Maury Tigner (born 22 April 1937) is an American physicist working on

particle accelerators A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...

and experimental particle physics. Tigner studied physics at the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

until 1958 and received a PhD degree from Cornell University in 1964. He stayed there and became a professor of physics from 1977 to 1994. After a stay at

DESY The Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (English ''German Electron Synchrotron''), commonly referred to by the abbreviation DESY, is a national research center in Germany. It operates particle accelerators used to investigate the structure of matt ...

he led the development and construction of the

Cornell Electron Storage Ring The Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR, pronounced Caesar) is a particle accelerator operated by Cornell University and located 40 feet beneath a football field on their Ithaca campus. The accelerator has contributed to fundamental research in hi ...

, which started operation in 1979. From 1994 to 2000 Tigner worked at the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, contributing to the development of BEPC II. In 2000 he moved back to Cornell, leading the laboratory of elementary particle physics until 2006. Tigner played a major role in the development of the Superconducting Super Collider, leading the Central Design Group at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

formed in 1984, and worked on development of the

International Linear Collider The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed linear particle accelerator. It is planned to have a collision energy of 500 GeV initially, with the possibility for a later upgrade to 1000 GeV (1 TeV). Although early proposed ...

. Tigner became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1991 and a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1993. He received the

Robert R. Wilson Prize The Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators is an annual prize established in 1987 by the American Physical Society (APS) to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement, ordinarily by one person but sometim ...

in 2000 and the Leo Szilard Lectureship Award of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in 2005.

Literature

* Andrew Sessler, Edmund Wilson: ''Engines of discovery – a century of particle accelerators'', World Scientific 2007, S. 89. * Tigner, Alexander Chao (publisher): ''Handbook of Accelerator Physics and Engineering'', World Scientific 1999.

External links

Maury Tigner. Hans A. Bethe Professor Emeritus
cornell.edu

Physics History Network
Maury Tigner, Hans A. Bethe Professor of Physics Emeritus
(Cornell University)

References

20th-century American physicists Cornell University faculty Accelerator physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1937 births