Hugh Muirhead (1925 – 19 January 2007) was a British

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

and the last surviving author of the scientific paper announcing the discovery of the

pion In particle physics, a pion (, ) or pi meson, denoted with the Greek alphabet, Greek letter pi (letter), pi (), is any of three subatomic particles: , , and . Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is therefore a meson. Pions are the ...

, a particle predicted by

Hideki Yukawa Hideki Yukawa (; ; 23 January 1907 – 8 September 1981) was a Japanese theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1949 "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces". B ...

. Muirhead did his PhD studies at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

, where he,

César Lattes Cesare Mansueto Giulio Lattes (11 July 1924 – 8 March 2005), also known as César Lattes, was a Brazilian experimental physicist, one of the discoverers of the pion, a composite subatomic particle made of a quark and an antiquark. Life Latte ...

and

Giuseppe Occhialini Giuseppe Paolo Stanislao "Beppo" Occhialini ForMemRS (; 5 December 1907 – 30 December 1993) was an Italian physicist who contributed to the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay in 1947 with César Lattes and Cecil Frank Powell, the latte ...

, were part of

Cecil Powell Cecil Frank Powell (5 December 1903 – 9 August 1969) was an English particle physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1950 for heading the team that developed the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the result ...

's group trying to confirm the existence of pions. Evidence was eventually found on 7 March 1947 by two of the group's technical team, Marietta Kurz and Irene Roberts. A paper was submitted to the journal ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

'' and published the same year. In 1950, Powell was awarded the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

for the discovery. After gaining his PhD, Muirhead moved to the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

and then the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

in 1957, where he spent the rest of his career. Under his direction at Liverpool, it was experimentally confirmed that parity was violated in

muon capture Muon capture is the capture of a negative muon by a proton, usually resulting in production of a neutron and a neutrino, and sometimes a gamma photon. Muon capture by heavy nuclei often leads to emission of particles; most often neutrons, but c ...

. He became a world authority on

antiproton The antiproton, , (pronounced ''p-bar'') is the antiparticle of the proton. Antiprotons are stable, but they are typically short-lived, since any collision with a proton will cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy. The exis ...

physics. As well as dozens of scientific papers, his textbooks include ''The Physics of Elementary Particles'' and ''Notes on Elementary Particle Physics'' (based on a series of his series of lectures), running into many editions. In 1973 and 1974, he ran summer schools for high-energy physics students at the

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) is one of the national scientific research laboratories in the UK operated by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). It began as the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory, merged with the At ...

. In the 1980s, he joined the UA1 group at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

, led by

Carlo Rubbia Carlo Rubbia (born 31 March 1934) is an Italian particle physicist and inventor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Simon van der Meer for work leading to the discovery of the W and Z particles at CERN. Early life and educatio ...

and Alan Astbury, studying proton-antiproton collisions; Astbury had been Muirhead's former student at Liverpool. Their work led to a Nobel Prize for Rubbia and

Simon van der Meer Simon van der Meer (24 November 19254 March 2011) was a Dutch particle accelerator physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 with Carlo Rubbia for contributions to the CERN project which led to the discovery of the W and Z parti ...

. Muirhead died aged 81, survived by his wife, Jean, and three children.

Books published

* ''The Physics of Elementary Particles'', Oxford/New York, Pergamon Press. (1965) * ''Notes on Elementary Particle Physics'', Oxford/New York, Pergamon Press. (1971) * ''The Special Theory of Relativity'', New York, Wiley. (1973)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muirhead, Hugh 1925 births 2007 deaths British nuclear physicists Alumni of the University of Bristol