Martin L. Perl, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, will receive an honorary doctorate of science at commencement.
Perl was nominated for the honor by Jay Newman, the R. Gordon Gould Professor of Physics, and Michael Vineyard, the Frank and Marie Louise Bailey Professor of Physics.
A year after graduating in 1948 from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Perl became a chemical engineer for the General Electric Co. in Schenectady.
Working in the electron tube production factory led him to what he considers a major turning point in his life – taking atomic physics and advanced calculus at Union to deepen his understanding of electron vacuum tubes.
“I got to know a wonderful physics professor, Vladimir Rojansky,” Perl writes in his official biographical statement. “One day he said to me ‘Martin, what you are interested in is called physics, not chemistry!’ At the age of 23, I finally decided to begin the study of physics.”
Perl received his Ph.D. in 1955 from Columbia University, where he studied under professor I.I. Rabi, winner of the 1944 Nobel Prize in physics. Perl spent eight years teaching physics at the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at Stanford in 1963, where is now a professor emeritus.
In 1975, while working with a research team at the Stanford Positron-Electron Asymmetric Ring, Perl discovered a new elementary particle, which he named the “tau.”
The tau lepton is a superheavy cousin of the electron, the carrier of electrical current in household appliances. The two particles are identical in all respects except that the tau is more than 3,500 times heavier than the electron and survives less than a trillionth of a second, whereas the electron is stable.
In 1995, Perl equaled the achievement of his mentor Rabi when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the tau lepton.
When asked about the usefulness of such discoveries, Perl said, “The use of the discovery of basic particles is indirect. We have found that everything of a complicated nature is made from three basic families of particles. Eventually, this will lead to an improved understanding of energy and time. From that we hope will come new ideas that lead to applications like a source of cheap energy which is truly safe.”
Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve and current leader of President Obama’s economic advisory panel, will deliver the keynote address at commencement.
Approximately 500 students in the Class of 2009 will receive their degrees during the ceremony, scheduled for 10 a.m. Sunday, June 14, on Hull Plaza.
This year will mark the College’s 215th Commencement.