Van der Meer, Simon (1925-2011), was a Dutch physical engineer who, along with the Italian physicist Carlo Rubbia, discovered the W particle and the Z particle. These subatomic particles (units of matter smaller than an atom) transmit the weak nuclear force, one of four fundamental forces in nature. The discovery supported the unified electroweak theory put forward in the 1970’s. This theory suggests that two of the fundamental forces, the weak force and the electromagnetic force, can be described as a single, unified force. Van der Meer and Rubbia shared the 1984 Nobel Prize inr physics for the discovery of the particles. (See Rubbia, Carlo .)
Van der Meer improved the design of machines called particle accelerators. Physicists use these machines to produce collisions between beams of subatomic particles and thus to learn more about other subatomic particles. Van der Meer invented a device that would monitor and adjust the beam of protons in the tube of a particle accelerator to keep the beam on course.
Van der Meer was born in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Nov. 24, 1925.. In 1952, he graduated from Delft University of Technology with a degree in physical engineering and joined the staff of the Phillips Research Laboratory. In 1956 he joined the staff at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked with particle accelerators used to discover the W and Z particles. Van der Meer died on March 4, 2011.
