In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 21 September 1926
- Died
- 28 February 2013
- Birthplace
- Cleveland, Ohio, United States
- Country
- United States
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- Bubble chambers, biology and vision.
- Doctoral work completed
- 1949; degree awarded 1950
- Company collaborators
- Ronald Cape and Peter Farley
- Later field
- Visual neuroscience
Why this life matters
His career repeatedly moved between an experimental question and the practical machinery needed to study it, across very different branches of science.
Timeline
Key moments
Michigan
Teaching and research begin.
Detection instrument
Bubble chamber developed.
Biotechnology
Cetus co-founded.
Vision research
Experiments and computational models.
Training in experimental physics
Glaser earned a Case physics-and-mathematics degree in 1946. He completed his Caltech doctoral work in 1949 and received the degree officially in 1950.
At Caltech he studied with Carl Anderson.
He began full-time teaching and research at Michigan in 1949.
The distinction between finishing research and formal degree award avoids turning two stages into contradictory biographies. His early work also placed instrument-building within experimental research from the outset.
Making particle tracks observable
After working with cloud chambers and spark counters, he developed the bubble chamber in 1952. Students and colleagues, including James Cronin, Martin Perl and George Trilling, participated in subsequent experiments and development.
His lecture frames the problem as combining dense detecting material with visible tracks and rapid cycling.
He moved to Berkeley in 1959 and received the 1960 physics Nobel.
The recognition concerned an instrument, but its value depended on the measurements and collaborations that it made possible.
Biology and biotechnology
Glaser moved into molecular biology, designing automated equipment to grow and study cells. In 1971 he co-founded Cetus with Ronald Cape and Peter Farley.
The archives identify instruments called Dumbwaiter and Cyclops among this work.
The company and its later products should not be collapsed into one scientistโs personal inventions. His own sustained contribution included the practical task of making large experimental programmes easier to carry out.
Vision research and a continuing experimental style
In the 1980s he turned to visual neuroscience, using psychophysical experiments and computational models to investigate perception of motion.
That work continued into the 2000s.
He died at home in Berkeley on 28 February 2013.
The successive changes of field were not simply departures from physics. They retained a concern with what could be observed, how an apparatus organised the observation and which mathematical description could then be tested.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Donald Glaser
- Why distinguish degree work from the award?
- His autobiography says the research ended in 1949 and the degree was officially received in 1950.
- Is the scaling example a detector operating procedure?
- No. It compares an idealised radius and energy bound; it supplies no practical pressure, temperature, substance or radiation-source settings.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Max Delbrรผck
Follow a physicist whose work also connected with biology.
- Luis Alvarez
Continue from the bubble chamber to later detection methods and a different kind of evidence.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Nobel Prize OutreachDonald Arthur Glaser: Facts
- 2. Donald Glaser / Nobel FoundationDonald A. Glaser: Biographical, with March 2005 addendum
- 3. Robert Sanders / UC Berkeley News, 1 March 2013Physics Nobelist and biotech pioneer Donald Glaser dies at 86
- 4. Caltech ArchivesDonald A. Glaser Papers: collection introduction
- 5. Donald A. Glaser / Nobel Foundation, 12 December 1960Elementary Particles and Bubble Chambers