Cesar Lattes: the Brazilian physicist who discovered - and produced - pions
Image Credit: PICRYL Physics enthusiasts started wondering about a physicists that was not well known in the realm of contemporary physics, as his image was splashed across the internet with a Google doodle on July 11, 2024. He was born 100 year ago on July 11, 1924, in Brazil. César Lattes, the physicist in question , was a brilliant Brazilian physicist who played a key role in the discovery of the pion, a fundamental subatomic particle. Not only did he discover it using cosmic rays that fell on photographic plates in the Bolivian Andes, but also became instrumental in producing pions artificially in a lab. The height of the mountain region, light-pollution-free atmosphere and relative quiet may have provided Lattes and his team with a perfect geographic region, conducive for an experiment of this kind. He was born in Curitiba, Brazil, Lattes graduated from the University of São Paulo in 1943 with a degree in both mathematics and physics. Thanks to the association with the