Donald arthur glaser biography

His research interests included the bubble chamber and molecular biology. University of California, Berkeley. Department of Physics. California Institute of Technology. His invention allowed scientists to observe what happens to high-energy beams from an accelerator, thus paving the way for many important discoveries. After winning the Nobel Prize, Glaser began to think about switching from physics into a new field.

He wanted to concentrate on science, and found that as the experiments and equipment grew larger in scale and cost, he was doing more administrative work. He also anticipated that the ever-more-complex equipment would cause consolidation into fewer sites and would require more travel for physicists working in high-energy physics.

Donald arthur glaser biography: Donald Arthur Glaser was an American

He spent a semester at MIT as a visiting professor and attended biology seminars there, and also spent a semester at Copenhagen with Ole Maaloe, the prominent Danish molecular biologist. Glazer told his business colleagues at Cetus that after winning the Nobel prize he decided he had spent the first part of his life studying the physical world and that he now wanted to study the basis of life itself so he changed to studying biology and genetics.

In fact, Cetus was originally formed to utilize his inventions and expertise with its first projects focused on producing higher yielding antibiotic strains as the company then evolved, pioneering the field of biotechnology. He studied the development of cancer cells, in particular the skin cancer xeroderma pigmentosum. He automated the process of pouring out agarspreading culture, and counting colonies of cells using a machine he called the dumbwaiter.

It took photographs, administered chemicals, and had a mechanical hand to pick up colonies. The short-lived partnership worked on automating diagnostic procedures. Cetus was purchased by Chiron Corporation in As molecular biology became more dependent on biochemistry, Glaser again considered a career change. His experience automating visual tasks in physics and molecular biology led him to an interest in human vision and how the brain processes what is seen.

He began to work on computational modeling of the visual system and visual psychophysics, and spent a sabbatical at the Rowland Institute for Science. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects.

Donald arthur glaser biography: Donald Arthur Glaser (September 21,

Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. American physicist and neurobiologist. Cleveland, OhioU. Berkeley, CaliforniaU. Invention of bubble chamber Business executive. Ruth Bonnie Thompson m. Glaser died on February 28, in his home in BerkeleyCalifornia from natural causes, aged Media related to Donald Glaser at Wikimedia Commons. Contents move to sidebar hide.

Donald arthur glaser biography: Donald Arthur Glaser was.

Page Talk. Read Change Change source View history. Glaser's hopes were realized: his method allowed for the construction of large bubble chambers with very short working cycles. Such chambers enabled the observation of the behavior of many atomic particles that had not been previously observable, providing thousands of times more information about them.

Inas a visiting professor, Glaser spent time at the University of California, Berkeley, and the following year, he became a permanent faculty member there. Over the yearshe collected nearly half a million photographs using a new bubble chamber built in Berkeley under the direction of Luis W. Equipped with a cooling system and a large magnet capable of deflecting the trajectories of charged particles, this chamber was the size of a small truck and significantly differed from the 3 cubic centimeter capacity flasks that Glaser had experimented with just seven years earlier.

InGlaser was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the invention of the bubble chamber. Inhe conducted research on microbiology at the University of Copenhagen.

Donald arthur glaser biography: Donald A. Glaser was

His subsequent studies focused on bacterial evolution, regulation of cell growth, carcinogens, and genetic mutations. Adapting the photographic analysis setup used in bubble chamber work to the needs of microbiology, Glaser developed a computerized scanning system that automatically identifies bacterial species. SinceGlaser has been a professor of biology and physics at Berkeley.

They had two children, but their marriage was dissolved in An athletic person, Glaser enjoys mountaineering, skiing, tennis, and sailing. Throughout his life, he maintains an interest in music and often plays viola in local chamber ensembles.