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Burton Richter

Burton Richter, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2018)

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Born
March 22, 1931
Died
July 18, 2018
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1931

About Burton Richter

Burton Richter was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by Samuel Ting for which they won Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976. This discovery was part of the November Revolution of particle physics. He was the SLAC director from 1984 to 1999. Richter and Ting were jointly awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. In 2014, President Obama also awarded Richter the 2012 National Medal of Science. With it he led a team that discovered a new subatomic particle he called a ψ (psi).

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Burton Richter timeline

  1. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by Samuel Ting for which they won Nobel Prize for Physics in 1976.
  2. Richter and Ting were jointly awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.
  3. In 2014, President Obama also awarded Richter the 2012 National Medal of Science.

The world when Burton Richter was born

Burton Richter was born in 1931. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1931

  • #1 song"Stardust" – Artie Shaw
  • Top movieFrankenstein
  • Best-selling bookThe Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentKnute Rockne dies in plane crash
  • Top headlineAl Capone convicted of tax evasion
  • Technology milestoneEmpire State Building completed
  • Defining fadJigsaw puzzles
  • Notable inventionElectric razor
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championSt. Louis Cardinals (World Series)
  • U.S. population124.0M

1931 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Burton Richter's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19312026
Gas$0.17$3.45/gal
Average home$5,500$435,000
Average income$3,000$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population124.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.