Schwartz, Melvin
SCHWARTZ, MELVIN
SCHWARTZ, MELVIN (1932–2006), U.S. physicist and businessman, Nobel Prize winner. Born in New York City, Schwartz studied at Columbia University, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1958. He was an associate physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory from 1956 to 1958 and on the faculty of Columbia University from 1958 to 1966, becoming a professor in 1963. From 1966 to 1983 he was a professor at Stanford University. He was also chief executive officer of Digital Pathways, Inc. in Mountain View, California. In 1991 he became associate director of high-energy and nuclear physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
A member of the American National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Physics Society, he was also on the board of governors of the Weizmann Institute in Israel.
In 1962 he and two colleagues, Jack *Steinberger and Leon M. *Lederman, developed a means for utilizing neutrinos, subatomic particles, to aid in determining the structure of other basic particles. In 1988 they were the recipients of the Nobel Prize in physics in recognition of the greater understanding of elementary particles and forces resulting from their work.