Jerome I. Friedman

Facts

Jerome I. Friedman

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Jerome I. Friedman
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1990

Born: 28 March 1930, Chicago, IL, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: “for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics”

Prize share: 1/3

Work

Normal matter consists of atoms possessing nuclei of protons and neutrons, surrounded by electrons. In a series of experiments conducted around 1970, Jerome Friedman, Henry Kendall, and Richard Taylor aimed high-energy electrons at protons and neutrons using a large accelerator. They studied how the electrons scattered during the collisions and how protons were sometimes converted into other particles. Their results supported the theory that protons and neutrons are composed of sub-particles, quarks.

To cite this section
MLA style: Jerome I. Friedman – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Sat. 2 Nov 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1990/friedman/facts/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Nobel Prizes and laureates

Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.

See them all presented here.

Illustration

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.