science · 11 July 1924 · 100 years ago
birth
Born 11 Jul 1924; died 8 Mar 2005 at age 80.
César (Mansueto Giulio) Lattes was the Brazilian physicist who, with American physicist Eugene Gardner at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1948 confirmed the existence of heavy and light mesons formed during the bombardment of carbon nuclei with alpha particles. The experimental discovery of the pi meson was fundamental to explaining the nuclear binding force. Japanese theoretical physicist, Hideki Yukawa, had proposed (1935) a new, unknown particle with 200 times more mass than the electron, that was emitted and absorbed by protons and neutrons. The exchange of those particles between the nucleons would produce a short-range attraction between them.
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