Carlo Rubbia

Born on 31 March 1934 in Gorizia, Italy, high-energy physicist Carlo Rubbia is the codiscoverer of the field particles W and Z, for which he shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics with Simon van der Meer . Rubbia earned his PhD in 1957 from the University of Pisa. He spent a year each at Columbia University and the University of Rome before accepting a position as senior physicist at CERN in 1962. In 1970 he also became a physics professor at Harvard University. While at Columbia, Rubbia worked at the Nevis synchrocyclotron, performing experiments on the decay and nuclear capture of muons. That was the first of a series of experiments on weak interactions, which Rubbia continued to perform at CERN. In 1976 he proposed that CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron be turned into a particle collider by accelerating protons and antiprotons in opposite directions; he wrote about the potential of the approach in an August 1980 Physics Today article . The resulting high-energy collisions produced the first W and Z bosons, which Rubbia and colleagues were able to isolate and recognize in 1983. After being awarded the Nobel for his efforts, Rubbia went on to serve as director general of CERN from 1989 to 1993. Most recently he has been working in renewable energy and the development of novel technologies, including wind and solar. (Photo credit: Matthew Mauro, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

Date in History: 31 March 1934