Val Fitch

Val Fitch as Nobel Laureate

Val Logsdon Fitch (born March 10, 1923 in Merriman , Nebraska , † February 5, 2015 in Princeton , New Jersey ) was an American elementary particle physicist.

Fitch received in 1980 along with James Cronin to physics - Nobel Prize "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons ", which means the discovery of CP violation .

Life

His father had a cattle ranch, but had to give it up after a riding accident and went to nearby Gordon , where he worked in the insurance industry. During World War II, Fitch (who had just started his studies) worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos in the laboratory of Ernest Titterton (1916–1990). He received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from McGill University in 1948 and his doctorate in physics from Columbia University in 1954 with James Rainwater . In his dissertation he measured the gamma radiation from muonic atoms.

Since 1960 he was a professor at Princeton University . Here his interest shifted to K mesons . In 1964, Fitch conducted a series of experiments with James Cronin , René Turlay, and James H. Christenson , in which they discovered a violation of CP invariance in the decay of neutral K mesons.

In 1960 he became a Sloan Research Fellow . He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1966 . In 1995 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society .

He had two sons from his first marriage (his wife died in 1972) and remarried in 1976, with his wife bringing three children into the marriage.

Awards

Web links

Commons : Val Logsdon Fitch - collection of images, videos and audio files

Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1980 award to Val Fitch
AJ Stewart Smith, James W. Cronin, Pierre Piroué: Val L. Fitch 1923-2015: A Biographical Memoir . 2016 (English, nasonline.org [PDF]).
Val L. Fitch. In: Physics History Network. American Institute of Physics
Dennis Overbye: Val Fitch, Who Discovered Universe to Be Out of Balance, Is Dead at 91. Obituary in The New York Times on February 10, 2015 (English)

Individual evidence

^ Nobel laureate and Princeton physicist Val Fitch dies at age 91. At: Princeton.edu. February 6, 2015.
^ JH Christenson, J. Cronin, V. Fitch, R. Turlay: Evidence for the decay of the meson ${\ displaystyle 2 \ pi}$ ${\ displaystyle K_ {2} ^ {0}}$ , Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 13, 1964, pp. 138-140
↑ Val L. Fitch. nasonline.org, accessed March 29, 2019 .
^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1950-1999. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, accessed January 7, 2016 (PDF file).
↑ Member History: Val L. Fitch. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 6, 2018 (with biography).

personal data
SURNAME	Fitch, Val
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Fitch, Val Logsdon (full name); Fitch, Val L.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American elementary particle physicist
DATE OF BIRTH	March 10, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	Merriman , Nebraska
DATE OF DEATH	5th February 2015
Place of death	Princeton , New Jersey

[1] Nobel laureate and Princeton physicist Val Fitch dies at age 91. At: Princeton.edu. February 6, 2015.

[2] JH Christenson, J. Cronin, V. Fitch, R. Turlay: Evidence for the decay of the meson ${\ displaystyle 2 \ pi}$ ${\ displaystyle K_ {2} ^ {0}}$ , Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 13, 1964, pp. 138-140

[3] Val L. Fitch. nasonline.org, accessed March 29, 2019 .

[4] Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1950-1999. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, accessed January 7, 2016 (PDF file).

[5] Member History: Val L. Fitch. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 6, 2018 (with biography).