Richard Taylor

Richard Taylor shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics with his colleague Jerome Friedman for a series of experiments proving demonstrating that protons, neutrons, and the other elementary particles of the atom are in turn composed of smaller entities, known as quarks. Born in the town of Medicine Hat, in Alberta, Canada, Taylor earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and his Ph.D. at Stanford, where he joined the High Energy Physics Laboratory. From its inception, he was involved in the design and construction of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The experiments run at SLAC in the late 1960s and early '70s involved scattering high-energy beams of electrons from protons and deuterons and heavier nucleii. The results provided the first experimental evidence that the protons and neutrons were made up of point-like particles, later identified to be the up-and-down quarks that had previously been proposed on theoretical grounds. The experiments also provided the first evidence for the existence of gluons. In this address to the Academy of Achievement, recorded at the 1991 Summit in New York City, Dr. Taylor recalls his collaboration with his fellow physicist Jerome Friedman and their discoveries of electron/proton scatterings. He discusses the role of leadership in team work and urges the students to take their time and enjoy the process of education. In extolling the importance of taking risks, he also relates the heavy price he paid for his own risk-taking.