Schwartz, Melvin (1932–2006)

US physicist who, with Jack Steinberger and Leon Lederman, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988 for the development of the use of neutrinos to study elementary particles and for the discovery of the muon neutrino.

Using a large proton accelerator as a source of neutrinos, Schwartz, Steinberger, and Lederman produced the world's first beam of neutrinos in 1961. Using this they investigated the weak nuclear force and the quark structure of matter. They also found the muon neutrino, a new type of neutrino, which is paired with and can be transformed into the muon particle. The other, previously recognized, neutrino is similarly paired with the electron and is called the electron neutrino.

Schwartz was educated at the Bronx High School of Science in New York City and at Columbia University, New York. He became assistant professor at Columbia in 1958 and a full professor in 1963. In 1966, Schwartz moved to Stanford University, California and, during the 1970s, he became chief executive of a commercial firm in California.