# Thomas Ypsilantis
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{{Short description|American physicist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Thomas Ypsilantis
| image = Thomas Ypsilantis.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = June 24, 1928
| birth_place = [Salt Lake City, Utah](/source/Salt_Lake_City%2C_Utah)
| death_date = {{death date and age|2000|8|16|1928|6|24}}
| death_place = [Geneva](/source/Geneva), Switzerland
| residence =
| citizenship =
| ethnicity =
| field = [Particle physics](/source/Particle_physics)
| work_institutions = [CERN](/source/CERN)
| alma_mater = [University of Utah](/source/University_of_Utah)
[University of California, Berkeley](/source/University_of_California%2C_Berkeley)
| doctoral_advisor = [Emilio Segrè](/source/Emilio_Segr%C3%A8)
| thesis_title = Experiments on polarization in nucleon-nucleon scattering at 310 MeV
| thesis_year = 1955
| thesis_url = https://publications.lbl.gov/islandora/object/ir%3A146314
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Co-discovery of the [antiproton](/source/antiproton)
Developing the [RICH detector](/source/Ring-imaging_Cherenkov_detector)
| awards =
}}
'''Thomas John Ypsilantis''' ({{langx|el|Θωμάς Υψηλάντης|link=no}}; June 24, 1928 – August 16, 2000) was an American [physicist](/source/physicist) of Greek descent. Ypsilantis was known for the co-discovery of the [antiproton](/source/antiproton) in 1955, along with [Owen Chamberlain](/source/Owen_Chamberlain), [Emilio Segrè](/source/Emilio_Segr%C3%A8), and [Clyde Wiegand](/source/Clyde_Wiegand). Following this work, he moved to [CERN](/source/CERN) to develop [Cherenkov radiation](/source/Cherenkov_radiation) detectors for use in [particle physics](/source/particle_physics).
==Biography==
Tom Ypsilantis was born in Salt Lake City in 1928. His father was killed by lightning in 1931. He graduated from [South High School](/source/South_High_School_(Salt_Lake_City)) in 1945, and attended the [University of Utah](/source/University_of_Utah) graduating with a degree in chemistry in 1949.[{{cite journal|last1=Steiner|first1=Herbert|title=Thomas Ypsilantis—The early years|journal=Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment|date=April 2003|volume=502|issue=1|pages=1–8|doi=10.1016/S0168-9002(02)02148-4|bibcode=2003NIMPA.502....1S|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1259917|doi-access=free}}] He then attended the [University of California, Berkeley](/source/University_of_California%2C_Berkeley) where he joined the four person team at the Berkeley [Bevatron](/source/Bevatron) that observed the first [antiproton](/source/antiproton); this became the subject of his PhD thesis and the two senior members of this team won the [Nobel Prize in Physics](/source/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics) in 1959. Ypsilantis was associate professor of physics at the [University of California, Berkeley](/source/University_of_California%2C_Berkeley), and was instrumental in the founding of the [Demokritos Research Center](/source/National_Centre_of_Scientific_Research_%22Demokritos%22) in Athens, Greece. In 1969, he went to Geneva to work at [CERN](/source/CERN) (Centre European Research Nucleaire), where he met Jacques Séguinot. In 1977, Ypsilantis and Séguinot proposed the technique later called the [Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) counter](/source/Ring-imaging_Cherenkov_detector). Together with [Tord Ekelöf](/source/Tord_Ekel%C3%B6f), they introduced this technique for high-energy physics: the first large-scale application was for the [DELPHI experiment](/source/DELPHI_experiment) at [LEP](/source/Large_Electron%E2%80%93Positron_Collider). They later worked in the framework of the [LAAS Project](/source/Laboratory_for_Analysis_and_Architecture_of_Systems) on noble-liquid [calorimetry](/source/calorimetry) and on a very large water [neutrino detector](/source/neutrino_detector) based on the fast-RICH technique. Ypsilantis also made major contributions to the [LHCb experiment](/source/LHCb_experiment) at CERN.[{{cite web|last1=Weisstein|first1=Eric|last2=Kambouroglou|first2=George|title=Ypsilantis, Tom (1928-2000) -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography|url=http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Ypsilantis.html|website=World of Biography|publisher=Wolfram Research|accessdate=20 March 2017|language=en}}] He served as the Senior Research Director in Geneva, Project Director in [Bologna](/source/Bologna), Italy, and Consultant to the French Nuclear Agency in Saclay, France.[{{cite web|title=Obituary: Dr. Thomas J. Ypsilantis|url=http://www.deseretnews.com/article/802715/Obituary-Dr-Thomas-J-Ypsilantis.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120523083843/http://www.deseretnews.com/article/802715/Obituary-Dr-Thomas-J-Ypsilantis.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 23, 2012|website=Deseret News|accessdate=20 March 2017|language=en|date=23 August 2000}}]
==References==
{{Reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/54/5/10.1063/1.1381114 obituary]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ypsilantis, Thomas}}
Category:1928 births
Category:2000 deaths
Category:Scientists from Salt Lake City
Category:University of Utah alumni
Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni
Category:20th-century American physicists
Category:American particle physicists
Category:American people of Greek descent
Category:People associated with CERN
Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society
{{US-physicist-stub}}
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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Thomas Ypsilantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ypsilantis) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ypsilantis?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.