Obituary of Frederick Mills III (1928-2013)

He received his education (BS, summa cum laude 1949, Ph.D., 1955) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he worked with Professors Al Hanson and Donald Kerst, the inventor of the Betatron. His first job was as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in their Laboratory for Nuclear Sciences under the late Robert R. Wilson where he worked on electron synchrotrons. Pursuing his interest in accelerator research he relocated to Madison, Wisconsin in 1957, where he researched FFAGs and colliding beam accelerators at Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA) in Stoughton, Wisconsin. After a sabbatical at the Centre des Etudes Nucleaire de Saclay, France during 1961, he eventually became director of MURA from 1965-1967, and afterward the first director of the University of Wisconsin’s (UW) Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL). He secured funding for, and oversaw, the construction the first dedicated electron storage ring, synchrotron light source. That device, soon named Tantalus-I, became the seed for the Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SRL) at UW, now a major national facility. While teaching physics as a Professor of Physics and Nuclear Engineering at UW, was asked to became Chairman of the Accelerator Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1970 to 1973. He was soon pulled back to the Midwest in 1973, to the newly formed National Accelerator Laboratory (NAL), which was at the time led by his old colleague R. R. Wilson. He remained at NAL, soon to be renamed Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL or Fermilab), from 1973 until he retired in 1993, where he applied his keen insight into accelerator physics to the development of Fermilab’s burgeoning accelerator complex. His 19 years of research at Fermilab culminated with the giant Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, which eventually discovered the “top” quark. He took leave from Fermilab twice to work at Argonne National Laboratory, once to develop a conceptual design of large tokomak fusion reactors with the University of Wisconsin’s Nuclear Engineering Department, and once as a University of Chicago Argonne Fellow 1990-1992 to help commission the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, the nation’s premiere synchrotron light source for materials research. He never forgot his professorial days and, for many years, continued to teach courses on accelerator physics at both the University of Wisconsin as an adjunct professor and with his daughter at the and University of Illinois, that spawned new generations of fellow “atom-smasher” builders. Following retirement from Fermilab and Argonne in 1993, he worked as a consultant on ion storage rings, muon accelerators and colliders, proton driver accelerators, antiproton collectors, and medical accelerators. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and authored more than 175 scientific publications from over a period of 60 years from 1957 until 2012.

Frederick Eugene Mills III, 84, passed away peacefully in Tucson, Arizona on June 21, 2013. Born on November 12, 1928 in Streator, Illinois, he is survived by his loving wife Joyanne, his son Daniel Mills, his daughter and son-in-law, Deborah and Steve Errede, his son and daughter-in-law, Geoffrey and Ellen Mills, grand children Rachel Errede, Jonathan Mills, and Alexandre Mills, and his sister Jacqueline Gallaway. He was preceded by his parents, Frederick (Jr.) and Charlotte Mills, and by his sisters Jeanne Edwards and Helen Stevenson. He was a loving husband and father and will be greatly missed.

Dr. Mills was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and an internationally recognized expert in the field of charged-particle beam and accelerator physics. He made seminal contributions that enabled many of today’s particle accelerators. He constructed and operated the first electron storage-ring, synchrotron light-source, which gave birth to a new technique for studying today’s super-materials. He helped develop, and later consulted for, the proton synchrotron at the proton-therapy cancer treatment facility at Loma Linda Hospital in Riverside, CA, that has cured thousands of cancer patients. He was one of the very early proposers of high-energy, colliding-beam storage rings, which helped lay the foundations for modern colliders like the Tevatron at Fermilab, Batavia, Illinois and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, and led to the discoveries of subatomic particles like the W and Z bosons, the charm, bottom, and top quarks, and the tau lepton.

As a youth he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, and he loved camping, fishing, and canoeing in northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada. He was a skilled handyman, a skier, a hiker, a biker, and enjoyed a game of golf. In retirement, at Sun City, Oro Valley, he was president of the Astronomy Club and organized a number of star parties, he also taught courses on energy and energy sources for Institute for Learning in Retirement, was the treasurer of the Democratic Club, and was an avid bridge player.

A celebration of Dr. Mills’ life is planned for Saturday, November 9 at the Sun City Social Hall, Sun City, Oro Valley, AZ from 5:00 to 8:00 P.M. In lieu of giving flowers, please consider a donation to one of the following non-profit organizations: http://www.lung.org, http://www.lungevity.org, http://www.copdfoundation.org, or http://www.lymphoma.org.