Fitch, Val Logsdon (1923-2015), an American nuclear physicist, shared the 1980 Nobel Prize for physics with fellow American James W. Cronin for their research on subatomic particles. They discovered that the fundamental laws of symmetry in nature could be violated. They were awarded the prize for an experiment in 1964 that suggested that reversing the direction of time would not produce an exact reversal of certain reactions involving subatomic particles. Before this, physicists assumed that the direction of time would not affect the way in which reactions worked. See Cronin, James Watson ; Subatomic particle .
Fitch was born in Merriman, Nebraska. While he was in the U.S. Army in the mid-1940’s, he worked on the Manhattan Project, the secret program to produce the first atomic bomb (see Manhattan Project ). In 1948, he graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, with a degree in electrical engineering. In 1954, he gained a Ph.D. in physics at Columbia University in New York City. Following his studies, he joined the faculty of Princeton University in New Jersey, where he was appointed professor of physics in 1960. In 1976, he became Cyrus Fogg Brackett professor of physics. In 1984, he became James S. McDonnell Distinguished University professor of physics. He became a professor emeritus for the university in 1996. Fitch died on Feb. 5, 2015.
