Fred Lobkowicz

Frederick Lobkowicz, professor of physics at the University of Rochester, died on February 3, 1998, following complications from a heart attack. He was 65 years of age. Fred was an exceptionally versatile scientist, best known for his contributions to high energy physics. He participated in experiments at many accelerator laboratories, and was first to introduce liquid-argon calorimetry at Fermilab, where he and his collaborators constructed two large calorimeters for studies of radiative widths of mesons and direct-photon production.

Fred's interests in science spanned a huge intellectual panorama, ranging from formal mathematics to phenomenology, from electronics to mechanical design and cryogenic engineering. He received his PhD at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, under the direction of Marmier, and then came to Rochester in 1960 to work at the 130-inch Cyclotron. He was involved with John Tinlot and Dan Green in the first design of a 10 GeV muon storage ring. He worked on backward hadron scattering at Brookhaven Laboratory, and, when the Cornell 10 GeV Synchrotron became operational, he and Ed Thorndike started an intense effort in studies of photoproduction and decays of vector mesons. Since 1976, Fred's main research interests were focused at Fermilab, with his most recent contributions being to the DZero experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron and to the liquid argon calorimeter being developed for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC.

Lobkowicz was a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Swiss and Czech physical societies. He spent one year as a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Munich. During his 38 years at Rochester, he guided many excellent students and postdoctoral fellows, who benefited enormously from his overall breadth and his style of doing research. Fred also co-authored with Adrian Melissinos a rigorous two-volume text on introductory physics, and served as Chair of the University Faculty Senate.

A native of Prague, Lobkowicz was born into one of Europe's noble families, with roots in Prague and Vienna that date back for centuries. Fred had many interests outside of physics, and was well versed in History, Mathematics and Philosophy. He enjoyed physics most of all, was quick to get to the core of any issue, and always used the power of his booming voice to add weight to his persuasive arguments. His style and contributions will be missed by all of us.

To honor Fred's memory, a prize has been established at the University of Rochester to reward outstanding PhD theses in experimental particle physics.


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Last modified: Fri Nov 19 17:44:27 CST 1999