In memory of Donald Glaser, who "died in his sleep Thursday morning, Feb. 28, at his home in Berkeley. … Glaser, a professor emeritus of physics and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the bubble chamber, a device that allowed scientists to track the paths of electrons, protons and other elementary particles after collisions, which led the discovery of whole families of new particles."

- Edited excerpts from: Physics Nobelist and Biotech Pioneer Donald Glaser Dies ...

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Courtesy of and ©The University of
California, Berkeley

The 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Donald Glaser for his invention of the bubble chamber. "Glaser first conceived of the bubble chamber in 1952, at the age of 25, while a faculty member at the University of Michigan. According to scientific lore, Glaser was enjoying a cold beer when he observed the stream of bubbles in his brew. It was a moment of saloon science that inspired a tool second only in importance to the cyclotron for atomic physicists.

The first bubble chamber, no bigger than its inventor's thumb, contained a clear, super-heated liquid in the path of charged atomic particles accelerated by an atom smasher. As the particles pushed through the liquid, they created a trail of tiny bubbles that could be photographed through the window of the chamber. Analyzing the bubbles provides physicists with insight about the particles and related forces. ...

After consulting during the summers at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Glaser joined the University of California faculty in 1959. Five years later, he became a professor of physics and molecular biology at the university. Now a Professor of the Graduate School, Glaser's research has shifted to the construction of computational models that shed light on the physics and physiology of human perception."

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