# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/simon-van-der-meer
# Generated: 2026-09-02T06:18:30.156Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/simon-van-der-meer"
name: "Simon van der Meer"
slug: "simon-van-der-meer"
description: "He invented the technique that let physicists catch the particles responsible for radioactive decay — messengers so fleeting they'd never been seen until his trick made them visible."
tagline: "Dutch physicist (1925–2011)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Simon_van_der_Meer_in_the_AA_Control_Room_(cropped).jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "Netherlands"
  isoCode: "NL"
category:
  name: "Scientists"
  slug: "scientists"
profileType:
  name: "Scientist"
  slug: "scientist"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1925-11-24"
deathDate: "2011-03-04"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           58.35
  momentum:             0.855855855855856
  historical:           23.17671333333334
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     60
  profileCompleteness:  70
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
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    slug: "scientists"
  - name: "Scientist"
    slug: "scientist"
  - name: "Physics"
    slug: "physics"
  - name: "20th Century"
    slug: "20th-century"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Simon van der Meer"
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    title: "Simon van der Meer"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Simon van der Meer was born in the Netherlands on 24 November 1925 and became a particle accelerator physicist. Working at CERN, he developed methods that made it possible to detect the W and Z particles — the fundamental communicators of the weak interaction, the force behind radioactive decay. The breakthrough required not just building bigger machines but inventing entirely new ways to control particle beams with enough precision to make collisions that would reveal these elusive messengers. In 1984 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Carlo Rubbia for contributions to the project that led to their discovery. He died on 4 March 2011.