Simon van der Meer (1925-2011)

Awarded the Prize “for his decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W Z, communicators of weak interaction.”

Dutch physicist. van der Meer was born on November 24, 1925 in Hague. In 1952, he obtained his engineering degree at the University of Technology, Delft, then he worked in the Philips Research Laboratory. In 1956 he moved to Geneva to join the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) remained there until his retirement in 1990. He became Horzours Loeb Lecturer, Harvard University in 1981 Foreign Honorary Member of American Academy of Arts Sciences in 1984. van der Meer died in Geneva, Switzerl on March 4, 2011.