Dr. Samuel C.C. Ting is a world-renowned physicist celebrated for his transformative contributions to particle physics and his leadership in international scientific collaborations. He currently serves as the Thomas Dudley Cabot Institute Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a position he has held since 1977. Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1936 to Chinese academic parents who were graduate students at the University of Michigan, Ting was raised in mainland China and Taiwan before returning to the United States at age 20 to pursue higher education. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering degrees in Physics and Mathematics, followed by his Ph.D. in Physics, all from the University of Michigan, completing his doctorate in 1962.
Dr. Ting's most groundbreaking achievement was the independent discovery of the J/psi particle in 1974, a finding that revolutionized the field of particle physics and earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976, which he shared with Burton Richter. This discovery of what is now understood as a charmed quark-antiquark pair provided critical verification of the quark model and led to significant expansion of our understanding of subatomic particles. His earlier contributions include the discovery of nuclear anti-matter through identification of the anti-deuteron and precision measurements demonstrating the electron family has zero size. Ting's work has been instrumental in advancing quantum electrodynamics and verifying the Standard Electroweak Model through precision measurements of muon charge asymmetry.
Beyond his Nobel Prize-winning work, Dr. Ting has pioneered international scientific collaboration through his leadership of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experiment on the International Space Station, involving scientists from sixteen nations in the search for antimatter, dark matter, and cosmic ray properties. His development of the first large superconducting magnet for space application has enabled the AMS to collect over 160 billion cosmic rays, fundamentally changing our understanding of the cosmos. As a member of prestigious scientific academies including the US National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ting continues to shape the field of particle physics and astrophysics. His ongoing research with the AMS promises to further illuminate the mysteries of dark matter and the fundamental composition of the universe, cementing his legacy as one of the most influential experimental physicists of the modern era.
