The WiZard is In - 2-4-2011 at 13:37
Slightly amateur
He became only the second accelerator engineer to be recognised
by the Swedish Academy. Yet he was also a physicist, lingering at
CERN, which he found “agreeable and stimulating”, until his
retirement in 1990. He was always aware, and often sorry, that his
degree from Delft University of Technology was in technical
physics, and that the pure science he learned in that venerable
engineering school was “of necessity somewhat restricted”. But he
would comfort himself that his “slightly amateur” approach to pure
physics made him look at problems in a different way.
That difference was essential. In the end, physics is an empirical
science. It needs clever experiments; and such experiments need
nifty devices. Without them, many beautiful theories would be
merely that—beautiful. It is only thanks to tinkerers like Simon van
der Meer that some of them also turn out to be true.
Obit The Economist 19iii2011
http://www.economist.com/realarticleid.cfm?redirect_id=18385...
entropy51 - 2-4-2011 at 16:44
Odd Dahl is another in this class of distinguished "amateurs". With little formal education he participated in Anarctic exploration, built some
of the first successful Van de Graaff accelerators at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC and returned to Norway to build several accelerators.
He participated in the Norwegian Resistance against the Nazi's and after World War II was a principal designer of the first Norwegian nuclear
reactor. He later helped to establish the CERN nuclear laboratory and design the first proton synchrotron at CERN.
[Edited on 3-4-2011 by entropy51]