Wikipedia

Lawrence W. Jones

Lawrence William Jones (November 16, 1925 – June 30, 2023) was an American academic and professor emeritus in the physics department at the University of Michigan. His field of interest was high energy particle physics.

Lawrence W. Jones
Born
Lawrence William Jones

(1925-11-16)November 16, 1925
Evanston, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJune 30, 2023(2023-06-30) (aged 97)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.
Alma mater
AwardsFord Foundation Fellow, 1961
Guggenheim Fellow, 1964
Scientific career
FieldsParticle physics
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
Thesis Excitation function for photoneutron production from 80 to 320 mev  (1952)
Doctoral advisorA. Carl Helmholz
Notable studentsSamuel C. C. Ting

Early life and education

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Lawrence W. Jones was born in Evanston, Illinois, on November 16, 1925.[1][2]

His father was C. Herbert Jones, a mathematics teacher at New Trier High School.[3][4] Lawrence Jones graduated from New Trier in 1943.[5]

Jones entered Northwestern University in the summer of 1943 and was drafted into the U.S. Army in February 1944. He shipped to Europe on the RMS Aquitania in December 1944, and served in the Signal Corps Company of the 35th Infantry Division until December 1945, when he returned to the United States on the RMS Queen Mary. Jones returned to Northwestern for the spring term in 1946 and earned a B.S. with a double major in zoology and physics 1948 and an M.S. in 1949.[6] In 1952 he received a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley.[7] He and his wife Ruth married in 1950, and they had three children.[7]

Career

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Jones worked his entire career at the University of Michigan, where he joined the physics faculty as an instructor in 1952. He became an assistant professor there in 1956 and associate professor in 1960. He was promoted to professor in 1963, and he served as physics department chair between 1982 and 1987.[7]

With Martin Perl, he was dissertation advisor to Samuel C. C. Ting in 1962.[8]

Research

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Jones's research depended on and led to developments in particle accelerators and detectors.[7] In the 1950s, he collaborated in the Midwestern Universities Research Association, which developed the concept of colliding beams in modern particle accelerators.[9] He contributed to development of the scintillation chamber, optical spark chamber, and the ionization calorimeter for hadron energy measurement.[9] He participated in experiments on hadron cross-sections as well as elastic and inelastic scattering and production of particles, dimuons, neutrinos, and proton charm production.

In 1983, Jones joined in the L3 experiment led by his former student, Nobel laureate Samuel C.C. Ting. He and Michigan colleagues designed and constructed the hadron calorimeter.[7] He also contributed to research in medical radioisotope imaging and was an early proponent of the hydrogen fuel economy.[9][10][11]

Regents of the University of Michigan named Jones professor emeritus of physics in 1998.[9]

Death

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Jones died in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on June 30, 2023, at the age of 97.[2]

Honors

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Jones was a Ford Foundation Fellow (1961–1962) and a Guggenheim Fellow (1964–1965) at CERN in Switzerland.[7]

Selected publications

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With four colleagues, he wrote Innovation was not Enough; the History of the Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA), which World Scientific published in 2009, describing their work researching particle accelerator design between 1950–1960.[12][13]

Jones co-authored 369 publications and solo authored 6 papers.[14]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Congress, The Library of. "LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress)". id.loc.gov. Retrieved March 14, 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Lawrence W. Jones". Legacy. Retrieved July 6, 2023.
  3. ^ "C.H. JONES, LONGTIME TEACHER AT NEW TRIER". Chicago Tribune. April 30, 1987. Retrieved September 11, 2024.
  4. ^ Jones, C. Herbert. "C. Herbert Jones (1889-1987) oral history". history.wilmettelibrary.info. Retrieved September 11, 2024.
  5. ^ New Trier Township High School - Echoes Yearbook, Winnetka, IL, 1943; pages 68 and 117.
  6. ^ "Larry Jones – Recollections of WWII". MichiganPhysics. March 25, 2015. Retrieved September 11, 2024.
  7. ^ a b c d e f "BHL: Lawrence W. Jones papers 1952-2006". quod.lib.umich.edu. Retrieved July 10, 2016.
  8. ^ "Samuel C.C. Ting - Biographical". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  9. ^ a b c d "Memoir - Faculty History Project". The History of University of Michigan, 1817–2017. Anne Duderstadt. Archived from the original on June 18, 2018. Retrieved July 10, 2016.
  10. ^ Leslie Rogers, Lawrence W Jones, William H. Beierwaltes, Imaging In Nuclear Medicine With Incoherent Holography, Conference on Application of Optical Instrumentation in Medicine, May 1972; DOI: 10.1117/12.953674.
  11. ^ Jones, Lawrence W (March 13, 1970). Toward a liquid hydrogen fuel economy. University of Michigan Environmental Action for Survival Teach In. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan. hdl:2027.42/5800.
  12. ^ Jones, L.; Mills, F.; Sessler, A.; Symon, K.; Young, D. (2010). Innovation was not enough: a history of the Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA). World Scientific. ISBN 9789812832832.
  13. ^ "Emeritus - Physics - University of Michigan". www.lsa.umich.edu. Archived from the original on July 13, 2015. Retrieved March 6, 2016.
  14. ^ "Jones, Lawrence W., (Spokesperson) - Profile - INSPIRE-HEP". inspirehep.net. Retrieved July 11, 2016.
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