Gerson Goldhaber, an award-winning physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley, who played key roles in discoveries that spanned more than five decades, passed away July 19, 2010 of natural causes, at home surrounded by his family. He was 86. Goldhaber was renowned for his experimental contributions to such seminal breakthroughs as the antiproton and the J/psi subatomic particles, and the mysterious dark energy that accelerates the expansion of the universe. He was also an accomplished artist who illustrated two books of poems written by his wife, Judith, Sonnets from Aesop and Sarah Laughed: Sonnets from Genesis.

“Gerson Goldhaber had an unerring sense of where great discoveries were to be made, from the anti-proton, to the psi and charm particles, and finally to dark energy. To each of these he brought his great curiosity and enthusiasm, which were coupled to a special talent for turning abstractions into something for which he could have an intuitive sense,” said Robert Cahn, long-time colleague and co-author with Goldhaber of a book, The Experimental Foundations of Particle Physics.

Read more at  http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/07/21/gerson-goldhaber/.