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William Slater
In Memoriam

William Slater

Professor Emeritus Physics and Astronomy

UC Los Angeles
1931-2019

Prof. William ("Bill") Slater passed away on Sunday July 14, 2019. Bill spent most of his career as one of the pioneering members of the UCLA experimental high-energy physics group. After receiving his Ph.D. (1958) from the University of Chicago, he came to UCLA in 1962. He contributed to the foundations of particle physics, including determining the quantum numbers of the phi meson, now known to be the first bound state of two strange quarks. These were found to agree with predictions by the famous UCLA theoretician J. J. Sakurai. Bill’s decades of work included experiments with colliding electrons, K mesons, and the highest-energy particles ever observed – cosmic rays with energies in excess of 10^20 electron-volts. Bill was equally at home with both detector hardware and analysis software. He nominally retired in 2006, but continued to be a daily presence in the department, continuing his active research program, being recalled to teaching, and always improving the “Physics 180F” particle-physics undergraduate laboratory. Bill’s wife Marilyn has told me how much he loved the department.

Services will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be given to the Physics and Astronomy Department. Bill is sorely missed and his impact on our department will be felt for decades to come.

David Saltzberg