Jack Steinberger

Sau Lan Wu published a tribute .

From left to right: Jacques Lefrançois, Sau Lan Wu, Jack Steinberger and Lorenzo Foà.

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Sau Lan Wu published a tribute .

In the foreground from the left, Jacques Lefrançois, Jack Steinberger, Lorenzo Foà and Pierre Lazeyras, in front of the ALEPH detector.  ALEPH was an experiment on the LEP accelerator, which studied high-energy collisions between electrons and positrons from 1989 to 2000.

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Vera Luth published a tribute .

Jack Steinberger - My thesis advisor at CERN 1969 -1973

Photo of Jack attending my requirement party at SLAC in 2012



The four years I spent at CERN as a member of the small CERN-Heidelberg group building a beyond the state-of-the- art detector and producing high precision measurements of K0 decays under Jack’s leadership were extremely important for my later career in experimental particle physics. Observing and interacting with Jack was a great experience in the early years, as well as during occasional visits to CERN in later years. He stood out as an outstanding scientist and mentor with a very broad spectrum of knowledge and interests!

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Lisa Steinberger published a tribute .

Happy 100th Birthday, Uncle Jack!

I wish you were here to celebrate with us--but who would wish six more months of suffering on you just for that? Thank you for giving our family and our world your very best for 99 years!

I must admit that when I first met you as an adult in 2004, I wasn't expecting much. The Steinberger family has never been especially close. Decades with an ocean in between doesn't help much. The last time I remembered you visiting our home, in 1970, I was six years old. The few stories I had heard since were not always flattering. And I suspected that winning a Nobel Prize in the meantime would simply make an arrogant man insufferable.

Wow--was I ever surprised! And so very glad to be wrong! You were so kind, generous, and welcoming! If you harbored any arrogance at all, it was very well hidden. You welcomed me for a visit and wished it had been longer. You introduced me to your friends in your home town of Bad Kissingen, Germany--and they are now my friends too. You were truly glad to see me and to be yourself with me, over many visits since.

I rather get the impression that winning the Nobel Prize actually humbled you and helped you to recognize what's really important in life. You tried to use your fame to help make the world a better place. You delighted in making a difference. You seemed to value family more than you ever had before. You appreciated, perhaps more than anything, being loved not for your achievements, but for yourself.

I will miss sharing that love with you. I will miss our regular, if infrequent, visits. I will miss your wry smile. I will miss making chocolate Maikäfer for your birthday and presenting them to you, as you ask with a twinkle and a smirk, if there is one for every year of your age. (Always. And you're the only one I know who can limit themselves to only one a day--which makes your quota last over three months!) I will miss your twitting me by calling me "Niece Lisa," because I can never stop calling you "Uncle Jack." I will miss sitting across the kitchen table from you in your home in Geneva, as we share that love in silence. (And marveling at how many habits and mannerisms you share with your younger brother Rudi, my father!) I will miss calling you and hearing you ask, "When are you coming to visit?" Most of all, I will just miss you. Thank you for sharing yourself with me and with the world over 99 amazing years, Uncle Jack!

With love and gratitude always,
"Niece Lisa."

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Roger Nordmann published a tribute .

Je garde un souvenir lumineux de Jack, qui m'avait stimulé et challengé sur l'énergie solaire. Un destin incroyable, sa vie.

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Harry Nelson published a tribute .

I really got to know Jack in the winter of 1988-9, when CERN was shut down for the holiday, with heat off. I was able to keep working on a new MicroVAX workstation in my office, on the second floor of Building 2. It was dark and cold.

Exactly one person paced in the hallway. I guess he’d just returned from Stockholm. In an old sweater, Jack stopped in my doorway and asked, “Professor, can I invite you for a coffee?”.

I could fill a book with Jack’s stories and discussions.

Mark Twain wrote:

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Jack often described the mistakes that he, and titans he worked with, had made; he was eerie in his ability to get to the heart of experimental particle physics issues. We younger scientists thus felt that our mistakes weren’t devastations, and that with persistence, taste for elegance in experimental design, focus on the jugular, we, too, might become great.

I’ve done my best to pass the gifts that Jack gave me to younger scientists.

Elsewhere on our hallway there came to be a room full of scientists from China, who came to CERN to work with Jack. I remember discussing with Jack how an involved discussion among those scientists in Chinese sounded remarkably musical. One day he invited me for a coffee with them, and in the end, I married Audrey (Changqing Qiao).

A picture of our visit to CERN in 2016 with our daughter Emma is shared.

Out in the hereafter, I guess Jack has an office on a very important hallway. I’ll imagine him pacing it, and stopping in the doorway of the Boss (whoever that is!) and stopping to ask, “Professor, can I invite you for a coffee?”.

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Heinrich Wahl published a tribute .

The end of CDHS in 1984 with Pierre Lazeyras, Rene Turlay Jack and ...

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Traudl Hansl-Kozanecki published a tribute .

In 1977, CERN offered me a Scientific Associateship, a position that left the researcher the freedom to join the group of his/her choice. Having spent the two previous years in Helmut Faissner's group getting initiated to neutrino physics, I wanted to continue in this field, but at the higher neutrino energies that the SPS had just made available.

So I mustered all my courage, went to Jack's office and asked him whether I could join the CDHS Collaboration. The huge, recently completed iron detector had just started taking data. After chatting for a while, Jack accepted me in his group, but added: "Muons are not for you". Instead, I was fortunate to be put in charge of the reconstruction of neutrino interactions in the hydrogen tank, a pure proton target added in front of the main detector. Months later, when the reconstructed events revealed a stunning neutrino “x-ray picture” of the tank, Jack reported the results in a seminar; that he explicitly mentioned me by name – a rather exceptional practice in large Collaborations - touched me deeply. I became very much part of the CERN CDHS team; that period was one the most interesting and happiest ones in my long career.

One night, while I was alone on shift, the postdoc on shift on the down-beam CHARM experiment came into the CDHS control room under the guise of inquiring about a beam-related problem. I was amused … Little did I know that the two of us would marry within a year. The attached picture shows Jack celebrating with us on this very special day.

In 1990, in part thanks to Jack's help, both of us were offered a sabbatical in his ALEPH experiment at LEP. We will never forget the extraordinary mix of scientific rigor and deep, warm humanity that was so special to ALEPH, and that is owed in no small part to Jack.

Traudl Hansl-Kozanecki (with Witold)

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Alain Blondel published a tribute .

Jack...

Last December, the news made me silent.

There will remain in all of us in ALEPH, something of Jack.

Jack played with everyone the game of excellence. Be little beginner or already well-known, he pushed us to our best, and was not shy to say 'maybe your best is not good enough?'. Profound understanding and hard work were his values, self-importance and established laziness were his constant foes.

Did he ever call you 'Professor' with his gentle, knowing smile?

Since he passed away in December, I attach the 1989 Christmas card, a few months after the ALEPH start of data taking, and the determination that there are only 3 families of light active neutrinos. This measurement was really dear to him -- he had gotten the Nobel prize the previous year for having demonstrated in 1962 that there were at least two of them.

Originally we had thought we would do it by measuring the Z width... but in 1987 we realized (with the help of our American friends) that there was a much faster way, which however required a good and hermetic detector. In the spring of that year, I was showing Jack, at the CERN cafeteria, the graph of the difference between three and four neutrinos; he closed his eyes and was thinking deeply. And I realized that his vision of ALEPH as an "iron sphere", hermetic, would make it possible to do that measurement very well. The following two years were magical, with a great engagement of the ALEPH collaboration, that he had put together. The luminosity, the redundant triggers, the theoretical formulae and the event selection in TPC and calorimeters independently (not to mention the last minute addition of the pattern units for the famous XLUMOK)... the collaboration really worked together to make this all happen!

Jack left us, 99... this is an age one can only admire. He was strong. I feel really blessed to have worked closely with such a leader, a great scientist and a model.

Alain

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S.lokanathan published a tribute .

I joined as his student in late 1953. I cherish the memory of his great charm in making me comfortable for one fro another part of the world. In later years, he often would send me his greetings often with a one liner about current puzzles in cosmology. In 1989, when in Switzerland to attend a meeting, I spent the last evening at his house where he treated me to a fine dinner, chatting till well after midnight. Next morning, he insisted on driving me to the airport to see me off - an unusually emotional send off! Not just a great Physicist, a fine person.
S. Lokanathan. (Mani, to my friends then).

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Florentin Lange published a tribute .

Florentin Lange
Jack has always been a very dear friend to me. I first met him in the period 1973 to 1977 when I was part of the muon g-2 experiment team at CERN under the leadership of Emilio Picasso. Jack and I learnt to know each other more closely playing tennis, skiing and later sailing together. Among us two we always spoke in German. We used to share many other common activities which included his wife Cynthia and their children Julia and John which were born in this time period. My wife and I enjoyed very much being often invited for dinner to their lovely situated house at that time in Gex on the Jura slope. Jack was to my impression a very fine open minded and brilliant theoretical and experimental physicist with a very clear compass for honesty and well founded judgements. I admired him very much for his achievements in elementary particle physics, his general scientific horizon and his continuous engagement for key issues regarding the benefit of mankind and care for our precious planet. As example, control of and abandoning nuclear weapons and supporting efforts to limit climate change.
There are so many lasting and precious memories of visits to Cynthias and Jacks later home in Onex/Geneva each time my wife and I passed by. Being guests in their house was always a great pleasure for us and left more time to keep up our friendship and to exchange ideas and points of view. I am very grateful for all these memories.

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Alan Litke published a tribute .

My family and I deeply cherish the times that Jack joined us for the celebration of Jewish holidays. This photo shows Jack at our Passover Seder, 30 March 2018. We sorely miss this intensely wise physicist and dear family friend.

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Peter Lindenfeld published a tribute .

Most of the tributes are from those who knew Jack when he was well known. I became his graduate student about 1950 just after he came to Columbia, a bright star rising. Here is one anecdote. He had designed the first hydrogen target and went to the machine shop every day to check on its progress. When it was ready to be taken to Nevis he asked me to go with it in the truck and hold it all the way. When the day came it was pouring rain, and the machine-shop people laughed when I said I would be holding the target outside in the back of the truck. "We wrapped it up tight - that baby isn't going to move. Just sit with us." When we got to Nevis, Jack ran out excitedly, barely looked at me, said "sorry you got wet" as he passed. For no good reason I said that I rode in the cab. He turned around and I thought my physics career was coming to an end right then and there.
The next step was to make the liquid hydrogen. The small crew gathered in the shed outside Pupin one morning. No one was there with the slightest low-temperature experience. The two faculty members who did that kind of thing seemed to have left town. Jack had a sheaf of papers with instructions and called out to push this button, open this valve, etc. The high pressure hydrogen was on a platform that could only be reached on a ladder, and when the time came he looked around, and I found myself going up until he gave the sign to open the valve to the tanks. Eventually we actually had hydrogen in the Dewar, but we were not done. Some air had condensed at the neck of the vessel, solidified, and blocked the opening. Everyone had relaxed, but Jack, more alert than anyone else, noticed and ran to grab a brass bar that he shoved into the vessel to break the block. Later I did some work on superconductivity and still shudder at the thought of what we did.
When Jack was involved in an experiment he drove relentlessly toward a result. As a graduate student I scrambled to run behind and try to find out what he was doing. Even then he was a force of nature. Eventually he wrote the recommendation for the job that I had for the next half century.

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Roy Schwitters published a tribute .

I had the privilege of first meeting and getting to know Jack in the late 1970's, when he spent several weeks at SLAC learning--in his intense way--about "4-pi" magnetic detectors and doing physics on electron-positron colliders. He was, of course, preparing forcefully for CERN's LEP collider and the ALEPH detector.
We shared many interests outside particle physics, including climbing (I had guided on Mt. Rainier, and Jack climbed in the Cascades with friends in Seattle; we later did some nice walks together in Chamonix) and a mutual concern--shared by many of our colleagues--of threats posed to mankind by nuclear weapons. Over several years, Jack would send Karen and me a handwritten New Year's letter, often involving nuke matters along with family news, which we cherished greatly and deeply missed receiving in recent years.

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Heinrich Wahl published a tribute .

Jack in the garden of Herbert and Rosemarie Lengeler in August 2017

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Julia Steinberger published a tribute .

This post is on behalf of Tran Than Van.
Dear friends,
The news of Jack Steinberger's passing left us with deep sadness. He was a great man in physics whom we all admire for his correct judgment, for his numerous achievements and for his human qualities.

For me and for the organizers of the Moriond, Blois and Vietnam Meetings, we owe the success of our conferences to him.

Jack came to Moriond as early as 1968, just two years after its inception, when we were still in the infancy of childhood. He was the first great physicist of Moriond who helped us in our beginnings to choose our road, road which now leads to international recognition. He is also a faithful friend who has participated very actively 15 times in the Moriond Meetings on the Fifty of Moriond. Les Rencontres de Moriond are infinitely grateful to him.
He was always there when we needed his lights.

In 1989, when we wanted to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the discovery of CP, he was among the first to agree to participate, just a few months after his Nobel Prize, which made it possible to perpetuate the Rencontres de Blois in the castle of Blois. He was always present in Blois to celebrate the birthdays of 10 years, 20 years and other occasions to support us and bring us his enlightenment.

For Vietnam, the scientific community of Vietnam often wishes to recall Jack's coming to the very first Vietnam Meetings in 1993 when there was still the American boycott. The warm reception from the President of Vietnam to an American Nobel Prize laureate marked the beginning of a gradual transformation in the development of science in Vietnam. It was the first time that a Nobel laureate came in Vietnam for scientific reasons. Jack immediately wrote to President Clinton to call for an end to the boycott. It was December 1993 and President Clinton announced the end of the boycott two months later, in February 1994.
Then 20 years later, Jack returned to Vietnam in August 2013, at the age of 92, to participate in the inaugural conference of our ICISE center in Quy Nhon and to support scientific development in the central region of Vietnam. On this occasion, Jack interacted a lot with young researchers from Vietnam and encouraged them to build the scientific Vietnam of tomorrow, in particular with the collaborators of Pierre Darriulat.
The Moriond, Blois, Vietnam Rencontres and the International Centre for Interdisciplinary Science and Education (ICISE) as well as the Vietnamese scientific community owe a lot to Jack and will never forget its benefits.

Goodbye, dearest Jack, you are always present in our hearts.

Tran Thanh Van

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Julia Steinberger published a tribute .

From Tran Than Van: Cover of the most read magazine in Vietnam: Jack and the young physicists of Vietnam with the title : "So that dreams for science will not be alone"

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Michael Tannenbaum published a tribute .

I took a course with Professor Steinberger at Columbia, but I don’t remember now whether it was an undergraduate or graduate course. I do remember clearly a telephone call that I got from Jack in March 1965 at an apartment where I was staying which belonged to another student who was staying at another apartment. I don’t know how Jack found out; but the important issue is that I would be going to a post-doc position at CERN at the end of the month and Jack asked if I would sign on to a proposal for an experiment on K meson decays that he and Carlo Rubbia had submitted to the CERN management. I said that I would consider it, so call back tomorrow (when of course I said yes).
When I got to CERN in early April 1965, Jack and Cynthia took me to dinner at the Restaurant Cafe de Paris in Geneva near the Railroad station [it’s still there]. According to the CERN rules, I had to check with all the groups in the Physics Department before I could request the one to join, which I did. I then joined officially the K experiment with Carlo Rubbia (and Konrad Kleinknecht, Angelo Scribano...). It was an excellent experiment and one of my great recollections was that I was on the night shift for taking data and Jack and Cynthia took over in the morning; but one morning they didn’t show up. I couldn’t contact them on the telephone [for a reason that I can’t remember now] so after about an hour, I went to their house. I was pleasantly surprised how happy they were that I woke them up so that they could go to their shift on the experiment.
More recently, when I would visit CERN in the 2010’s, I would enjoy having great discussions with Jack at breakfast where he would ask penetrating questions about what I was doing.
Thank you for inviting me to this memorial of a wonderful person and scientist.

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Christel Gimmler published a tribute .

In Memoriam Jack Steinberger
Als Musiklehrerin an „seinem“ Gymnasium verbinde ich viele schöne Erinnerungen mit Jack Steinberger. Wenn Herr Steinberger seine Heimatstadt besuchte, war immer ein Besuch an „seiner Schule“ mit dabei, und dann natürlich auch eine musikalische Vorführung oder ein Konzert. Schon Tage vorher war die ganze Schülerschaft gespannt und voller Vorfreude „unseren Jack“, wie er liebevoll genannt wurde, kennenzulernen oder wiederzusehen. Mit Jack Steinberger verbinde ich persönlich einen äußerst höflichen und sehr bescheidenen Menschen, der eigentlich nicht im Mittelpunkt stehen wollte, dem alles offizielle wenig gefiel, der es liebte Zeit mit Schülern zu verbringen und mit ihnen zu diskutieren, der aber auch seine eigene Meinung hatte, und nicht dem Mainstream folgte. So wurde er einmal von einem Schüler nach seiner Meinung hinsichtlich der damaligen US-Kriegs-Politik mit dem Irak gefragt, und nach einem Seitenblick auf die Schulleitung und der Frage „darf ich frei sprechen“, sagte er seine Meinung. Er forderte Schüler auf, politisch aktive Bürger zu werden, die sich um das Wohl der Menschen und der Umwelt weltweit kümmern, unabhängig von Religion oder Staatszugehörigkeit.
Anlässlich seines letzten Besuchs, zu seinem 95. Geburtstag veranstalteten wir auf seinen Wunsch ein einstündiges Konzert in der Aula des Gymnasiums, darunter Werke seines Lieblingskomponisten Johann Sebastian Bach. Samira Spiegel, heute eine junge Violin- und Klaviersolistin spielte für ihn die Chaconne für Violine solo, das Schulorchester intonierte sein Lieblingsstück „Jesus bleibet meine Freude“, die „Kleinen“, ein Chor der 5.Klasse schmetterte mit Begeisterung „Mein kleiner, grüner Kaktus“ – ein Hit aus seiner Jugendzeit. Der Schulchor sang als Erinnerung an seine amerikanische Zeit Gershwins „Somebody loves me“ und „New York, New York“ von John Kander. Als weitere Solisten traten auf Philipp Kamolz am Marimbaphon mit dem Prélude aus der ersten Cellosuite von Bach und Franziska Meder mit dem Es-Dur Impromptu von Franz Schubert D.946 Nr.2. Zu Ende ging das Konzert mit dem Kanon „Viel Glück und viel Segen“, den Chor, Orchester und allen Anwesenden intonierten und damit dem Jubilar gratulierten. Jack Steinberger strahlte über das ganze Gesicht, wie das Foto zeigt. Es schien ihm sehr gefallen zu haben und auf seine ganz spezielle Weise dankte er mir mit einem Handkuss. Von keinem anderen Menschen hatte ich je zuvor einen Handkuss erhalten, nur von ihm - Jack Steinberger.

Wie gerne hätten wir im Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium zu seinem 100. Geburtstag wieder ein solch großes Konzert veranstaltet! Große Pläne dafür hatte die ganze Schulfamilie schon …
Jack Steinberger bleibt immer lebendig in mir und in „seiner“ Schule.

Christel Gimmler, Musiklehrerin am Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium Bad Kissingen

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David Nygren published a tribute .

Jack Steinberger, and David Nygren

I met Jack Steinberger at Nevis Laboratories in Spring of 1967, reporting for duty as a freshly minted post-doc. I went looking for Leon Lederman who had hired me while I was finishing my thesis, but Leon was not there that day. Instead, I was directed to meet with Jack, who immediately told me that I should go out to Brookhaven Laboratory on Long Island and connect with an experiment just getting underway there. I did as I was so directed and soon became part of the enterprise there. Pretty soon it dawned on me that I had been kidnapped by Jack, perhaps as part of a friendly rivalry between these two giants of the field. I learned subsequently that Nevis had a policy that new post-docs could choose their project, but Jack chose for me. Working with Leon might well have been equally rewarding, but, if not for that moment of arrival at Nevis, how differently my scientific career would likely have been!

As part of getting to know his charge of young assistants, Jack would test our convictions by proposing a bet on the outcome of some test or approach as we proceeded. The bets were ostensibly just 25¢, but clearly much more was at stake. Many of these trials were about technical mundanities, where I had some expertise and if memory serves correctly, I won all bets. Pretty soon the betting tapered off but how I regret spending those special quarters!

The experiments to measure the semi-leptonic charge asymmetry in K0L decays began in a beamline that led inward from the G10 target of the AGS. Jack had designed the experiment using very thin scintillator paddles in two hodoscope arrays to detect the decay within a big helium bag. The particles then entered large-aperture magnet to select sign, then into a large Cerenkov counter to select electrons. A scintillator hodoscope after the Cerenkov counter than completed the topological signature. This experiment is noteworthy for the simplicity in Jack’s conception of it, remarkable because the magnitude of the effect we sought to measure was tiny, at most a few parts per thousand, and perhaps easily confused by systematic effects. Yet the result was robust and decisive, a positive value of about 3 x 10–3.

That led Jack to conceive of another round of semileptonic charge asymmetry experiment, this time with those new-fangled multiwire proportional chambers, recently invented by Georges Charpak at CERN. Jack saw opportunity in these for both high data acquisition rate, providing statistical precision, and high spatial accuracy, providing superb topological definition. At about this time, Jack accepted his position at CERN, leaving his young charges to proceed with less day-to-day guidance. Reflecting his concern for our progress, Jack arranged for some tutoring to bolster our grasp of kaon physics, from none other than T. D. Lee. How we marveled at our newly gained insights! — but next day we would wonder “How did he do that?” Our new “Kaon Kit” was now in a much higher energy beamline from the G10 target at a much smaller angle. At CERN Jack constructed a similar “kit”set in a K0S beam. Suffice it to say here that both experimental enterprises were very successful, mopping up all the main physics in the K0S – K0L system. Subsequently, we used the Brookhaven setup to search successfully for K0L  μ+ + μ–, ending a controversy over an unseen standard model process.

A hallmark of Jack’s style was an insistence on thoroughness and diligence in his — and other’s — experimental results. Jack was not just intolerant of any sloppiness he might perceive, but brutal in judgement in such cases. He worked very hard to ensure that he could stand behind any of his results. For example, Jack’s CERN group produced a value for the K0S – K0L mass difference that was more than 10 standard deviations away from the mean value obtained in the previous analysis of the LBNL Particle Data Group. Afterward, any newer result seemed to match Jack’s value!

Jack and I became good friends at Columbia and later, when Jack decamped to CERN, I fondly remember visiting Jack and Cynthia many times in Gex and later in Geneva. His grasp on so many aspects of life — music, food, friends, culture, the best physics, was complete. I am so grateful to Jack for coming from Geneva to Berkeley in 2014 — in his 90’s — to participate in the Symposium “The Art of Experiment”, as I retired from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Jack was primarily focused on realizing a definitive scientific result and, in my experience rarely mentored his young charges directly. Yet, in retrospect, I realized that being around and working with Jack and being exposed to his style, one would be subjected to a sort of high-pressure osmosis. When I left Columbia and arrived in Berkeley in 1973, I understood that I had been very fortunate to have been exposed to the real thing, a pure scientist and master of his craft, and that I had been transformed from a fairly unserious and undisciplined apprentice in 1967 to someone who would now try to identify only the most important opportunities and problems and pursue them, whatever the risk of total failure. Looking back now, I can attribute any success I may have had to that random moment in 1967 when Jack met me, and then said to me “Go out to Brookhaven Laboratory and join this experiment there.”

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Italo Mannelli published a tribute .

You can find here some remarks on the relationship between Jack and Pisa
Italo Mannelli
http://fantechi.web.cern.ch/fantechi/Jack%20Memorial%20-%20remarks.pdf

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Sau Lan Wu published a tribute .

I met Jack when I was an undergraduate summer student at Brookhaven National Laboratory from Vassar College.  Jack has been my mentor throughout my career in High Energy Physics.  I am immensely indebted to him for his guidance and his friendship. 
Jack, I wish you peace wherever you are now. The whole High Energy Physics community miss you dearly.

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Monica Pepe Altarelli published a tribute .

Another photo of Jack's 95th birthday with many ALEPH friends

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Monica Pepe Altarelli published a tribute .

This is a photo taken at Varenna in 1954, the year of Fermi's death. I believe that this is the only photo of Jack with Enrico Fermi.

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Peter Dornan published a tribute .

It was 1982 and with considerable trepidation that I approached my first meeting with Jack, he did not know me, he was one of the great particle physicists of the day with an established reputation for straight speaking. I had been leading the Imperial College team on ELECTRA, one of the experiments proposed for LEP. Only four would be chosen and ELECTRA failed to be selected. However, the committee had informed the successful experiments they would be expected to admit some of the ELECTRA groups. At college we discussed the four experiments and came to the conclusion that, not only was ALEPH the experiment which best coincided with our interests, but we also saw an opening as the triggering system had not been finalised and we felt we could also contribute positively to the tracking potential close to the beam.
A meeting with Jack was arranged and I remember well the apprehension as I approached his office. I should not have worried, to my surprise when I said we would like to join ALEPH Jack just welcomed me and my group; no need for my prepared description of what we would hope to bring. Later I discovered that, knowing ALEPH had to accept some, of the ELECTRA groups, he had consulted with his colleagues to decide which ones - Imperial College was one of them. This, I was to find out later, was typical of him – he was much more interested in achievements than paperwork or exaggerated claims.
Over the following years it was my pleasure to get to know him very well. I admired his style and the way he ran the experiment, no written constitution, just an open experiment where everyone was expected to contribute to the best of their ability. Once you had his confidence he gave a free hand. It was an exhilarating environment. After joining, our task was to construct the Inner Tracking/Triggering chamber which would be crucial for the experiment. By the mid-eighties we had the designs and our plans to bring them to fruition. One day Jack asked me over to the cafeteria about five in the evening for a chat. I was then interrogated for the next three hours about the design, how it would be constructed and tested, the schedule, the expertise in the team etc. About eight he got up and said ‘fine’ and that was the last time I was seriously questioned. When such confidence is shown there is a real desire to succeed.
ALEPH was one of the 20th century’s great experiments and Jack set the style for how the experiment would be conducted. For me and for many of my colleagues it was the highlight of our careers. In 1997 I was proud to become the 5th ALEPH spokesperson and I like to feel that during this time I was guided by Jack’s approach. .
Jack was one of a small select group that made particle physics the exciting subject it was through the second half of the twentieth century. His contribution will never be forgotten. His insight and no-nonsense approach were exceptional. He was invariably approachable and he would listen to your views – although if they did not coincide with his he would definitely let you know. For me knowing Jack was both rewarding and a privilege but mostly, a true pleasure.

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Willy Haldemann published a tribute .

Le hasard a voulu que je fasses la connaissance de Jack en 1959 lors d'une de ses première visite au CERN.Ensemble nous avons parcouru les Alpes de Chamonix, l'arête du Moine à la cime de l'Est des Dents du Midi au Jungfrauhoch et autre 4000 dans la région de Zermatt.
Une amitié profonde s'est établie au point que Jack me proposa de travailler dans son équipe de Brookhaven. Ce fut une expérience importante professionnellement pour moi et pour ma famille et nous lui gardons depuis toujours une profonde reconnaissance

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Enrique Fernandez published a tribute .

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Enrique Fernandez published a tribute .

I first met Jack in person early in 1985, to express the interest of a new HEP group in Barcelona to join the ALEPH experiment. At that time the ALEPH detector was basically designed and under construction in many European institutions, but Jack nevertheless responded very positively and helped us a great deal to integrate in ALEPH. We are indebted to him for helping us in that crucial step of the group.

Meeting Jack is not something that one easily forgets. What impressed me the most was the clarity of his ideas, always expressed in a forceful and simple way. I soon realized that simplicity was, in his case, synonym of depth, something that I came to appreciate more and more over the years when I talked with him, not only on physics, but also on many other subjects.

I had also the pleasure of interacting with Jack on one of his favorite activities, sailing. The attached picture was taken in Coruña in June of 1992, just after having arrived from Gijón on a six-day sea-crossing. Those in the picture are the whole crew of the ZigZag-3. Those of you in ALEPH would recognize them. The following year the crossing was from Marseille to St-Maxime in a more calmed sea.

The relation of Jack with Barcelona continued beyond ALEPH and I show another more recent picture of May of 2014. It was taken in Barcelona, where Jack came to give a talk on the occasion of the 250 anniversary of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Barcelona, of which he was a corresponding member. Again the persons in the picture were ALEPH members.

For me it was a privilege to have met Jack. He will be dearly missed.

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Ron Settles published a tribute .

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Ron Settles published a tribute .

Greatful to Jack for this and many memories.
...page 4...

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Ron Settles published a tribute .

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Ron Settles published a tribute .

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Ron Settles published a tribute .

Greatful to Jack for this and many memories...

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Nicole Ribet published a tribute .

Quelques souvenirs personnels évoquant Jack bien vivant, modeste, humain...
Ils sont nombreux à me revenir puisqu’il a participé si souvent aux Rencontres organisées par J. Tran Thanh Van - Moriond, Blois, Quy Nhon- auxquelles j’étais présente, mais aussi de Cargèse, Paris et Orsay. Je me souviens

Lors d'un Moriond à Méribel, dans les années 1970, d'une mémorable bataille de boules de neige, après le fameux slalom et et le fameux pique-nique de M. Raiberti au sommet de la montagne. Jack flamboyant nous attaquant gentiment avec Cecilia Jarlskog...

D'un été à Cargèse au cours d’un dîner chez Georges Charpak (dans sa villa surplombant l'Institut), il a fait cette remarque sur la recherche expérimentale qui m'est toujours restée : « Sur les vieux clichés des anciennes expériences, il y a des découvertes qui dorment car on n’a pas trouvé ce que l’on ne cherchait pas »

D'un autre Moriond, à La Thuile, il avait au-delà de 90 ans. Il y était arrivé très fatigué, mais le matin à la table du petit déjeûner, un très jeune physicien nous a rejoints (pure tradition Moriond). Jack lui demanda quel était son sujet, l’écouta avec cette bienveillante attention si souvent soulignée et en quelques minutes ses yeux se sont mis à briller intensément, il entama la discussion, et au moins vingt années, qui le rendaient si las, ont disparu...

De Quy Nhon, l’année de l’inauguration. Le jour du départ Jack s’est mis très en colère car il refusait avec toute sa vigueur, la limousine envoyée par les autorités de Quy Nhon pour le conduire à l’aéroport. Tran m’a confié la mission de le convaincre. Comme je lui demandais les raisons de son refus, il m’a dit qu’il ne voulait pas de régime spécial et qu’il souhaitait prendre le bus avec ses amis. J’ai dû beaucoup exagérer l’inconfort du bus (quoique) pour le convaincre.
Il reste si vivant dans nos esprits.
Nicole Ribet

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Angelo Scribano published a tribute .

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Pere Mato published a tribute .

Outside ALEPH, I had the chance to sail with Jack in the Costa Brava in July 1993 with the beautiful Zig Zag III. Nice memories.

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Julia Steinberger published a tribute .

Dear everyone,

thank you for reading and sharing your memories of Jack on this page. We are currently (December 2020) trying to plan an online memorial for Jack. If you are interested in participating, please email [email protected] . Thanks so much, much love,

Julia

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Kendall Mahn published a tribute .

I met Jack at Neutrino 2012. I was assigned to host him in Japan as he was a keynote speaker. He was at first annoyed to have to have a "mother" and in fact introduced me as such, but soon realized that having a Japanese speaker around is useful in a new city. We had a lovely time hanging out that week, and I was able to visit him later at CERN and continue to discuss physics and life. I was very happy to share with him the results from my experiment, T2K, which he greatly enjoyed and would often ask for recent papers and updates on. He is my much loved "son".

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Hongbo Hu published a tribute .

Jack was not only a great physicist, a great leader, a great mentor to me, but also a great friend to me. In 1988, he found me a financial support from world laboratory and I was able to go to CERN and work with ALEPH in 1989. I still remember the first day I went to his office. He asked about my English and what physics topic I was interested. He also asked me whether I had enough money before I had my salary. He first brought me to colleagues who were doing the work I was interested. And then he went to bank for 2000SF and insisted to lend it to me, just because he heard that I only had a few hundred dollars with me. Actualy I had leant in China that it was not a proper way for me to borrow money from others in western country, so I didn’t want to take it. Jack tried to comfort me by saying that he had much more money than I had! I was so touched and grateful to Jack at the first day meeting him.
During my 20 months stay at CERN, I saw and heard many times that Jack cared and helped Chinese colleagues. Gradually, I knew that Jack actually cared deeply every ordinary Chinese people. As an example, one day in 1997 when I was doing postdoctoral research in SauLan’s group, Jack brought a copy of Chinese newspaper and asked me very anxiously why Chinese university started to charge all student with tuition fee? He said to me that China was a socialist country and he could not understand such a changing. He concerned about poor family and their children. I felt so sorry because I could not answer his question and solve the problem he was worried about. Today, I still kept this copy of newspaper because I was so much touched again by Jack and I saw what a great person he was to us that day.
Jack passed away from us, but he lives in our heart forever.

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Gabi published a tribute .

well - Jack was also a devoted mountaineer…
so many souvenirs of great outings!
on the photograph with Rudy Bock in 1974 on 'La Tournette’
Gabi

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Harry Sticker published a tribute .

I wanted to add an additional picture of Jack and David Nygren..

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Harry Sticker published a tribute .

Jack was my thesis advisor at Columbia I will never forget my first view of him, on the 8th floor at Pupin Hall, when he came back from CERN for a stint in NY. His piercing blue eyes and shock of curly gray/white hair took my breath away. Later, when I was working on my thesis experiment at Brookaven, he came into the data trailer next to the Kaon beam and with nothing better to do, swept the floor. I saw him last at the Nygren Festschrift in 2014 and was quite impressed at how far he had traveled and how young he looked well into his nineties (see accompanying photo).

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Julia Steinberger published a tribute .

Dear all,
Due to the pandemic, we are organising an online memorial, on the occasion of what would have been Jack's 100th birthday: May 25th. The time is 4-6pm Central European Time to accommodate many of you who live in North America. Please register here as an RSVP, and so we can send you the zoom link. We would like to restrict the event to those who knew Jack personally.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/online-memorial-for-jack-steinberger-tickets-150361123167

We look forward to sharing this time with you.
Julia (on behalf of the family)

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J. Peter May published a tribute .

Jack was my cousin, his mother being my father's elder sister; he was 18 years older than me. His mother and her sister married two Steinberger brothers, and the May and Steinberger families were in close touch. I knew the Steinbergers and their children in the 1940's and 1950's. (I was much later the PHD advisor to Mark Steinberger,
the son of Jack's brother Herbert). Jack admired my father, and he somehow chose to take me under his wing. In 1955, when I was 15,
Owen Chamberlain discovered the anti-proton. Jack took me to Chamberlain's talk about that at Brookhaven National Lab. I was the only kid there, and I was mesmerized. That event, and Jack's example and influence, inspired me to choose a career as a scientific researcher (albeit a mathematician rather than a physicist). Jack's advice determined my choice of college.

We were in touch off and on for the next 60 years. When my mother died at age 98, Jack, then 95, wrote me asking about her condition over her last few years.

Jack was a charming and sympathetic man, and it was a pleasure for my family to entertain him when he visited Chicago, where I teach.

I have never looked up to anyone else as I looked up to him.

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Hans Georg Keßler published a tribute .

Für den Verein der Freunde und die Stiftung des Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasiums
Nach den ersten Kontakten von OB Georg Straus und OStD Gotthilf Riedel mit dem neuen Physik-Nobelpreisträger nahm Jack Steinberger deren Einladung, zwar mit gemischten Gefühlen wegen der Vertreibung seiner Familie in der NS-Zeit, aber dennoch an und gab damit ein erstaunliches Signal der Versöhnung. Nach der ersten Begegnung in seiner ehemaligen Heimatstadt Bad Kissingen und seiner alten Schule im Jahr 1989 folgten dann noch fast jährlich Besuche, meist mit seiner Ehefrau Cynthia hier und dabei die Entwicklung von Freundschaften zu einer neuen Generation. Im Jahr 2001 erfolgte dann bei einem Festakt mit Repräsentanten der Öffentlichkeit die Umbenennung des Gymnasiums Bad Kissingen in Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium. Stadt und Gymnasium zeigten damit die Wertschätzung für den ehemaligen Mitbürger und herausragenden Naturwissenschaftler. Mit Stolz nahm man dieses seltene Privileg wahr, das hiesige Gymnasium nach seinem bedeutendsten ehemaligen Schüler noch zu seinen Lebzeiten benennen zu können.
Im Jahr 2004 nutzte der Förderverein der Schule unter dem Vorsitzenden Dr. Klaus Deuchert einen Besuch des Nobelpreisträgers und ernannte ebenfalls in einem Festakt Jack Steinberger zum Ehrenmitglied des Vereins, der sich zukünftig „Verein der Freunde des Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasiums“ bezeichnete. Schon ab 2001 hat dieser Förderverein jährlich einen Jack-Steinberger-Preis für herausragende Leistungen im Abitur vergeben, womit besonders auch das Eintreten von Steinberger für Bildung, soziale Kompetenz und für Werte gewürdigt werden soll. In diesen Jahren zeigte sich Steinberger auch als Gönner und finanzieller Unterstützer, so auch für die 2012 gegründete Stiftung des JSG. Der Erlös aus dem Stiftungskapital dient seitdem der Förderung von Schule und Schülern.
Schon in den Jahren vor der Namensgebung hat Jack Steinberger bei vielen Begegnungen das Lehrerkollegium und die Schüler durch seine Persönlichkeit und menschliche Note beeindruckt. Einerseits konnte man bei wissenschaftlichen Vorträgen in der Schule seine großen Fachkenntnisse und allgemein verständlichen Darstellungen, andererseits bei privaten Gesprächen sein vielseitiges Wissen über Politik, Kunst, Musik und Geschichte u.a. bewundern.
Dabei stellte er sich nie in den Mittelpunkt, sondern imponierte durch Unaufdringlichkeit und Bescheidenheit, Offenheit und Dialogbereitschaft. Irgendwie war damit immer eine Ausstrahlung verbunden, die z.B. bei der Begrüßung in der Aula circa 1000 Schüler so in den Bann zog, dass plötzlich eine, sonst ungewohnte, totale Stille herrschte.
Als Fachlehrer für Mathematik und Physik konnte ich von 1989 an alle Besuche von Jack bzw. Feierlichkeiten, wie runde Geburtstage inkl. 95.Geburtstag, Enthüllung seiner Büste, 125-jähriges Jubiläum des Gymnasiums, Ehrenbürgerwürde der Stadt usw. miterleben. Dabei wurden Respekt und Bewunderung für diesen außergewöhnlichen und liebenswerten Menschen immer größer, und wir im Kollegium sind dankbar für diese einzigartigen Erlebnisse. Dabei ist besonders erwähnenswert das Jahr 2001 mit einem Besuch von unseren 2 Physikkursen in Genf. Auf Einladung von Jack konnten diese, begleitet von ihren Lehrern Horst Gusinde, Klaus Miltner und Hans Georg Keßler die Wirkungsstätte von Jack im Kernforschungszentrum CERN besichtigen. Für die Schüler der Kollegstufe war nicht nur die kompetente Führung mit den Erläuterungen durch den Nobelpreisträger beeindruckend, sondern auch die überall spürbare Wertschätzung, die Jack dort entgegengebracht wurde. Türen, die normalerweise geschlossen sind, wurden überraschend geöffnet. Den erstaunten Schülern sagte ein dortiger Professor nur: „Bei einer Autorität wie Jack ist das möglich.“ Hier arbeitete Jack noch mit über 90 Jahren. Ein weiteres Erlebnis in CERN war das gemeinsame Essen in der dortigen Kantine, bei dem Jack die Schüler zu angeregten Diskussionen ermunterte und dabei auch bei politischen und gesellschaftlichen Themen mit seiner unaufdringlichen Art überzeugen konnte. Für uns alle zeigte er sich dabei auch als umfassend gebildeter Denker, als „Star ohne Allüren“ (siehe Foto!). Wir am JSG sind froh und dankbar, dass wir diesen Menschen über 25 Jahre erleben konnten und trauern um einen echten Freund, der trotz seiner negativen Erfahrungen in seiner Jugendzeit Brücken baute zu einer neuen Generation in Deutschland und Hoffnung vermitteln konnte. Unser Beileid und unser Mitgefühl gilt seiner Familie, insbesondere seiner Witwe Cynthia. Ihr Mann wird uns in bester Erinnerung bleiben.

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Sylvie Coyaud published a tribute .

I met Jack in Milan nearly thirty years ago as a science reporter and was taken aback when he started interviewing me. That was my job! Scientists tend to have a low opinion of journalists and there was no winging it under that blue gaze of his. His curiosity was a bit alarming at first, I wish I could remember exactly how we got from fermions to feminism, but it was also considerate and kind. He cared about what the people he met thought and did, what mattered to them and why, and was ready to help if needed.
And help he did even when he said he didn’t. He asked questions, uncomfortable ones at times, listened to the answers, read documents and added his own comments. Whether for the “Free Mordechai Vanunu” campaign or against military drones, discrimination or scientific fraud (usually cold fusion redux), we – I’m sure I wasn’t the only one - relied on his honesty and morals.
We trusted him. Decency, fairness, dignity... he practiced human rights personally and in a much broader sense than the United Nations’ definition. (He had a decade-long correspondence with a prisoner sentenced to life in the U.S. “What do you write about?” “None of your business.” Sorry I asked, Jack, I’d want privacy too...)
I’ll miss his sense of humour, his and Cynthia’s warm welcome in Onex as if I was part of the family, but I still have all those memories, his daughter Julia and his son Joe’s friendship - another gift I didn’t thank him for enough.

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Peter Adler published a tribute .

In 2009 whilst carrying out family research I came across details of the Steinberger family in the USA. My late father Josef Adler never mentioned to me he possibly had relatives in USA. I further learnt I now had many cousins in the States and Switzerland, prevoiusnly I had no cousins at all.
My father and Jack were first cousins, my Grandmother was born a Steinberger. On learning this and that Jack was a Noble Prize winner I felt I had to meet him personally. In 2013, together with my 2nd son, Kevin, flew to Geneva to meet Jack. We spent a few memorable days with him.
Hopefully in future the Adler family in Australia will meet members of the Steinberger family in the USA
Sydney NSW Australia

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Monica published a tribute .

Jack's 95th birthday

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Francois Vannucci published a tribute .

Jack fut mon directeur de thèse dans l’expérience K0 du PS
C’était un petit groupe, moins de dix physiciens, j’étais le petit jeune avec Vera Luth et Jack représentait la figure du père qui invitait dans sa belle maison de Gex et organisait les sorties à ski.
Sous son impulsion le groupe développa et utilisa les premières chambres de Charpak permettant d’accumuler des centaines de millions d’événements.
Je garde une grande vénération pour Jack en tant que physicien et en tant qu’homme

François Vannucci

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Theodore Modis published a tribute .

The summer of 1968 saw impassioned times, particularly at Columbia University, and not only on campus!
Jack was doing an experiment in Brookhaven and I was a graduate student contemplating thesis topics. In early summer I arrived at Brookhaven with a summer job in order to explore the possibility of doing my Ph.D. in experimental physics. I joined Jack’s Ke3 – decay experiment (Jack Steinberger, David Nygren, Tom Kirk, John Peoples, and Jay Marx.)
During the summer I helped in wrapping scintillator counters with very thin aluminized foil called “Mylar,” of which we had many rolls. Later in the summer, with the experiment well on its way and spirits lifted, frequent parties were organized at the lab, one of which became famous as the Mylar Party.
The “girls” fashioned outfits from Mylar for everyone. The men proudly wore vests with STEINBERGER GROUP printed on their backs in fluorescent red letters. More than half a century later I still keep mine as a cherished souvenir!
On the line-up picture we see the group’s physicists.

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Robert Brandenberger published a tribute .

Jack was a shining example for me. I met him
during a visit of mine to CERN. At that point, I was
a faculty member at Brown University, and Jack's
daughter Julia had just been admitted to Brown. The Brown Administration had asked me to make contact with Jack so that he could try to persuade Julia to come to Brown. But Julia had already made up her mind to come to Brown, and I think it was Jack who was quite interested in meeting a Brown faculty member!.

During our six month sabbatical at CERN in 2001/2002
I got to know Jack well. I was so impressed how he was reading up on cosmology, a new field for him, and always asking the best questions during and outside of the cosmology seminar which we organized at CERN.

Both Jack and Cynthia were very warm to me and my family and helped us feel welcome in Geneva. We interacted again frequently during our four month sabbatical at CERN in 2009.

Robert Brandenberger, McGill University
For both my wife Rushen and me, Jack is an inspiration for how to lead a productive and satisfying old age. We
will miss him dearly.

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Barbara Gusinde published a tribute .

Kleine Liedkantate

anlässlich der Ernennung von Jack Steinberger

zum Ehrenbürger von Bad Kissingen
Am 18.12.2006


Zu singen auf die Melodie: Ein Mann , der sich Kolumbus nannt,


Der Mann, nach dem die Schul benannt, e=m mal c quadrat
Ist in der Forschung wohlbekannt. ———
Ein Ehrenbürger wird er heut,
Was alle Schüler hoch erfreut. Gloria , Victoria ———

Genau vor 75 Jahr ———
Selbst Schüler unsrer Schul er war ——
Doch musste er aus Deutschland flieh`n
Allein in ferne Lande zieht. Gloria….

Amerika, das war das Land,——-
Wo er die neue Heimat fand———
Der Schüler, später der Student
In Lieb zur Wissenschaft entbrennt.Gloria….

Zuerst hat er Chemie studiert——
Dann zur Physik er konvertiert——
Lässt sich für Kernforschung begeistern
Und arbeitet mit größten Meistern.

Sein Doktorvater war berühmt,
Hat den Nobelpreis sich verdient.
Wer hätte damals das gedacht,
Sein Lehrling hat’s ihm nachgemacht.

Wie hat er sein Gehirn geschunden,
Bis die Neutrinos waren gefunden.
Doch dann spürt er die Teilchen auf.
Sie ändern seinen Lebenslauf.

Auf OB Straus` und Riedels Bitte
Lenkt er nach Kissingen die Schritte.
Die Schule lernt den Mann nun kennen,
Nachdem sie künftig sich wird nennen.



Zu singen auf die Melodie: Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann


Er ist jetzt ein berühmter Mann,
Der als Vorbild dienen kann.
Er könnt sich zur Ruhe setzen,
Reisen zu den schönsten Plätzen,
Gemütlich hinterm Ofen sitzen,
Endlos durch das Internet flitzen.

Auch könnt er den Rasen mähen,
Am Genfer See spazieren gehen,
Hätt viel Zeit zum Flöte üben,
Müsst nicht den Tag durch Arbeit trüben,
Doch glaubt mir oder glaubt es nicht:
All das hat für ihn kein Gewicht.

Täglich fährt er mit dem Rad
Zu Cern, wo sein Büro er hat.
Doch seine atomaren Teilchen
Beschäftigen ihn nur noch ein Weilchen.
Jetzt locken ihn die größten Weiten,
Er lässt den Blick ins Weltall gleiten

Ab hier spricht ein Schüler ohne Musik

Eine Frage lässt mich nicht mehr los:
Dieser Jack Steinberger wie macht er das bloss?
Mit seinen Kollegen—hochgelehrt-
Spricht er mit Worten , die noch keiner von uns gehört.
Doch spricht er mit uns in der Pausenhalle,
Dann verstehen wir Schüler ihn alle.
Ich kann mir das nur so erklären:
Er ist ein Genie hoch zwei
Schwebt in höchsten Physiksphären
Und bleibt doch ein Mensch dabei



Zur Melodie: Wir winden Dir den Jungfernkranz

Wir reichen Dir den Ehrenkranz
Und singen voller Freude,
Wir feiern Dich mit Spiel und Tanz
Als Ehrenbürger heute.

: Vivat, vivat, Ehrenbürger lebe hoch :


Gesungen von der Klasse 5a ( Text und Leitung: Barbara Gusinde)

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Hans-Jürgen Beck published a tribute .

Meine erste Begegnung mit Jack Steinberger fällt in das Jahr 1994: Ich war seit kurzem an meine alte Schule, das heutige Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium, als Lehrer zurückgekehrt und Jack und Cynthia statteten Bad Kissingen einen ihrer zahlreichen Besuche ab. Auf einer Wanderung zur Trimburg konnte ich ihn erstmals etwas näher kennenlernen. Mir fielen sofort seine Natürlichkeit, Offenheit, Bescheidenheit, sein Humor und sein wunderbarer fränkischer Dialekt auf, wenn er Deutsch sprach, was er oft und gerne tat. Auch mochte ich sofort seine wissenschaftliche Neugier und sein reges Interesse an ganz unterschiedlichen Themen. Man konnte ganz wunderbar mit ihm über die aktuelle politische Lage, die Geschichte, die Schnitzkunst Tilman Riemenscheiders, den er sehr schätzte, oder über die Musik Bachs, Mozarts und Schuberts oder einfach nur über ganz alltägliche Dinge reden. Jack Steinberger gehörte zu den Menschen, in deren Nähe man sich rasch wohl fühlt, weil sie sich nicht selbst in den Mittelpunkt stellen und ganz offen für die Begegnung mit anderen Menschen sind. Trotz der Tatsache, dass ich von Physik und Naturwissenschaften überhaupt keine Ahnung hatte, vermittelte er mir von Anfang an ein Gefühl der Wertschätzung. Im Laufe der Jahre wurde er zu einem guten Freund, über dessen regelmäßige Besuche mit seiner Frau, seinen Kindern und Enkeln und den beiden Hunden wir uns in Kissingen schon lange im Voraus sehr freuten. Zusammen mit uns Kissingern unternahmen Jack und seine Familie zahlreiche schöne Fahrten in die nähere und weitere Umgebung. Wir verbrachten bei gutem Essen und interessanten Gesprächen wunderbare Nachmittage und Abende bei Georg und Irene Straus, Horst und Barbara Gusinde, Marlies und Rudolf Walter sowie Hilla und Manfred Schütze. Auch für die Schülerinnen und Schüler des Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasiums war Jack Steinberger immer offen. Ihm lag sehr viel daran, den jungen Leuten etwas zu geben. Geduldig stellte er sich ihren Fragen und erfüllte ihre Autogrammwünsche, obwohl ihm der Rummel um seine Person eigentlich so gar nicht lag. Für unsere Schülerinnen und Schüler, aber auch für uns Lehrerinnen und Lehrer war er stets ein äußerst nahbarer, sympathischer Namensgeber zum Anfassen. Welche Schule hat schon das Privileg, einen so großartigen Menschen zum Namensgeber zu haben und so viel Zeit mit ihm verbringen zu können? Auch wenn es eine Floskel ist, zu der ich Zuflucht nehme, so ist sie doch wahr: Jacks Tod hinterlässt bei allen seinen Kissinger Freunden eine große Lücke. Wir vermissen ihn sehr.
Hans-Jürgen Beck, Bad Kissingen

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Rolf Walter published a tribute .

Begegnungen mit alten und neuen Freunden in Bad Kissingen:

Wir sind Jack Steinberger dankbar, dass er im Juni 1989 einer Einladung seiner Geburtsstadt gefolgt ist und Bad Kissingen besucht hat, auch wenn er sicher mit zwiespältigen Gefühlen gekommen ist. Denn er und seine Familie waren von dort in der NS-Zeit wegen ihrer jüdischen Herkunft vertrieben worden. Dass er dennoch die Einladung angenommen hat und mit seinem Besuch ein Zeichen der Versöhnung setzte, hat uns sehr berührt. Jack formulierte seine Empfindungen nach dem zweitägigen Besuch: "Vor der Reise hierher war mir eher bang ums Herz gewesen. Aber dieses Gefühl ist bald dem der Freude gewichen. Ich habe mich wirklich in der Stadt willkommen gefühlt".
Seitdem besuchte Jack mit seiner Familie regelmäßig Bad Kissingen, und es entstand ein intensiver freundschaftlicher Kontakt zu uns allen, seinen alten und neuen Freunden.

Wie wichtig Jack selbst diese Besuche in seiner Heimatstadt waren, hat er immer wieder zum Ausdruck gebracht, zum Beispiel 2001, als seine frühere Schule in „Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium“ umbenannt wurde:
"Der Nobelpreis 1988 war natürlich für mich ein schönes Ereignis. Eine unerwartete Folge war die Wiederverbindung mit der alten Heimat, mit meinen Eltern und Voreltern, mit der Kultur, mit der ich aufgewachsen bin. Ich bin in Kissingen geboren, war hier in der Schule bis zum dreizehnten Jahr, mein Vater war 45 Jahre Kantor in der Kissinger Synagoge bis zu seiner Auswanderung 1937. Dann, nachdem der Preis bekannt wurde, wurde ich von dem damaligen Direktor des Gymnasiums, Herrn Riedel, zu einem Wiederkommen eingeladen, und es fanden sich neue Freunde in Kissingen, die ich als Menschen enorm schätze, sodass ich seitdem gerne in die ehemalige Heimat zurückkomme, die neuen Freunde wieder sehe und die schöne Gegend und wunderbare alte Kultur wieder kennen lerne. Vielen Dank, liebe Kissinger, für diese Bereicherung meiner alten Tage!“

Für uns Kissinger Freunde war es ein großes Vergnügen, mit ihm und seiner Familie Ausflüge in die Umgebung zu machen und ihm die kulturellen und landschaftlichen Schönheiten seiner fränkischen Heimat zu zeigen oder ihn in gemütlicher Runde nach einem Abendessen (mit seinen geliebten fränkischen Klößen) als unkomplizierten, liebenswürdigen, humorvollen Gast zu erleben. Ein wunderbarer Mensch, der sich bis ins hohe Alter seine Offenheit und Neugier bewahrte, engagiert über historische, politische und soziale Themen diskutierte und gerne kritische, überraschende Fragen stellte, wenn ihn oberflächliche Antworten nicht überzeugten.

Wir werden Jack sehr vermissen und die schönen Begegnungen mit ihm in guter Erinnerung behalten.

Die Kissinger Freunde

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David And Susan Schwartz published a tribute .

A few thoughts about my friend Jack Steinberger. First, Jack was the reason my father, Mel Schwartz, went into physics. My dad took a class with Jack at Columbia, and Jack showed up the first day looking disheveled, having spent the night on a run at Nevis. Instead of lecturing about the subject matter of the class, Jack told the students what he had been up to that night, all about the experiment, etc. By the time he had finished, my father had decided he wanted to be an experimental particle physicist, and he wanted to work with Jack - both of which he did! Later on they worked together on the muon neutrino experiment, which became quite famous. In later years my father would say that Jack had "exquisite taste" in the physics he pursued, which was the highest compliment my dad ever gave another physicist. For his part, Jack was always highly complimentary to me about my father, crediting him with the idea for the neutrino experiment, and always praising his approach to physics.
In later years I got to know Jack independently. Once was when I was in Geneva, working on US delegation
to the nuclear talks with the Russians in 1982. I contacted Jack, and he and Cynthia had us over for dinner on several memorable occasions. He was a generous host, and the two of them put on quite a spread for us. Jack was intensely interested in my work, and managed to be highly critical of US policy without being offensive in the least!
Later still, in 2014, I began a project to write a biography of Enrico Fermi, who was Jack's dissertation advisor. I emailed Jack to ask if I could come to Geneva to interview him, and he replied immediately, with a sweet tribute to my dad who had passed away in 2006 and then an invitation to Geneva. "Hurry!" he wrote, "I'm 94!" My wife Susan and I were worried about his health, so we made immediate plans to come to Geneva in May. When I wrote him about our plans, he said that no, he was going to be in Berkeley and then in Maine at that time! Obviously he was in fine health! We ended up meeting him in Berkeley, where he was attending a symposium honoring his grad student David Nygren, and while he protested that his memory was shot, when he relaxed a bit he was very talkative indeed about his years at Chicago, and remembered virtually everything. His dissertation was a very important piece of experimental work, much more important than your typical PhD, but with characteristic modesty he said that he had no idea what he had actually discovered until three fellow grad students (Lee, Yang, and Rosenbluth) pointed it out to him. His generosity to me regarding the Fermi project was enormous, and when it was time to travel to CERN to talk to Dr. Gianotti about Fermi's impact on physics, Jack was eager to see us again. He joined us for a memorable meeting with Dr. Gianotti and then had lunch with us in the CERN cafeteria. He always described Fermi as a generous and kind man, and Jack was, to us at least, exactly like that - intensely interested and curious about what I was doing, and quite willing to spend time with me to help me out.
My wife Susan and I will miss him greatly. He was a huge figure in physics, of course, but he was also a friend, and one of the last connections in the physics world to my father. Sending our heartfelt condolences to his family.

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Angela Beck published a tribute .

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Angela Beck published a tribute .

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Konrad Kleinknecht published a tribute .

First experiment of Jack Steinberger at CERN.

In winter1964/65 I met Jack for the first time. He just came from Columbia university for a sabbatical leave, I was looking for a thesis subject. I was playing in a rehearsal of the CERN chamber orchestra for Händel´s Messiah which the CERN chorus wanted to perform under Colin Taylor. So he came to the rehearsal with his flute and joined. Afterwards we had a beer in the CERN canteen and he told me of his plan to show experimentally whether the decay of the KL to 2 pions really meant CP Violation or whether there was a very light invisible particle in the final state in addition to the 2 pions. The idea was to show interference in the decays of KL and KS by preparing a coherent mixture of KL and KS and detecting the decay to 2 pions.
He said he needed now a Ph.D. student to calculate the acceptance of the magnetic spectrometer which he had in mind for the signal events K0 to 2 pions and for the background processes K0 to pi e nu and K0 to pi mu nu. I had studied these decays and knew the matrix element. So I made the Monte Carlo calculation the same night and showed the results to Jack the next morning. He was content and hired me as collaborator. The magnetic spectrometer with optical spark chambers and trigger hodoscope was then built by Jack, Carlo Rubbia and me.
The experiment was completed in July 1966 and published. It showed the interference between the two decays of KL and KS to 2 pions and consolidated the picture that CP symmetry is violated in KL decay.

Many common experiments and many musical evenings as well as skiing excursions followed this episode: CERN-Heidelberg CP violation experiment, CERN-Dortmund-Heidelberg-Saclay Neutrino experiment WA1, ALEPH at LEP, NA31.
Jack was a great personality and a good friend. In later years, he visited regularly his home town Bad Kissingen in Bavaria and became honorary citizen.
Konrad Kleinknecht, Mainz and Munich

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Bernard Peyaud published a tribute .

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Dirk Vogel published a tribute .

Jack Steinberger ist gestorben. Sein Leben und sein Wirken sind bereits zeitlebens Bestandteil unserer Stadtgeschichte geworden. Das war alles andere als selbstverständlich. Als 13-Jähriger musste er mit seinem Bruder aus Bad Kissingen fliehen. Er absolvierte Schule, Studium, Promotion und Professur in Winnetka, Chicago, Berkeley, New York und Genf. Bad Kissingen war nicht nur geografisch weit weg.

Oberbürgermeister Georg Strauß und der damalige Schulleiter Gotthilf Riedel waren es, die Ende der 1980er Jahre durch seine Auszeichnung als Nobelpreisträger der Physik auf ihn aufmerksam wurden. Es folgte die vorsichtige Kontaktaufnahme. Jack Steinberger ist es zu verdanken, dass er, und wie er, auf die Offerte seiner Heimatstadt reagierte: freundlich, zurückhaltend, interessiert – und erstaunt auf die popstarähnliche Begrüßung durch die neue Generation seines Geburtsorts: „Auch wenn es nicht leicht ist, damit zurechtzukommen, dass ich einst rausgeschmissen wurde und jetzt gefeiert werde“. Für mich, für uns als Schüler war er lebendige Geschichte auf der einen Seite, und personifizierte Hoffnung, was aus einem in Zukunft werden könnte, auf der anderen Seite.
Die Aufregung wich einem regelmäßigen intellektuellen und emotionalen Austausch zwischen der Stadt und ihrem berühmten Sohn. Zahlreiche Besuche, alte und neue Freunde und ein Symposium sind die Belege eines positiv routinierten Miteinanders. Seit 2001 darf das Gymnasium seinen Namen tragen, 2006 durfte die Stadt ihm in Anerkennung seiner herausragenden Leistungen in der Wissenschaft und der Würdigung seiner Verdienste um die Stadt Bad Kissingen die Ehrenbürgerschaft verleihen.

Jack Steinberger war nicht nur ein bahnbrechender Physiker, dem mit seinen Mitstreitern der Nachweis von zwei Arten von Neutrinos gelang. Er war ein kritischer Geist, der sich mit der sozialen Wirklichkeit auseinandersetzte. Er warb für die Abrüstung und kritisierte die mangelnde Auseinandersetzung mit dem Klimawandel. Damit steht er in der Tradition einer verantwortungsvollen Physik. Steinberger war kein Physikprofessor mit dem Fokus auf eine Platzierung in Top-Peer-Reviewed Journals. Er war ein öffentlicher Intellektueller alter Schule.

Nach so einem Leben ist das auch nicht erstaunlich. Wir sind als Stadt froh, dass wir wieder ein Teil davon werden durften.

Wir verneigen uns vor einem Ausnahmephysiker, einem Intellektuellen, einem Sohn und Freund der Stadt Bad Kissingen.

Dr. Dirk Vogel
Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Bad Kissingen

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Jean Tran Thanh Van published a tribute .

La présence de Jack à ICISE, Vietnam: ces fleurs qui embaument les coeurs éternellement

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Fabrizio Palla published a tribute .

It is a bad news for me: Jack has been a teacher, a colleague and a friend.

In March 1989 I got a telephone call from Lorenzo Foà (my master thesis advisor, defended a few weeks before) asking if I was interested to work with a Nobel Prize … “Immediately!” -I replied with happiness. He told me meet Jack in person the day after at the Scuola Normale, since he was looking for a young physicist to measure the number of neutrino families with ALEPH, at LEP. Needless to say that I passed all night studying all what I could to come prepared.
The next day I climbed the stairs of the Scuola and knocked Jack’s office door. After few preambles on my thesis work (on b-tagging) he asked me to explain him how to measure the number of neutrino families. I was prepared: the article on the CERN Yellow book proposed to use the so called “single photon process”, where the only visible particle in the final state is a photon emitted from the beam leptons (electrons or positrons), but it would have taken years to be performed - in fact we published it four years later. Jack did not interrupt, but at the end he said: “This is not how I would do. I want this to be the first paper at LEP!” (LEP was supposed to start in a few months on July 14). He then started describing his method at the black board. Then he asked: “What do you think? Do you want to come to CERN to work with me?”. This was the beginning of a long friendship. The day after he came to visit my parent’s house in Pisa carrying a tray of pastries and he spoke in Italian.
I went to CERN on April 1st and spent the most exciting period of my scientific life! Enthusiastically a small group of people met every day (and work all nights) until the measurement was done. I was paid with a small subsistence by CERN for a few months and Jack said that I was the physicist with the highest ratio of physics output and income!!

In many other occasions we discussed about physics: he wanted to know exactly the reasons that motivated my scientific works, and gave his advices, always straight to the point. We worked together in another intriguing measurement between 1994 and 1996, when I was a post-doc in Barcelona. At that time he also wrote a FORTRAN code himself. He played the main role in the measurement - as usual! - by an acute observation that systematically affected all past measurements and that everybody overlooked. This solved the puzzle and set aside new physics for a while.

In the years, Jack told me about his incredible life. He presented it as pure coincidence, but he has been in all major scientific endeavours in particle physics. Clearly he was steering the facts and was always at the right moment because he was ahead of anyone else.
Jack was more than a physicist. When we met we discussed of politics, nuclear disarm and religion.

Jack will always remain with us.

Fabrizio

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Monica published a tribute .

This is a funny story about Jack (quite typical, however) written by Steve Wasserbaech that I found in "The ALEPH Experience" book

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Rd Schaffer published a tribute .

I did my PhD at Columbia/Nevis in the early 80's. Jack had left Columbia a number of years before, but he had cast a "long shadow" at Nevis. Many of the physicists wanted to "prove Jack was wrong" in one of their experiments. But any mention of Jack to the support staff brought out fond memories of him. I suppose that Jack had treated them with much respect...
And to a large extent, it was Jack's "shadow" that brought me to CERN as an associate in '84, where I joined the search to measure epsilon prime over epsilon in NA31 which Jack helped instigate, and I spent the following nine years on this. Jack was largely occupied by ALEPH at this time. But I recall several meetings which Jack joined, often with his eyes closed, only to "wake up" to ask the "right question" on a presentation.

I do not think that there have been many people like Jack with the stature of a great physicist as well as his important humanist qualities.

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Monica published a tribute .

The ALEPH spokespersons, Nov. 2009

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Jacques Haïssinski published a tribute .

Qui n'a pas de souvenirs de ses propres interactions
avec Jack Steinberger? Il jetait un regard tellement aigu sur
tout ce qui était proche de son chemin. J'avoue que je
redoutais son jugement (comme celui de Carlo Rubbia, mais pour
d'autres raisons).
Comme Gustaaf Brooijmans, mon dernier souvenir de lui date
de sa participation à la Conférence inaugurale de Quy Nhon.
Nous attendions chacun un avion pour revenir à Ho Chi Minh
Ville, ce qui nous a laissé le temps d'avoir une assez longue
conversation. Je me souviens qu'il m'avait dit alors que le
travail qui lui a apporté le plus de satisfaction dans sa vie
était son calcul de la durée de vie du pi0 lors de sa désintégration
en deux photons (? Phys. Rev. 76, 1180 – Published 15 October 1949?)
– sans doute parce qu'il avait fait ce calcul
très tôt dans sa carrière et hors de toute collaboration, et peut-être
aussi du fait qu'à l'époque on ne s'attendait pas (je crois) à une
durée de vie aussi courte.
Nous perdons avec une grande tristesse un géant de la physique
des particules.

Jacques Haïssinski

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Jean Iliopoulos published a tribute .

Je voudrais ajouter quelques mots au message de Jacques Lefrancois.

Jack a préparé sa thèse sous la direction de Fermi à Chicago. Il a fait un stage post-doctoral à l'Institut de Princeton en tant que théoricien et, en 1948, il publia un petit article qui est aujourd'hui un classique: A l'époque on pensait que les pions étaient des états liés nucléon--anti-nucléon. Dans ce modèle Jack a calculé la vie moyenne de pi^0 en deux gammas et a trouvé le bon résultat. Notez que pi^0 n'avait pas encore été découvert. Le calcul n'est pas trivial parce que le diagramme triangulaire correspondant est superficiellement divergent. Avec ce calcul Jack fut le précurseur d'une branche de physique théorique, celle des anomalies du courant axial.

Son deuxième poste était à Berkeley où, en 1950 avec Panofsky et Steller, ont découvert le pi^0 au premier synchrotron à électrons de Berkeley. L'existence du pi^0 a été prédite par Kemmer en 1938 comme conséquence de la symétrie d'isospin. Ainsi pi^0 fut la première particule prédite sur un argument de symétrie et aussi la première découverte avec un accelerateur.

Jack a dû quitter Berkeley l'année suivante parce qu'il a refusé de signer un "serment" concernant ses opinions politiques (on était à l'époque de McCarthy) imposé à tous les chercheurs par Alvarez. Les conditions de cette exclusion, d'une rare brutalité, ont été pénibles pour Jack. Il est allé à Columbia et nous connaissons le reste de sa carrière.

Amicalement
Jean Iliopoulos

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Jean Zinn-Justin published a tribute .

'est une bien triste nouvelle. J'ai rencontré Jack à une école d'été à Cargèse, et nous avons gardé ensuite des relations amicales.

Pour ce qui me concerne, étant loin de la physique expérimentale à cette époque,
j'ai surtout beaucoup apprécié l'homme, sa gentillesse, son honnêteté intellectuelle et sa fidélité à ses convictions, qui l'avaient amené à quitter les US pour l'Europe. Jean Zinn-Justin

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Jacques Lefrancois published a tribute .

Nous avons appris la triste nouvelle du décès de Jack Steinberger.

Il était un des physiciens les plus marquants de la physique des
particules. Pour ne citer que quelques expériences il a contribué à la
découverte de la différence entre neutrinos associés à des muons et
neutrinos associés à des électrons (expérience pour laquelle il a reçu
le prix Nobel en 1988 avec Mel Schwartz et Leon Lederman) puis au CERN
il a fait des expériences remarquables, au PS sur la violation de CP
dans la désintégration de K0, au SPS sur les interactions de neutrinos,
et finalement au LEP, il a dirigé l'expérience ALEPH pendant toutes les
années de construction et de première prise de données, j'ai eu le
plaisir de collaborer avec lui sur cette expérience pendant plus de 15 ans.


Jack était un physicien curieux et imaginatif et sa capacité à concevoir
et choisir l'appareillage le plus adapté à une expérience était
extraordinaire. Il avait en plus une rigueur remarquable dans sa
compréhension de la physique. Nous sommes nombreux (et j'en suis!) à
avoir eu notre communication dans la collaboration interrompue par un
"but are you sure of that? " qui identifiait très souvent un point un
peu plus incertain d'un exposé.

Il nous laisse des souvenirs merveilleux de ces années de collaboration.

Jacques Lefrançois

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Philippe&brigitte Bloch published a tribute .

Brigitte et moi faisons partie de la cohorte de jeunes thésards français et allemands qui ont eu la chance de faire leurs premiers pas dans la physique des neutrinos dans l’expérience CDHS, que Jack a conçue et dirigée au début du SPS en 1976.

Plus que telle ou telle compétence dans un domaine particulier, Jack s’est attaché à nous insuffler cette extrême rigueur scientifique qui le caractérisait et qui a déjà été rappelée par Jacques Lefrancois : pas de résultat sans son incertitude, toujours essayer d’estimer à l’avance la précision d’une mesure par des calculs « à la main ». Ceux qui ont eu la chance de le côtoyer dans les années 70-80 se rappellent surement l’énorme calculatrice sur laquelle Jack faisait ses additions et ses multiplications !

Cette rigueur n’excluait pas la réactivité. Une extraordinaire aventure a été, par exemple, la publication des premiers résultats de CDHS en 1977 : la reconstruction de traces de l’expérience étant encore balbutiante, Jack a brutalement décidé un weekend d’ajuster les traces sur des displays imprimés sur papier avec des “templates” de chambres à bulle. C’est ainsi que CDHS put immédiatement tordre le cou aux rumeurs de right-handed quark et/ou d’excès d’antiquarks dans le nucléon, incorrectement obtenus par des expériences antérieures.

Cette extraordinaire leçon a été fondamentale pour nous tous et nous lui en resterons toujours reconnaissants.

Par la suite, Brigitte a travaillé toute la durée du LEP dans ALEPH, collaboration organisée de main de maître par Jack, et a pu poursuivre des échanges toujours passionnants et enrichissants dans NA48 et NA62 où il participait régulièrement aux réunions hebdomadaires.

Un grand physicien et un grand mentor nous a quittés.

Brigitte et Philippe


Brigitte BLOCH-DEVAUX & Philippe BLOCH

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Bernard Peyaud published a tribute .

Une décade prodigieuse de physique débute en 1976 sous la conduite Jack Steinberger: celle de la physique des neutrinos de haute énergie produits à partir des protons du SPS à 400GeV vers la zone WA1 du CERN.
Ces études de diffusion profondément inélastique ont permis de mener à bien un riche programme avec les faisceaux de neutrinos détectés par les modules de fer magnétisés et instrumentés en spectromètre et calorimètre hadronique: courants chargés et neutres, fonctions de structure, QCD, multi-muons, beam-dump/oscillations.
À son début la petite trentaine de physiciens provenant de 4 instituts (CERN, Dortmund, Heidelberg, Saclay) forme une nombreuse collaboration que Jack considère comme un défi de management: il le relèvera avec passion en partageant avec tous son exigence de rigueur. CDHS a ainsi servi un peu de terrain d’entrainement pour atteindre la dimension technique et humaine d’ALEPH qui sera décuplée!
L’incomparable stature du physicien et de l’homme de conviction que fut Jack Steinberger sont soulignés par tous. Il a été un avocat infatigable de la recherche fondamentale qu’il a servi avec force et humilité. Ce gentleman a aimé partager et travailler avec de nombreux collègues dans les laboratoires français qu’il appréciait avec sincérité.

Bernard Peyaud

PJ: Lettre plaidoyer de Jack pour soutien à la recherche

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Mary K Gaillard published a tribute .

Jack etais mon ami depuis que j'etais etudiant a Columbia. Cette amitie a dure le pendant toutes nos vies.

Mary K

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Angelo Scribano published a tribute .

Chers amis,

c'est vraiment une triste nouvelle pour moi comme pour tous ceux qui ont interagi avec lui.

J'ai commencé mon aventure en physique des particules avec Jack et Carlo (Rubbia) en 1965, dans l'expérience au CERN "K_S and K_L interference in the pi+pi- decay mode, CP invariance and the K_S-K_L mass difference" faite par un groupe de 8 personnes !
(Alff-Steinberger, C; Heuer, W; Kleinchnecht, K; Rubbia, C; Scribano, A; Steinberger, J; Tannenbaum, MJ; Tittel, K)

La disparition de Jack me ramène dans le temps, vers de nombreux souvenirs. Comme dans un film, tous les enseignements que j'ai reçus de Jack coulent sous mes yeux. Le jeune écolier qui écoute à nouveau son Maître.

Je veux partager juste un souvenir qui pour moi a été une grande leçon de vie. « Un matin (avril 1966), Jack vient à mon bureau et me tend deux pages pleines de chiffres avec la tâche de faire quelques interpolations et puis faire un graphique.
J'avais appris récemment à programmer en Fortran iV et j'ai donc commencé à écrire une petite routine.
Je perce les cartes et je soumet le job au CDC du CERN. Peu de temps après Jack revient me demander le résultat et je réponds, d'une manière très naïve, que je viens d'apporter le programme au centre de calcul. Jack me regarde avec son regard perçant et me dit seulement: " It was more than enough to use the slide rule! ". Il tourne le dos et il s'en va.
Effrayé et presque tremblant, je retourne au centre de calcul et, heureusement, je trouve l'output de l'ordinatuer, quatre grandes feuilles perforées, dont l'une contenait un graphique fait d'étoiles (*), comme c'était la coutume à l'époque. Resultat ok, pas d'erreurs.
Tout présenté à Jack, cela m'a valu une légère tape sur l'épaule et un soupçon de sourire, sans un mot. »

La leçon que j'en ai cependant tirée est qu' "il n'est pas nécessaire d'utiliser le canon pour tuer une mouche", autrement dit, le Principe de la Moindre Action !

Dans la poursuite de mon activité scientifique (mais aussi dans la vie privée) il m'est arrivé souvent de me servir de cet enseignement que je transmets volontiers aux jeunes collègues.

J'ai récemment regardé une vieille photo de 1971. Jack à mon mariage à Castiglione della Pescaia.
Quel plaisir et quel honneur pour un jeune chercheur !
Cinquante ans se sont écoulés et son sourire, plus expressif que mille mots, m'accompagne encore !

Ciao Jack et merci de tout.

Angelo Scribano

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Tran Thanh Van published a tribute .

Chers amis,
La nouvelle du décès de Jack Steinberger nous a plongés dans une profonde tristesse. C'était un grand homme en physique que nous admironstous par sa justesse de jugement, par ses nombreuses réalisations et par ses qualités humaines.

Pour moi et pour les organisateurs des Rencontres de Moriond, de Blois et du Vietnam, nous lui devons le succès de nos conférences.

Jack est venu à Moriond dès 1968, juste deux ans après sa création, quand nous étions encore dans balbutiements de l'enfance. Il était le premier grand physicien de Moriond qui nous a aidés dans nos débuts à choisir notre route, route qui mène maintenant à une reconnaissance internationale. C'est aussi un ami fidèle qui a participé très activement 15 fois aux Rencontres de Moriond sur la cinquantaine de Moriond. Les Rencontres de Moriond lui sont infiniment reconnaissants.
Il était toujours là quand nous avons besoin de ses lumières.

En 1989, quand nous avons voulu célébrer l'anniversaire des 25 ans de la découverte de CP, il était parmi les premiers à accepter d'y participer, juste quelques mois après son prix Nobel, ce qui a permis de pérenniser les Rencontres de Blois dans le château de Blois. Il était toujours présent à Blois pour fêter les anniversaires des 10 ans, 20 ans et autres occasions pour nous soutenir et nous apporter ses lumières.

Pour le Vietnam, la communauté scientifique du Vietnam tient souvent à rappeler la venue de Jack à la toute première Rencontres du Vietnam en 1993 quand il y a encore le boycott américain. La réception chaleureuse du Président du Vietnam à un lauréat du Prix Nobel américain a marqué le début d'une transformation progressive du développement de la science au Vietnam. Jack a aussitôt écrit au Président Clinton pour demander la fin du boycott. C'était en Décembre 1993 et le Président Clinton a annoncé la fin du boycott deux mois après, en Février 1994.
Puis 20 ans après, Jack est revenu au Vietnam en Août 2013, à 92 ans passé, pour participer à la conférence inaugurale de notre centre ICISE à Quy Nhon et apporter son soutien au développement scientifique dans la région du centre du Vietnam. A cette occasion, Jack a beaucoup interagi avec les jeunes chercheurs du Vietnam et les a encouragé à construire le Vietnam scientifique de demain, notamment avec les collaborateurs de Pierre Darriulat.
Les Rencontres de Moriond, de Blois et du Vietnam ainsi que la communauté scientifique du Vietnam doivent beaucoup à Jack et n'oublieront jamais ses bienfaits.

Adieu, très cher Jack, tu es toujours présent dans nos cœurs.

Tran Thanh Van

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Monica published a tribute .

At the inauguration of the ICISE centre in Quy Nhon, Vietnam, August 2013

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Monica published a tribute .

Jack with me in Sergy at Tord Ekelof's, June 2014

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Monica published a tribute .

Jack with Heisenberg in '56

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