Nobel Prize Recipient. He was a nuclear physicist who together with colleague James Cronin, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1980. According to the Nobel Prize committee, he received the award "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons." During World War II, he served in the US Army, assigned to the Special Engineering Detachment located in Los Alamos, New Mexico, at the research center of the Manhattan Project, which designed the atomic bomb. After his discharge, he earned a bachelor of science degree from Montreal McGill University in 1948 and a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University in 1954. Joining the staff at Princeton University as an emeritus professor, his experiments in the 1960s proved that certain subatomic reactions do not adhere to fundamental symmetry principles. He proved that symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons, which react to the laws of physics, are not quite the same for particles and their opposites, anti-particles. The work for which he received the Nobel Prize is one of the most important finds of the 20th Century to show the laws of physics actually change with time. Fitch was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1970 to 1973, named the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics in 1976, and served as chairman of the physics department Princeton University, from 1976 to 1981. He was also a member of the physics advisory committee to the National Science Foundation from 1980 to 1983, was president of the American Physical Society, from 1988 to 1989, plus served on many government committees devoted to science and science policy.
Nobel Prize Recipient. He was a nuclear physicist who together with colleague James Cronin, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1980. According to the Nobel Prize committee, he received the award "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons." During World War II, he served in the US Army, assigned to the Special Engineering Detachment located in Los Alamos, New Mexico, at the research center of the Manhattan Project, which designed the atomic bomb. After his discharge, he earned a bachelor of science degree from Montreal McGill University in 1948 and a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University in 1954. Joining the staff at Princeton University as an emeritus professor, his experiments in the 1960s proved that certain subatomic reactions do not adhere to fundamental symmetry principles. He proved that symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons, which react to the laws of physics, are not quite the same for particles and their opposites, anti-particles. The work for which he received the Nobel Prize is one of the most important finds of the 20th Century to show the laws of physics actually change with time. Fitch was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1970 to 1973, named the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics in 1976, and served as chairman of the physics department Princeton University, from 1976 to 1981. He was also a member of the physics advisory committee to the National Science Foundation from 1980 to 1983, was president of the American Physical Society, from 1988 to 1989, plus served on many government committees devoted to science and science policy.
Bio by: John "J-Cat" Griffith
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