211,805 profiles ranked

Burton Richter

American physicist · United States · Scientists · Lived 1931 to 2018 · aged 87

Burton Richter is read about 43 times a day, in 66 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 16 September 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 361 days, one point a day.

Something wrong?
Compare

He spotted a particle that shouldn't have existed - and in doing so forced physicists to rewrite the map of matter itself.

ScientistsScientistPhysicsUnited StatesAmericas20th Century

A life in dates

2018Died18 July 20182012National Medal of ScienceAward2010Enrico Fermi AwardAward2007Philip Hauge Abelson PrizeAward1976Nobel Prize in PhysicsAward1975Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardAward1931Born22 March 1931

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

Burton Richter NSF cropBurton Richter NSF cropBarack Obama greets Burton Richter and Mildred DresselhausBarack Obama greets Burton Richter and Mildred DresselhausBurton Richter & Paul Costello at Stanford 3-4-09Burton Richter & Paul Costello at Stanford 3-4-09Burton Richter - charm quarkBurton Richter - charm quarkBurton Richter 1976 (cropped)Burton Richter 1976 (cropped)Burton Richter at Stanford 3-4-09 1Burton Richter at Stanford 3-4-09 1Burton Richter at Stanford 3-4-09 2Burton Richter at Stanford 3-4-09 2Burton Richter at Stanford 3-4-09 3Burton Richter at Stanford 3-4-09 3

Awards

National Medal of Science2012
Enrico Fermi Award2010
Philip Hauge Abelson Prize2007
Nobel Prize in Physics1976
Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award1975

About this person

Burton Richter was born March 22, 1931, and built his career at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, where precision and enormous energies met. In 1974 his SLAC team, working in parallel with Samuel Ting's group at Brookhaven, discovered the J/ψ meson - a finding so jarring it triggered what physicists now call the November Revolution, the moment the quark model snapped into experimental focus. The Nobel Prize followed in 1976. Richter went on to lead SLAC itself from 1984 to 1999, steering the lab through a decade and a half of frontier work. He died July 18, 2018.

Country
United States
Category
Scientists
Type
Scientist
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1931 to 2018 · aged 87

In common with Burton

Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.Both received Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardYuan T. LeeBoth received Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardJames RainwaterBoth received Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardRichard SmalleyBoth received Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardJames CroninBoth received Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardMitchell FeigenbaumBoth received Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award

Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.