César Lattes | |
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| Born | Cesare Mansueto Giulio Lattes (1924-07-11)11 July 1924 |
| Died | 8 March 2005(2005-03-08) (aged 80) |
| Alma mater | University of São Paulo |
| Known for | Discovery of thepion |
| Spouse | Martha Lattes |
| Children | 4 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | |
Cesare Mansueto Giulio Lattes (11 July 1924 – 8 March 2005), also known asCésar Lattes, was a Brazilian experimentalphysicist, one of the discoverers of thepion, asubatomic particlecomposed of a quark and an antiquark.
Lattes was born to a family ofItalianimmigrants inCuritiba,Paraná, Brazil. He began his basic studies at his home state but later on moved toSão Paulo, where he finished high school. He proceeded to enroll in theUniversity of São Paulo, graduating in 1943, inmathematics andphysics. He was part of an initial group of young Brazilian physicists who worked under European teachers such asGleb Wataghin andGiuseppe Occhialini. Lattes was considered the most brilliant student in his group and was noted at a very young age as a bold researcher. His colleagues, who also became important Brazilian scientists, wereOscar Sala,Mário Schenberg,Roberto Salmeron,Marcelo Damy de Souza Santos andJayme Tiomno. At the age of 25, he was one of the founders of theBrazilian Center for Physical Research (Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas) inRio de Janeiro.
From 1946 to 1948, Lattes launched on his main research line by studyingcosmic rays. He travelled to England arriving in February 1946, to join his teacher Occhialini who had arrived the previous year, to work in the group directed byCecil Powell at the H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory of theUniversity of Bristol. There, he improved on thenuclear emulsion used by Powell by adding moreboron to it. In 1947, he collaborated with Powell, Occhialini andHugh Muirhead in the experimental discovery of thepion (or pimeson). In the same year he, along Powell and Occhialini, determined the mass of the new particle. In April 1947 he visited a weather station on top of the 5,200-meter-highChacaltaya mountain inBolivia, usingphotographic plates to register rays and reveal more 'pion decay events'. A year later, working with Eugene H. Gardner (1913-1950[1]) atUC Berkeley, Lattes was able to detect the artificial production of pions in the lab'scyclotron by bombardingcarbon atoms withalpha particles. He was just 24 years old.
In 1949, Lattes returned as a professor and researcher with theFederal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian Center for Physical Research. After another brief stay in theUnited States from 1955 to 1957, he returned to Brazil and accepted a position at hisalma mater, the Department of Physics of the University of São Paulo.
In 1967, Lattes accepted a position of full professor with the new Institute of Physics "Gleb Wataghin" at theState University of Campinas (Unicamp), which he helped to found. He became the chairman of the Department ofCosmic Rays, Chronology,High Energies andLeptons. In 1969, he and his group discovered the mass of the so-calledfireballs, a phenomenon induced by naturally occurring high-energy collisions, which was detected by means of speciallead-chamber nuclear emulsion plates invented by him and placed at the Chacaltaya peak of the Bolivian Andes.
Lattes retired in 1986, when he received from Unicamp the title of doctorhonoris causa andprofessor emeritus. After retirement he continued to live in a house in the suburban area close to the university's campus. He died of aheart attack on March 8, 2005, inCampinas,São Paulo.
Lattes is one of the most widely recognized and honored Brazilian physicists, and his work was fundamental for the development of atomic physics. He was considered one of the greatest scientific leaders of Brazilian Physics and was one of the main personalities behind the creation of the importantBrazilian National Research Council (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico). Due to his contribution in this process, the Brazilian national science database was namedLattes Platform after him.
He is one of the few Brazilian scientists with an article in theEncyclopædia Britannica. Although he was the main researcher and the first author of the historicalNature article describing the pion, onlyCecil Powell was awarded theNobel Prize for Physics in 1950 for "his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method". The reason for this apparent neglect is that the Nobel Committee policy until 1960 was to give the award to the research group head only. He received theTWAS Prize in 1987.[2] After his death Unicamp decided to give his name to its central library.
On 11 July 2024, Google celebrated his 100th birthday with aGoogle doodle.[3][4]
Gilberto Gil's Grammy-winning 1998 albumQuanta includes a song dedicated to Lattes, called "Ciência e Arte".[citation needed]
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