Leon M. Lederman

American mathematician and physicist

Born: July 15, 1922 · Died: October 3, 2018

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Who was Leon M. Lederman?

Leon Max Lederman (July 15, 1922 – October 3, 2018) was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, along with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, for research on neutrinos. Lederman was born in New York City, New York, to Morris and Minna (Rosenberg) Lederman. Lederman graduated from James Monroe High School in the South Bronx, and received his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York in 1943. He also received the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1982, along with Martin Lewis Perl, for research on quarks and leptons. Lederman was director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, where he was resident scholar emeritus from 2012 until his death in 2018. His parents were Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants from Kyiv and Odesa.

Historical significance

An accomplished scientific writer, he became known for his 1993 book The God Particle establishing the popularity of the term for the Higgs boson.

Sources and further reading

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Leon M. Lederman. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 12, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/leon-m-lederman/

Chicago

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