Maury Tigner (born 22 April 1937) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

working on

particle accelerators A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel electric charge, charged particles to very high speeds and energies to contain them in well-defined particle beam, beams. Small accelerators are used for fundamental ...

and experimental

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

. Tigner studied physics at the

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

until 1958 and received a PhD degree from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in 1964. He stayed there and became a professor of physics from 1977 to 1994. After a stay at

DESY DESY, short for Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (English: ''German Electron Synchrotron''), is a national research centre for fundamental science located in Hamburg and Zeuthen near Berlin in Germany. It operates particle accelerators used to ...

, he led the development and construction of the

Cornell Electron Storage Ring The Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR, pronounced Julius Caesar, Caesar) is a particle accelerator operated by Cornell University and located 40 feet beneath a football field on their Ithaca, New York, Ithaca campus. The accelerator has contribu ...

, which started operation in 1979. From 1994 to 2000 Tigner worked at the

Institute of High Energy Physics The Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IHEP) () is the largest and most comprehensive fundamental research center of high-energy physics in China. It is located in Shijingshan District, Beijing and administered ...

of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...

in Beijing, contributing to the development of BEPC II. In 2000, he moved back to Cornell, leading the laboratory of elementary particle physics until 2006. Tigner played a major role in the development of the

Superconducting Super Collider The Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), nicknamed Desertron, was a particle accelerator complex under construction from 1991 to 1993 near Waxahachie, Texas, United States. Its planned ring circumference was with an energy of 20 TeV per proto ...

, leading the Central Design Group at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

formed in 1984, and worked on development of the

International Linear Collider The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed linear particle accelerator. It is planned to have a collision energy of 500 GeV initially, with the possibility for a later upgrade to 1000 GeV (1 TeV). Although early propos ...

. Tigner became a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1991 and a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1993. He received the

Robert R. Wilson Prize The Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators is an annual prize established in 1987 by the American Physical Society (APS) to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement, ordinarily by one person but someti ...

in 2000 and the

Leo Szilard Lectureship Award The Leo Szilard Lectureship Award (originally called the Leo Szilard Award) is given annually by the American Physical Society (APS) for "outstanding accomplishments by physicists in promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society". It is ...

of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

in 2005.

Literature

* Andrew Sessler, Edmund Wilson: ''Engines of discovery – a century of particle accelerators'', World Scientific 2007, S. 89. * Tigner, Alexander Chao (publisher): ''Handbook of Accelerator Physics and Engineering'', World Scientific 1999.

External links

Maury Tigner. Hans A. Bethe Professor Emeritus
cornell.edu

Physics History Network
Maury Tigner, Hans A. Bethe Professor of Physics Emeritus
(Cornell University)
APS Oral History Interview

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tigner, Maury 20th-century American physicists Cornell University faculty Accelerator physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1937 births