Science & invention
Samuel C. C. Ting
born 1936 · particle physicist
Nobel Prize–winning physicist and co-discoverer of the J/ψ particle, born in Ann Arbor, who returned to the University of Michigan for all his degrees.
- Born
Ann Arbor, Michigan
age 90- Birth name
- Chao Chung Ting
- Also known as
- Samuel Ting · Ding Zhaozhong
- Detroit years
- 1936, 1956–1962
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Ting was born at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor in 1936, while his Chinese parents were completing graduate study at the university; the family soon went back to China, and he grew up in China and later Taiwan. At twenty, speaking little English, he returned to Michigan, landing at the Detroit airport in September 1956 with about a hundred dollars, and enrolled at the University of Michigan. He took his undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics there and, in 1962, a doctorate in physics. In 1974 his MIT group, working at Brookhaven National Laboratory, found a new heavy particle he called J, while Burton Richter's team at Stanford found the same particle independently. The two men shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics. Ting later led the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment on the International Space Station.
Highlights
- Nobel Prize in Physics, 1976, for the discovery of the J/ψ particle
- Born at the University of Michigan Hospital, Ann Arbor, 1936
- Undergraduate degrees and a 1962 PhD from the University of Michigan
- Leader of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment on the ISS
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1956–1962
University of Michigan
He earned his undergraduate degrees and his 1962 physics doctorate here, twenty years after being born in the university hospital.