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The Chemical Educator
ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)
Abstract Volume 23
(2018) pp 242-243
Leon Lederman (1922–2018), Nobel Physics Laureate Who Coined the Controversial Term “The God Particle” to Describe the Higgs Boson – An Obituary-Tribute
George B. Kauffman*
Department of Chemistry, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA 93740-8034, georgek@mail.fresnostate.edu
Published: 6 November 2018
Abstract. Leon
Lederman, the director of one of the world’s most prestigious physics
laboratories who had irked his colleagues by coining the term “the god
particle” to describe the Higgs boson, died of complications of dementia in a
nursing home at Rexberg in northwest Idaho at the age of 96 on October 3, 2018.
In 2012 Lederman was diagnosed with senile dementia. His physicians suggested
more peaceful surroundings. Therefore he and his wife Ellen Carr Lederman moved
to their log home in Teton Valley in eastern Idaho. In 2015 they auctioned off
his gold 1988 Nobel physics medal for more than $765,000 to help cover their
extra medical expenses. According to his wife of 37 years, his last years were
ones of quiet contentment although he remembered less and less of his long,
fulfilling life. She and her husband often worked while vacationing in Idaho,
but also enjoyed skiing and horseback riding: “I had to learn to ski; he had to
learn to ride, and he had to ride a lot more than I had to ski. It was a good
deal. He was a good rider.”
Key Words: Chemistry and History; phyisical chemistry
(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: georgek@mail.fresnostate.edu)
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