Everything about Clyde Cowan totally explained
Clyde Lorrain Cowan Jr (
December 6,
1919–
May 24,
1974) was the co-discoverer of the
neutrino, along with
Frederick Reines. The discovery was made in
1956, detected in the
neutrino experiment.
Frederick Reines received the
Nobel Prize in Physics in
1995 in both their names.
Born the oldest of four children in
Detroit, Michigan, his family moved to
St. Louis,
Missouri, where he began his education attending
public schools. While attending the
Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy in
Rolla, Missouri, Cowan was Editor-in-Chief of the Missouri Miner newspaper from 1939-1940, and graduated in
1940 with a
B.S. in
Chemical Engineering.
Cowan was a
captain in the
United States Army Air Forces, where he earned a bronze star in
World War II.
From
1936-
1940 he was in the
Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Cowan joined the
U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service with the rank of
Second Lieutenant when
America joined World War II in
1941. In August
1942, he was transferred to
Eisenhower's Eighth Air Force stationed in
London,
England. In
1943 he designed and built an experimental cleaning unit to be used in case of gas attack. In the following year, he joined the staff of the
British Branch of the Radiation Laboratory of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was located in
Great Malvern, England. In
1945 he was a liaison officer with the
Royal Air Force, working to expedite transmittal of technical information and equipment. He returned to the United States in
1945, and worked at
Wright Patterson Air Force Base in
Dayton, Ohio. He left
active duty in
1946.
Benefitting from the
G.I. Bill, he attended
Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, receiving a
Masters Degree and his
Ph.D. in
1949. He then joined the staff of the
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in
New Mexico, where he met Frederick Reines.
In
1951 Reines and Cowan began their search for the neutrino. Their work was completed at the
Savannah River Plant in
Augusta,
Georgia, in
1956.
Cowan began his teaching career in
1957, as a
Professor of
Physics at
George Washington University in
Washington, DC. The following year, he left GWU and joined the faculty of
The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, a post he held until the close of his life. He also acted at various times as a consultant to the
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC),
US Naval Ordnance Laboratory, the
United States Naval Academy, the
U.S. Army,
United Mineworkers of America,
Electric Boat Co., and the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Family
He was married in
Woodford, England,
January 29,
1943 to Betty Eleanor, daughter of George Henry and Mabel Jane (Mather) Dunham of
Wanstead, England, and has three surviving children: Elizabeth Esthermay, who married John A. Riordon; Marian Jane, who married Charles M. Kriston; and George Langstroth, who married Justine Allen, then Kim Borkowitz. Seven other children died in infancy, and he'd two adopted sons: David Lorrain (died in childhood) and Michael Lorraine. Clyde L. Cowan died in
Bethesda, Maryland,
May 24,
1974, and was buried in
Arlington Cemetery.
His family has blossomed to include 11 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren.
His grandson James Riordon, a former physicist and engineer who heads the
American Physical Society media relations office, initially conceived of the
distributed computing project
Einstein@home, which searches
gravitational wave data for signals from massive rotating objects such a .
Cowan was a direct descendant of
L. L. Langstroth, the "Father of Modern Beekeeping", and a distant relative of
Katherine Drexel, a Catholic saint.
A biography can be found in the
The National Cyclopedia of American Biography Vol. 58 published by
James T. White & Company Clifton, New Jersey,
1979.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Clyde Cowan'.
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