Richard E. Taylor Explained

Richard Taylor
Birth Name:	Richard Edward Taylor
Birth Date:	1929 11, df=yes
Birth Place:	Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Death Place:	Stanford, California, U.S.
Fields:	Particle physics
Thesis Title:	Positive pion production by polarised bremsstrahlung
Thesis Year:	1962
Thesis Url:	http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38657023
Doctoral Advisor:	Robert F. Mozley

Richard Edward Taylor, (2 November 1929 – 22 February 2018),^[1] was a Canadian physicist and Stanford University professor. He shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics with Jerome Friedman and Henry Kendall "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics."^{[2] [3] [4]}

Early life

Taylor was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta. He studied for his BSc (1950) and MSc (1952) degrees at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Newly married, he applied to work for a PhD degree at Stanford University, where he joined the High Energy Physics Laboratory.^[5]

His PhD thesis was on an experiment using polarised gamma rays to study pion production.^[6]

Research and career

After three years at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and a year at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California, Taylor returned to Stanford.^[7] Construction of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (now the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) was beginning. In collaboration with researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Taylor worked on the design and construction of the equipment, and was involved in many of the experiments.

In 1971, Taylor was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship that allowed him to spend a sabbatical year at CERN.

The experiments run at SLAC in the late 1960s and early 1970s involved scattering high-energy beams of electrons from protons and deuterons and heavier nuclei.^{[8] [9]} At lower energies, it had already been found that the electrons would only be scattered through low angles, consistent with the idea that the nucleons had no internal structure.^[9] However, the SLAC-MIT experiments showed that higher energy electrons could be scattered through much higher angles, with the loss of some energy.^[9] These deep inelastic scattering results provided the first experimental evidence that the protons and neutrons were made up of point-like particles, later identified to be the up and down quarks that had previously been proposed on theoretical grounds. The experiments also provided the first evidence for the existence of gluons. Taylor, Friedman and Kendall were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1990 for this work.^[10]

Death

Taylor died at his home in Stanford, California near the campus of Stanford University on 22 February 2018 at the age of 88.^{[11] [12]}

Awards and honours

Taylor has received numerous awards and honours including:

• Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, 1982.^[13]
• W.K.H. Panofsky Prize, 1989.^[14]
• Nobel Prize in Physics, 1990.^[11]
• Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement, 1991.^[15]
• Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation, 1971 – 1972.^[11]
• Fellow, American Physical Society, 1986.^[7]
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.^[16]
• Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1997
• Fellow, Royal Society of Canada.^[11]
• Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[16]
• Member, Canadian Association of Physicists.^[16]
• Foreign Associate, National Academy of Sciences.^[16]
• Companion of the Order of Canada, 2005.^[11]

In popular culture

In May 2019, the announcement of the 1990 Nobel Prize for physics was featured on the season 2 finale of the TV series Young Sheldon. "A Swedish Science Thing and the Equation for Toast" featured Sheldon Cooper as a child, listening to a short wave radio as the Nobel Prize was announced in Sweden.

External links

• including the Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1990 Deep Inelastic Scattering: The Early Years

Notes and References

1. Breidenbach . Martin . Prescott . Charles . June 2018 . Richard Taylor 1929-2018 . CERN Courier . 58 . 5 . 41–42 . 2 July 2018 .
2. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1990/ Nobel prize citation
3. Taylor, R. E. "Nucleon Form Factors above 6 GeV", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (Sept. 1967).
4. Taylor, R. E. "The Discovery of the Point Like Structure of Matter", Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), United States Department of Energy--Office of Energy Research, (Sept. 2000).
5. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1990/taylor-speech.html Taylors Nobel banquet speech
6. PhD . Richard Edward. Taylor . Positive pion production by polarized bremsstrahlung . Stanford University . 1962 . 38657023.
7. http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/friedman_taylor_kendall.html Biography and Bibliographic Resources
8. Prescott. C.Y.. Atwood. W.B.. Cottrell. R.L.A.. DeStaebler. H.. Garwin. Edward L.. Gonidec. A.. Miller. R.H.. Rochester. L.S.. Sato. T.. Sherden. D.J.. Sinclair. C.K.. Stein. S.. Taylor. R.E.. Clendenin. J.E.. Hughes. V.W.. Sasao. N.. Schüler. K.P.. Borghini. M.G.. Lübelsmeyer. K.. Jentschke. W.. Parity non-conservation in inelastic electron scattering. Physics Letters B. 77. 3. 1978. 347–352. 0370-2693. 10.1016/0370-2693(78)90722-0. 1978PhLB...77..347P . 1446939.
9. Bloom. E. D.. Coward. D. H.. DeStaebler. H.. Drees. J.. Miller. G.. Mo. L. W.. Taylor. R. E.. Breidenbach. M.. Martin Breidenbach. Friedman. J. I.. Hartmann. G. C.. Kendall. H. W.. 1969. High-Energy Inelastice−pScattering at 6° and 10°. Physical Review Letters. 23. 16. 930–934. 1969PhRvL..23..930B. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.23.930. 0031-9007. free.
10. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1990/press.html Nobel prize press release
11. News: Richard E. Taylor, Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Who Helped Discover Quarks, Dies at 88. The Washington Post. 25 February 2018. 25 February 2018.
12. News: Richard E. Taylor, Nobel Winner Who Plumbed Matter, is Dead at 88. The New York Times. 2 March 2018. McClain. Dylan Loeb.
13. Web site: Taylor's entry in the SLAC index of faculty . 4 May 2009 . 17 May 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090517034559/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/slac/faculty/hepfaculty/taylor.html . dead .
14. Web site: All Prize & Award Recipients. APS.org. 25 February 2018.
15. Web site: Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement . www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
16. Web site: Richard E. Taylor. science.ca. 25 February 2018.