Contents
Martin Lewis Perl
The Nobel-winning experimental physicist who discovered the tau lepton.
Tau evidence · Nobel Prize in Physics
- Born
- 24 June 1927
- Birthplace
- United States
- Died
- 30 September 2014
More people
Martin Lewis Perl
Martin Lewis Perl searched for particles beyond the familiar electron and muon. His experiments helped establish that matter’s fundamental particles come in three generations.
Early life
New York
Born to immigrant parents and trained initially in chemical engineering.
Career change
Work on electronic tubes at General Electric led him towards physics.
Career
- 1955
Doctorate
Completed research under I. I. Rabi at Columbia.
- 1963
SLAC
Joined Stanford’s new accelerator laboratory.
- 1970s
Particle search
Led experiments on electron-positron collisions.
- 1995
Nobel recognition
Shared the physics prize for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics.
Contributions
Tau evidence
Published evidence for a new heavy lepton.
Nobel Prize in Physics
Recognised the discovery of the tau lepton.
Fractional-charge searches
Investigated whether isolated fractional electric charges could be detected.
Beyond the lab
Science funding
Publicly supported government funding for basic research.
Family
His son Jed became an art critic and writer.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Nobel Prize — biography and research ↗Photo: Unknown author Unknown author. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
