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American physicist Owen Chamberlain won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1992. Chamberlain confirmed the existence of the antiproton, a form of antimatter
Owen Chamberlain (1920-2006), American physicist and Nobel laureate. For their collaborative discovery of the antiproton (see Proton), Chamberlain and Italian-born American physicist Emilio Gino Segrè shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in physics.
Born in San Francisco, California, Chamberlain completed his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College, receiving a B.S. degree in physics in 1941. From 1942 to 1946 he served as a researcher on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb (see Nuclear Weapons) during World War II (1939-1945). From 1947 to 1949 he worked at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, Illinois, obtaining a Ph.D. degree in physics at the University of Chicago in 1949. He then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, becoming a professor of physics in 1958, a position he held until his retirement in 1989.
Chamberlain's work in nuclear physics began with close investigation of subatomic particles, or particles that make up atoms (see Elementary Particles). His part in the atomic-bomb project led him to study alpha-particle decay, neutron diffraction, and high-energy nuclear reactions (see Nuclear Chemistry; Nuclear Energy). In 1955 Chamberlain, with Emilio Segrè, discovered the antiproton, a form of antimatter. Later Chamberlain also confirmed the existence of the antineutron.