REINES, FREDERICK

REINES, FREDERICK (1918–1998), physicist and Nobel Prize winner. Reines obtained his M.E. and M.S. degrees from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and his Ph.D. from New York University in 1944. He was a member and then group leader of the theoretical division of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (1944–59). He was professor and head of the Physics Department at Case Institute of Technology (1959–66) and professor and founding dean of Physical Sciences at UCI. Reines, the great-nephew of the founder of the Mizrachi movement, Rabbi isaac jacob reines , was joint winner with Dr. Martin Perl of the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery of two fundamental particles of matter, the tau and the neutrino. The existence of the neutrino was first postulated by Wolfgang Pauli in 1930 to account for apparent loss of energy when an atomic nucleus decays, releasing an electron, but it was Reines who first proved that the elusive particle, which has no mass and no charge, exists. The discovery started the new field of neutrino physics. Reines was honored with membership in the National Academy of Sciences and many other awards, including the National Medal of Science.