| RefNo | EC/1997/34 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Taylor, Richard Edward: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1996 |
| Description | Citation typed |
| Citation | Professor Taylor has an illustrious record of research, mainly in the experimental study of the scattering of high energy electrons by protons and neutrons. Two sets of experiments, in particualr, have been of fundamental importance and central to the development and acceptance of the so-called Standard Model of particle physics. The first was a study of the scattering of electrons by nucleons at high momentum transfer - deep inelastic scattering - which first indicated the existence of the pointlike quarks and gluons within the nucleon. This established that the quarks, previously hypothesized as mathematical basis states of hadron symmetries, were real dynamical entities. For this work, Taylor shared the 1990 Nobel Prize with Friedman and Kendall. The second, and from a technical viewpoint even more challenging experiment, was the measurement of tiny asymmetries observed in the scattering by deuterons of left or right handedly polarized electrons. This required a precision in the determination of absolute reaction rates of 1 part in 10 to the fifth, and was an experimental tour de force. The results of this experiment provided unique and vital confirmation of the electroweak theory of Weinberg and Salam - itself an integral part of the Standard Model - at a time when atomic pysics experiments on asymmetries were giving conflicting results. |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA4700 | Taylor; Richard Edward (1929 - 2018) | 1929 - 2018 |