1984". The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2009-10-31.
  2. ^ "Obituary: Simon Van der Meer". The Daily Telegraph. March 9, 2011. Retrieved March 10, 2011.
  3. ^ Biography from the Nobel website
  4. ^ Nobel Prize press release
  5. ^ The Economist, "Simon van der Meer", 19 March 2011, p. 96.
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