Ting's parents returned to China two months after his birth where Ting washomeschooled by his parents..[2][4] After the Kuomintang's defeat, Ting moved to Taiwan with his family from 1949 to 1956 and conducted most of his formal schooling there.[4] His mother taught psychology as a professor atNational Taiwan University (NTU).[5][6]
In 1956, Ting, who barely spoke English,[4] returned to the United States at the age of 20 and won a scholarship to attend theUniversity of Michigan, where a family friend, G. G. Brown (dean of theCollege of Engineering), invited him to enroll.[6] He studied engineering,mathematics, andphysics there, completing his bachelor's degrees, master's degree, and doctorate in only six years.[5] He earned twoBachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees in engineering, mathematics, and physics in 1959, aMaster of Science (M.S.) in physics in 1960, and hisPh.D. in physics in 1962.[10][11] As a graduate student, he befriendedHomer Neal.[5] His doctoral studies were funded by a grant by theUnited States Atomic Energy Commission.[12]
In 1976, Ting was awarded theNobel Prize in Physics, which he shared withBurton Richter of theStanford Linear Accelerator Center, for the discovery of theJ/ψ meson nuclear particle. They were chosen for the award, in the words of the Nobel committee, "for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind."[13] The discovery was made in 1974 when Ting was heading a research team at MIT exploring new regimes ofhigh energy particle physics.[14]
Ting gave his Nobel Prize acceptance speech inMandarin. Although there had been Chinese Nobel Prize recipients before (Tsung-Dao Lee andChen Ning Yang), none had previously delivered the acceptance speech inChinese. In his Nobel banquet speech, Ting emphasized the importance of experimental work:
In reality, a theory in natural science cannot be without experimental foundations; physics, in particular, comes from experimental work. I hope that awarding the Nobel Prize to me will awaken the interest of students from the developing nations so that they will realize the importance of experimental work.[15]
Ting in the Space Station Processing Facility, 2000
In 1995, not long after the cancellation of theSuperconducting Super Collider project had severely reduced the possibilities for experimental high-energy physics on Earth, Ting proposed theAlpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a space-bornecosmic-ray detector. The proposal was accepted and he became the principal investigator and has been directing the development since then. A prototype,AMS-01, was flown and tested onSpace Shuttle missionSTS-91 in 1998. The main mission,AMS-02, was then planned for launch by the Shuttle and mounting on theInternational Space Station.[16]
This project is a massive $2 billion undertaking involving 500 scientists from 56 institutions and 16 countries.[17] After the 2003Space Shuttle Columbia disaster,NASA announced that the Shuttle was to be retired by 2010 and thatAMS-02 was not on the manifest of any of the remaining Shuttle flights. Dr. Ting was forced to (successfully) lobby theUnited States Congress and the public to secure an additional Shuttle flight dedicated to this project. Also during this time, Ting had to deal with numerous technical problems in fabricating and qualifying the large, extremely sensitive and delicate detector module for space.[18]AMS-02 was successfully launched on Shuttle missionSTS-134 on May 16, 2011, and was installed on theInternational Space Station on May 19, 2011.[19][20]
Discovery of nuclear anti-matter (the anti-deuteron).[21]
Measuring the size of theelectron family (the electron, the muon, and the tau) showing that the electron family has zero size (with a radius smaller than 10−17 cm).[22]
Precision study oflight rays and massive light rays showing that light rays and massive light rays (vector mesons) can transform into each other at high energies and providing a critical verification of thequark model.[23][24]
Determination of the number of electron families andneutrino species in the Universe and the precision verification of theElectroweak Unification Theory.[30]
Proposed, constructed and leads theAlpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) experiment on the International Space Station involving the participation of a 16 nation collaboration searching for the existence ofantimatter, the origin ofdark matter and the properties ofcosmic rays.[31][32]
Ting lived in a turbulent age during his childhood and his family was a big influence on him. In his biographical for the Nobel Prize, he recalled:
Since both my parents were working, I was brought up by my maternal grandmother. My maternal grandfather lost his life during the first Chinese Revolution. After that, at the age of thirty-three, my grandmother decided to go to school, became a teacher, and brought my mother up alone. When I was young I often heard stories from my mother and grandmother recalling the difficult lives they had during that turbulent period and the efforts they made to provide my mother with a good education. Both of them were daring, original, and determined people, and they have left an indelible impression on me.
When I was twenty years old I decided to return to the United States for a better education. My parents' friend, G.G. Brown, Dean of the School of Engineering, University of Michigan, told my parents I would be welcome to stay with him and his family. At that time I knew very little English and had no idea of the cost of living in the United States. In China, I had read that many American students go through college on their own resources. I informed my parents that I would do likewise. I arrived at the Detroit airport on 6 September 1956 with $100, which at the time seemed more than adequate. I was somewhat frightened, did not know anyone, and communication was difficult.[6]
Ting is the eldest son of his family. He has one brother, Ting Chao-hua (丁肇華) and one sister, Ting Chao-min (丁肇民). In an interview withChina Central Television, he explained that the combination of his siblings' and his name is the first three characters of "中華民國" (Republic of China). His parents named them after the country to commemorate their grandfather, who was amartyr in theXinhai Revolution.[51]
In 1960, Ting married Kay Louise Kuhne, an architect, and together they had two daughters: Jeanne Ting Chowning and Amy Ting. In 1985, he married Dr. Susan Carol Marks, and they had one son, Christopher, born in 1986.[6]
^McAlpine, Kate (February 28, 2018)."Q&A with Samuel Ting".Engineering Research News, University of Michigan College of Engineering.Archived from the original on February 2, 2023. RetrievedFebruary 2, 2023.
^Ahlen, S.; et al. (1994). "An antimatter spectrometer in space".Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment.350 (1–2):351–367.Bibcode:1994NIMPA.350..351A.doi:10.1016/0168-9002(94)91184-3.ISSN0168-9002.
.jpg)
