Melvin Schwartz

American physicist

Born: November 2, 1932 · Died: August 28, 2006

Famous Persons

Melvin Schwartz — Image via Wikimedia Commons or Wikipedia.

Overview

Achievement

(1958) at Columbia University, where Nobel laureate Isidor Isaac Rabi was the head of the physics department.

Who was Melvin Schwartz?

Melvin Schwartz ( SHWORTS; November 2, 1932 – August 28, 2006) was an American physicist. He grew up in New York City in the Great Depression and went to the Bronx High School of Science. Schwartz earned his B.A. (1953) and Ph.D. (1958) at Columbia University, where Nobel laureate Isidor Isaac Rabi was the head of the physics department. His interest in physics began there at the age of 12. He became an assistant professor at Columbia in 1958, was promoted to associate professor in 1960 and full professor in 1963. The experiment was carried out at the nearby Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Historical significance

He shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics with Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger for their development of the neutrino beam method and their demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino. Tsung-Dao Lee, a Columbia colleague who had recently won the Nobel prize at age 30, inspired the experiment for which he received his Nobel. Schwartz and his colleagues performed the experiments which led to their Nobel Prize in the early 1960s, when all three were on the Columbia faculty.

Sources and further reading

Use the dated article for the day-specific account; use these references to check the event record and explore its wider historical context.

Wikipedia source

Cite this page

MLA

“Melvin Schwartz.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/melvin-schwartz/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.

APA

Melvin Schwartz. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 12, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/melvin-schwartz/

Chicago

“Melvin Schwartz.” thisDay. Accessed October 12, 2026. https://thisday.info/people/melvin-schwartz/.

Found an error? Let us know.