Physicist dies 96 years after selling Nobel Prize to cover medical expenses

BOISE, Idaho (AP) – Leon Lederman, an experimental physicist, Nobel laureate in physics for his work on subatomic particles, dubbed the phrase "particle of God," who died Wednesday at 96 years old.

Lederman led the Fermilab National Laboratory of Accelerators near Chicago from 1978 to 1989.

He is described as a giant in his field, also passionate about sharing science. His book, "The God Particle", is the consequence.

The title refers to a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, long theorized until a powerful European particle collider confirms its existence.

Lederman died in a retirement home in Rexburg, Idaho, said Ellen Carr Lederman, his wife for 37 years.

"What he really loved was people, who are trying to educate them and help them understand what they do in science," she said.

Lederman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988 with two other scientists for the discovery of a subatomic particle called the muon neutrino. He used the prize money to buy a log cabin near the small town of Driggs, in eastern Idaho, as a vacation retreat.

The couple moved there full-time in 2011, when Leon Lederman began to have more and more serious memory loss problems, his wife said. His Nobel Prize was sold for $ 765,000 at an auction in 2015 to help pay medical bills and care.

"He has made an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the fundamental forces and particles of nature," said Michael Turner, a professor at the University of Chicago, in a statement. "But he was also a leader far ahead of his time in science education, as an ambassador for science around the world and transferring the benefits of basic research to the national good."

The university runs the national laboratory of Fermi accelerators.

Lederman was born on July 15, 1922 in New York, where his father operated a washbasin. Lederman obtained a degree in chemistry from the City College of New York in 1943, served for three years in the US Army during World War II, and at Columbia University where he earned a PhD. in particle physics in 1951.

He began making discoveries involving subatomic particles, before becoming director of the Fermilab National Laboratory of Accelerators.

"Leon Lederman provided the scientific vision that has allowed Fermilab to remain at the forefront of technology for more than 40 years," said Nigel Lockyer, the current director of the lab, in a statement.

Ellen Lederman said that her husband often worked while on vacation in Idaho, but that he also enjoyed skiing and horse riding.

"I had to learn to ski; he had to learn to drive, "she said. "And he had to ride a lot more than me. It was a good deal. He was a good horseman.