Simon Patrick Swordy (March 31, 1954 – July 19, 2010) was an English-born American astrophysicist.

Biography

Swordy was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

in 1954. Both his parents were teachers. His siblings included three brothers and one sister. Swordy was educated at St Philip's School and

Barstable School The Barstable School was a mixed intake secondary school in Basildon, Essex. It closed in 2009 to become a founding member of the Basildon Academies. Admissions The school was for students aged 11–16 (school years 7–11). The schools headma ...

. He studied under

Peter Fowler Peter Randall Fowler (born 9 June 1959) is an Australian golfer who plays on the PGA Tour of Australasia and European Senior Tour. Career Fowler was born in Hornsby, New South Wales. He turned professional in 1977 and won the Australian Open i ...

at the

University of Bristol , mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'') , established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter , type ...

, and graduated in 1978. Swordy moved to the United States in 1979 and accepted a research associate position at the

Enrico Fermi Institute __NOTOC__ The Institute for Nuclear Studies was founded September 1945 as part of the University of Chicago with Samuel King Allison as director. On November 20, 1955, it was renamed The Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. The name was sh ...

. In 1986, he began teaching 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 ...

. Swordy became a full professor in 1997. Between 2000 and 2003, Swordy was Master of the Physical Sciences Collegiate Division and associate dean of the physical sciences. In 2001, he was elected a fellow 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 ...

, " r innovative measurements with detectors on the ground, on balloons, and in space that significantly advanced the understanding of the sources and galactic propagation of cosmic rays at high energies." In 2007, he returned to the Enrico Fermi Institute as director. At the time of his death, Swordy was the

James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate in ...

Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. He died of lymphoma at the

University of Chicago Medical Center The University of Chicago Medical Center (UChicago Medicine) is a nationally ranked academic medical center located in Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. It is the flagship campus for The University of Chicago Medicine system and was establis ...

on 19 July 2010, aged 56.

Personal life

Swordy married Josephine Ryan in 1984, with whom he raised three children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swordy, Simon Deaths from lymphoma in the United States Deaths from cancer in Illinois 20th-century British physicists English physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century British physicists British astrophysicists Scientists from Birmingham, West Midlands Alumni of the University of Bristol University of Chicago faculty English emigrants to the United States 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists American astrophysicists People educated at St Philip's School