Matthew Sands

Matthew Linzee Sands (born October 20, 1919 in Oxford , Massachusetts , † September 13, 2014 in Santa Cruz ) was an American physicist.

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Sands studied physics and mathematics at Clark University ( Bachelor's degree in 1940) and at Rice University ( Master's degree) and, after working on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos during World War II , joined Bruno in 1948 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Rossi is doing his PhD . In Los Alamos he was mainly concerned with electronic techniques, and in 1948 he published the book Electronics about it with Elmore . Experimental Techniques at McGraw Hill.

After his time at MIT, where he mainly worked on cosmic rays , he was at Caltech from 1950 . In 1952 he was in Rome and Saclay in France. In 1961/62 he reformed the introductory physics courses at Caltech with Robert B. Leighton and Richard Feynman . In 1963 he left Caltech and was involved in the development and first commissioning of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) (e.g. Spear storage ring ).

From 1969 he was at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), where he retired in 1985 and was Vice Chancellor for Science until 1972. But he remained active in research until 1994 as a consultant to SLAC and was also active as a physics pedagogue (he developed computer programs and experiments for schools). Previously, he was already 1960 to 1966 in the commission for physics teaching at colleges and worked in a national US program to improve physics education at colleges and universities.

Sands was the first to prove quantum effects on electron accelerators experimentally and theoretically (1954/55). He also investigated numerous other problems in accelerator physics, such as beam instabilities. In 1952, during a stay in Rome with Bruno Touschek, he discovered integer resonances in strongly focusing synchrotrons . From 1959 he developed a concept of a proton synchroton of high energy that was only taken up later.

Sands is known as the official co-author with Richard Feynman and Robert Leighton of the famous Feynman Lectures on Physics (published in 1965 by Addison-Wesley, German translation: Feynman lectures on physics ), which is based on the work on reform initially started by Sands and Leighton of the two-year introductory course (for undergraduates) in physics at Caltech. According to Sand's recollections, he was often unable to come to an agreement with Leighton on how to deal with a topic and suggested that Feynman, who until then had only given lectures for advanced students (graduate students), be included as referee. The lectures were eventually taped and then transcribed by Leighton and Sands for publication (in Volumes 2 and 3 by Sands alone, as Leighton took the course for the first year). An originally planned supplementary volume with exercises and further explanations never appeared.

His report The Physics of Electron Storage Rings was influential , published in 1970 as a SLAC report and emerged from lectures at the Enrico Fermi summer school in Varenna , Italy in 1969.

In 1998 he received the American Physical Society's Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators , which is awarded for exceptional achievements in the physics of particle accelerators. In 1972 he received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers . He was a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group and a founding member of the Federation of American Scientists .

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Oral History, Niels Bohr Institute

personal data
SURNAME	Sands, Matthew
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Sands, Matthew Linzee (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH	October 20, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH	Oxford , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH	September 13, 2014
Place of death	Santa Cruz , California

[1] Oral History, Niels Bohr Institute