Marshak, Robert E.

Marshak, Robert E. (Eugene)

(1916–92) physicist, educator; born in New York City. He taught at Rochester (1939–70), was president of City College, N.Y. (1970–79), then became a Distinguished Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (1979–87). He proposed his pioneering meson theory in 1947, and published his discovery of a universal weak force in subatomic particle behavior in 1957. After observing the effects of the atomic bomb he helped design, he worked to promote international peace.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.