{"id":516552,"date":"2022-03-24T10:37:05","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T14:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=516552"},"modified":"2022-03-24T10:37:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T14:37:05","slug":"thomas-ferbel-remembered-distinguished-particle-physicist-516552","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/thomas-ferbel-remembered-distinguished-particle-physicist-516552\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Ferbel remembered as inspiring mentor and distinguished particle physicist"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long-time Rochester physics professor studied the building blocks of matter and the nature of quarks.<\/h2>\n
\"Black
Thomas Ferbel. (University of Rochester photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thomas Ferbel, a professor of physics at the University of Rochester<\/a> from 1965 to 2008, is being remembered for his mentorship of students and his collaborations with colleagues in the quest to understand the fundamentals of subatomic particles, including discovering the elusive \u201ctop quark.\u201d Ferbel died on March 13 at the age of 84.<\/p>\n

In addition to being an active member of the high-energy physics community at its inception, \u201cTom was an immaculate gentleman, a great human being with a simple heart, a wonderful mentor to students and young faculty alike and was genuinely concerned about the welfare of the students as well as of the Department of Physics and Astronomy<\/a>,\u201d says Ashok Das<\/a>, a professor of physics at Rochester who coauthored the popular textbook Introduction to Nuclear and Particle Physics<\/em><\/a> with Ferbel. The book has been translated into several languages and is used all over the world.<\/p>\n

Ferbel was born in Poland shortly before the start of World War II. He and his family were exiled in a Russian gulag and a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany, before immigrating to the United States when Ferbel was 12 years old. He received his PhD in experimental particle physics from Yale University in 1963.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with chemistry in high school, but eventually, in college, I realized what I loved about chemistry was the quantum mechanics,\u201d Ferbel said in an interview with the American Institute of Physics in June 2020.<\/p>\n

After serving as a postdoctoral research associate at Yale, Ferbel joined the faculty at Rochester in 1965.<\/p>\n

The \u2018bubble chamber research group\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cWe had a strong group in condensed matter, particle theory, and experiment,\u201d Ferbel said of Rochester at the time. \u201cIt was an exciting place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exploration of sub-nuclear physics was still in its infancy when Ferbel entered the field; at the time, a leading technique in high-energy physics was using a bubble chamber\u2014a vessel filled with a superheated liquid such as hydrogen\u2014to detect electrically charged particles.<\/p>\n

Adrian Melissinos<\/a>, a professor emeritus of physics, recalls \u201cencouraging Tom to come to Rochester because we wanted to start a \u2018bubble chamber\u2019 group, which, at that time, was one of the premier techniques in high-energy physics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cbubble chamber research group\u201d they formed at Rochester was dedicated to understanding the forces involved in high-energy physics, including the elusive nature of quarks. Quarks make up the protons and neutrons inside atoms and come in six different \u201cflavors,\u201d or types. Today researchers understand that quarks are the basic building blocks of matter, although scientists initially believed these particles were mathematical constructs for classifying the unstable states of matter that bubble chambers were uncovering.<\/p>\n

A new era in high-energy physics<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

Thomas Ferbel, in his own words<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In 2020, Ferbel recounted his life and career as a physicist as part of the American Institute of Physics Oral History project.<\/p>\n