Physicist Robert G. Sachs, 1916-1999

University of Chicago theoretical physicist Robert G. Sachs, 82, who helped create the Argonne National Laboratory and served as its director from 1973 to 1979, died in Chicago April 14 of complications following surgery.

“He was an extremely kind and gentle man who had many provocative and stimulating ideas. His absence is going to be a real loss,” said Bruce Winstein, the Samuel K. Allison Distinguished Service Professor in Physics at the University.

As a scholar, Sachs is noted for making a wide range of theoretical contributions to nuclear and particle physics, said Kameshwar C. Wali, research professor emeritus in physics at Syracuse University. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Sachs became well-known in the physics community for his classification scheme for newly discovered subatomic particles, for his theories regarding the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the universe, and other related asymmetries in laws of fundamental particle interactions, Wali said.

“Robert Sachs’s lifelong accomplishments, dedication and commitment to physics have been exemplary and outstanding. Along with his own research efforts, he has struggled to bring forth opportunities for others,” he said.

Sachs established himself as an influential scholar, scientific policymaker and research administrator early in his career. He taught nuclear physics to Hyman Rickover before the future admiral went on to establish the U.S. nuclear submarine program. He also helped create Argonne in 1946 and 1947 as director of the Theoretical Physics Group of the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory. The Met Lab gave birth to the atomic age in 1942 when it created the first controlled nuclear chain reaction.

As Associate Director of Argonne from 1964 to 1968, Sachs determined experimental priorities for the lab’s powerful new particle accelerator, the Zero Gradient Synchrotron.

“In its day, the ZGS was the workhorse of high-energy physics,” said Roger Hildebrand, Chicago’s Samuel K. Allison Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics.

“It was a difficult time because the country was trying to demonstrate that it was ahead of the Russians. A couple of big accelerators were built in a hurry. One of them was the Brookhaven Cosmotron and the other was the Argonne ZGS. There was a lot of competition to get access to the accelerator, so it took some skill to carry this off in a smooth fashion. Bob did that beautifully.”

Sachs, who had been a member of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1964, returned to a full-time academic career at Chicago in 1968. But his research administration duties continued at Chicago, where he served two terms as Director of the University’s Enrico Fermi Institute, from 1968 to 1973 and from 1983 to 1986.

An Emeritus Professor since 1986, Sachs continued an active research program until his last days. He particularly sought to understand the origin of the imbalance between matter and antimatter in the universe, a surprising phenomenon discovered in 1964, and the physics of time reversal.

The very small imbalance may be related to the preponderance of matter over antimatter in the universe, said Melvyn Shochet, Chicago’s Elaine and Samuel Kersten Jr. Professor in Physical Sciences. “But we don’t understand the connection, and that has been a great deal of the focus of Bob’s work in recent years. It’s quite an important problem both in understanding the interactions of the elementary constituents of the universe and also in the very largest things, the cosmos that we see around us,” Shochet said.

Sachs also is noted for his contributions to the debate relating to national and international energy policies and for his many years of service on high-energy physics panels. The latter include the Physics Advisory Panel of the National Science Foundation, the Science Policy Committee of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Board of the American Institute of Physics, and the Program Committee of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Additionally, Sachs was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and chaired the Elementary Particle Physics Panel of its Physics Survey Committee. He also was vice president and chairman of the Physics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and founder of the American Physical Society’s Division of Particles and Fields.

Sachs was the author or co-editor of five books, including Nuclear Theory, published in 1953—the standard textbook in the field for many years. His most recent book, The Physics of Time Reversal, was published in 1987. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and honorary degrees from Purdue University, the University of Illinois and Elmhurst College in Illinois.

Sachs was born May 4, 1916, in Hagerstown, Md. He received his Ph.D. in 1939 from Johns Hopkins University, where he worked with Maria Goeppert Mayer, who later became a Chicago faculty member and cowinner of the Nobel Prize in physics.

From 1939 to 1942, he served on the staffs of George Washington University, Purdue University and the University of California at Berkeley. In 1943, he joined the Ballistic Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where he served as section chief of the Ballistic Research Laboratory.

In addition to physics, Sachs had two other great loves: sailing and his family. He began sailing on the Chesapeake Bay at the age of six and skippered his own boat until he was 80.

Sachs is survived by his wife, Carolyn L. Sachs; five children: Judith Crow, Portola Valley, Calif.; Joel Sachs, Arlington, Mass.; Rebecca Norris, Maynard, Mass.; Jeffrey Sachs, Sunnyvale, Calif.; and Jennifer Sachs, New York City; three stepchildren: Jacqueline Wolf, West Newton, Mass.; Kate Wolf, Lincoln, Mass.; and Thomas Wolf, Brookline, Mass.; and 14 grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the University of Chicago Robert G. Sachs Fellowship Fund. Send to the attention of Priscilla Yu, Office of Special Gifts, University of Chicago, 5733 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL 60637. For information, call (773) 702-8929.