Owen Chamberlain (July 10, 1920 – February 28, 2006) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

who shared with

Emilio Segrè Emilio Gino Segrè (1 February 1905 – 22 April 1989) was an Italian-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobel ...

the

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

for the discovery of the

antiproton The antiproton, , (pronounced ''p-bar'') is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. The exist ...

, a sub-atomic

antiparticle In particle physics, every type of particle is associated with an antiparticle with the same mass but with opposite physical charges (such as electric charge). For example, the antiparticle of the electron is the positron (also known as an antie ...

Biography

Born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, Chamberlain graduated from

Germantown Friends School Germantown Friends School (GFS) is a coeducational independent PreK–12 school in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States under the supervision of Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Fri ...

in Philadelphia in 1937. He studied physics at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

, where he was a member of

Alpha Theta Alpha Theta () is a gender-inclusive Greek house at Dartmouth College. Alpha Theta is a 501(c)(7) non-profit and the chapter house and property are owned by the Alpha Theta House Corporation, a 501(c)(2) non-profit. History Early years Alpha ...

chapter of

Theta Chi Theta Chi () is an international college fraternity. It was founded on April 10, 1856 at Norwich University then-located in Norwich, Vermont, and has initiated more than 200,000 members and currently has over 8,700 collegiate members across Nort ...

fraternity, and at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He remained in school until the start of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, and joined the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

in 1942, where he worked with Segrè, both at Berkeley and in Los Alamos,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. He married Beatrice Babette Copper (d. 1988) in 1943, with whom he had four children. In 1946, after the war, Chamberlain continued with his doctoral studies at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

under physicist

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

. Fermi acted as an important guide and mentor for Chamberlain, encouraging him to leave behind

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

for

experimental physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and ...

, for which Chamberlain had a particular aptitude. Chamberlain received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1949. In 1948, having completed his experimental work, Chamberlain returned to Berkeley as a member of its faculty. There he, Segrè, and other physicists investigated proton-proton scattering. In 1955, a series of proton scattering experiments at Berkeley's

Bevatron The Bevatron was a particle accelerator — specifically, a weak-focusing proton synchrotron — at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S., which began operating in 1954. The antiproton was discovered there in 1955, resulting in the ...

led to the discovery of the anti-proton, a particle like a proton but negatively charged. Chamberlain's later research work included the

time projection chamber In physics, a time projection chamber (TPC) is a type of particle detector that uses a combination of electric fields and magnetic fields together with a sensitive volume of gas or liquid to perform a three-dimensional reconstruction of a particle ...

(TPC), and work at the

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...

(SLAC). Chamberlain was politically active on issues of peace and social justice, and outspoken against the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. He was a member of Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Shcharansky, three physicists of the former

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

imprisoned for their political beliefs. In the 1980s, he helped found the

nuclear freeze The Nuclear Freeze campaign was a mass movement in the United States during the 1980s to secure an agreement between the U.S. and Soviet governments to halt the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. Background The idea of simply ...

movement. In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed the

Humanist Manifesto ''Humanist Manifesto'' is the title of three manifestos laying out a humanist worldview. They are the original ''Humanist Manifesto'' (1933, often referred to as Humanist Manifesto I), the ''Humanist Manifesto II'' (1973), and ''Humanism and It ...

. Chamberlain was diagnosed with

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

in 1985, and retired from teaching in 1989. He died of complications from the disease on February 28, 2006, in Berkeley at the age of 85. Chamberlain plays a central role in Jacob M. Appel's Sherwood Anderson Award-winning short story, "Measures of Sorrow".Appel, JM. (2015) ''Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets'', Black Lawrence Press.

Bibliography

* Chamberlain, Owen; Segre, Emilio; Wiegand, Clyde; Ypsilantis, Thomas, (October 1955).
Observation of Antiprotons
', Radiation Laboratory

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

predecessor to the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL),

United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President H ...

predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy. * Chamberlain, Owen; Segre, Emilio; Wiegand, Clyde, (November 1955).
Antiprotons
', Radiation Laboratory

predecessor to the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL),

predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy. * Chamberlain, Owen; Keller, Donald V.; Mermond, Ronald; Segre, Emilio; Steiner, Herbert M.; Ypsilantis, Tom, (July 1957).
Experiments on Antiprotons: Antiproton-Nucleon Cross Sections
', Radiation Laboratory

predecessor to the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL),

predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy. * Chamberlain, O, (December 1959).
The Early Antiproton Work (Nobel Lecture)
', Radiation Laboratory

predecessor to the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL),

predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy. * Chamberlain, O, (September 1984).
Personal History of Nucleon Polarization Experiments
',

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

(LBL) predecessor to the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), U.S. Department of Energy.

References

External links

* * including his Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1959 ''The Early Antiproton Work''
Short Bio at BerkeleyGuide to the Owen Chamberlain Papers
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

New York Times obituaryNational Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chamberlain, Owen 1920 births 2006 deaths Germantown Friends School alumni Dartmouth College alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Chicago alumni 20th-century American physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American Nobel laureates Experimental physicists Manhattan Project people Nobel laureates in Physics University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area Fellows of the American Physical Society Neurological disease deaths in California Deaths from Parkinson's disease