Dr. Peter Schlein → Particle Physicist and Grandfather by Alex Rosenberg

Instead of writing about a random physicist I discovered online, I decided to write about one of the most genius men I have ever met: my grandfather. I waited a long time to write this blog because I wasn’t exactly sure how to put it into words, but what better place is there to start than the beginning? Dr. Peter Eli Schlein, or “Papapa” as I called him, was born on November 18th, 1932 in Brooklyn, NYC.  Always having a love for science, he went to Union College for undergraduate studies where he fell in love with, and majored in, physics. He afterward studied at Northwestern University for a PhD in physics from 1954-1959, during which he did a year-long physics fellowship 1955 in Zurich, Switzerland (where he taught himself German!). And if you thought that wasn’t enough, he then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago and then Johns Hopkins before becoming the youngest tenured professor at UCLA at the age of 29! Phew!

Anyway, moving away from his educational experience, Papapa was a nuclear particle physicist who was best known for his role in founding two important fields in nuclear physics: the partonic structure of the Pomeron and forward B-particle production. As his colleagues stated: “Had he not pursued it, much of the work in his field would probably not have been done or would have been undertaken at a much later date — and it would certainly have lacked his distinctive style.” In 1969, he went on sabbatical from UCLA to work at ISR CERN in Geneva, Switzerland (which happens to also be when my mom was born resulting in her growing up in Geneva while her father worked at CERN). In summary, I realize I am very biased but I truly do believe that my grandpa was one of the most intelligent physicists I have ever heard of. I wish I got to know him better in the first six years of my life, but the memories I have of him are some of the best I can remember.