Rodney Lee Cool (March 8, 1920 – April 16, 1988) was an American physicist who helped to establish the existence of the

quark A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei ...

. National Academies Press, Biographical Memoirs, Rodney Lee Cool, By Robert K. Adair
/ref>
/ref> Cool was a professor of high-energy physics at Rockefeller University, a member of the

National Academies of Sciences National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

.New York Times:Marriage Announcement 23 -- No Title, November 11, 1979
/ref> He was also a Fellow 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 ...

. Cool founded an experimental physics group at

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...

in 1970.

Life and career

Cool graduated with a bachelor's degree from the

University of South Dakota The University of South Dakota (USD) is a public research university in Vermillion, South Dakota, United States. Established by the Dakota Territory legislature in 1862, 27 years before the establishment of the state of South Dakota, USD is t ...

and received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. He also worked at European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. There he and his colleagues performed experiments that showed the quark to be a building block of

neutrons The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , that has no electric charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. The neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, leading to the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938, the f ...

and

protons A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' ( elementary charge). Its mass is slightly less than the mass of a neutron and approximately times the mass of an electron (the pro ...

References

External links

National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cool, Rodney L. 1920 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American physicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Harvard University alumni University of South Dakota alumni Fellows of the American Physical Society Rockefeller University faculty