Earle Leonard Lomon PhD ’54, MIT professor emeritus of physics, passed away on March 7 in Newton, Massachusetts, at the age of 94.
A longtime member of the Center for Theoretical Physics, Lomon focused mainly on the interactions between protons and neutrons at low energy levels, where the influence of quarks and gluons is obscured by their confinement.
His studies concentrated on hadronic interactions — protons, neutrons, mesons, and nuclei — prior to the realization that they were made up of quarks and gluons.
“Earle devised an R-matrix formulation of scattering theory that enabled him to distinguish recognized effects at long ranges from at-the-time unknown forces at short ranges,” states longtime associate Robert Jaffe, the Jane and Otto Morningstar Professor of Physics.
“When QCD [quantum chromodynamics] became recognized as the appropriate field theory for hadrons, Earle swiftly adapted to integrate the influences of quarks and gluons at short distances and high energies,” notes Jaffe. “Earle’s contributions can be viewed as a precursor to contemporary chiral effective field theory, where the relevant degrees of freedom at low energy — which are hadrons — smoothly align with the quark and gluon degrees of freedom that take precedence at elevated energy.”
“He was a genuinely international scientist, known for his open-mindedness and profound kindness,” remarks Bruno Coppi, MIT professor emeritus of physics.
Early Years
Born on November 15, 1930, in Montreal, Quebec, Earle was the sole offspring of Harry Lomon and Etta Rappaport. While attending Montreal High School, he met his future spouse, Ruth Jones. Their mutual appreciation for classical music led them both to join the school’s Classical Music Club, where Lomon held the position of president while Ruth was a talented musician.
During his time at McGill University, he served as a research physicist for the Canada Defense Research Board from 1950 to 1951. After completing his degree in 1951, he wed Jones, and the couple relocated to Cambridge, where he pursued his doctorate at MIT under the mentorship of Professor Hermann Feshbach.
Lomon spent the 1954-1955 academic year at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (currently the Niels Bohr Institute) in Copenhagen. “With Niels Bohr, Aage Bohr, Ben Mottelson, and Willem V.R. Malkus present, the Institute for Physics was an exhilarating environment filled with many physicists from Europe and beyond, including MIT’s Dave Frisch,” Lomon recalled.
In 1956-57, he held a research associate position at the Laboratory for Nuclear Studies at Cornell University. He earned his PhD from MIT in 1954 and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Denmark, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and Cornell. He served as an associate professor at McGill from 1957 until 1960, when he joined the faculty at MIT.
In 1965, Lomon received a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and was a visiting researcher at CERN. In 1968, he became a part of the newly established MIT Center for Theoretical Physics. He attained the rank of full professor in 1970 and retired in 1999.
Los Alamos and Mathematical Theory
From 1968 to 2015, Lomon was an affiliate researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. During that period, he worked alongside Fred Begay, a Navajo nuclear physicist and healer. New Mexico became a second home for the Lomon family, and Earle cherished the local hiking trails and climbing Baldy Mountain.
Lomon also created educational resources for mathematical theory. He produced textbooks, instructional materials, research papers, and an innovative problem-solving curriculum for the Unified Science and Mathematics for Elementary Schools. His children remember moments when Earle would discuss the educational resources with them during dinner. From 2001 to 2013, he was the program director for mathematical theory at the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Theoretical Physics research hub.
Lomon was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Canadian Association of Physicists.
He is survived by his daughters Glynis Lomon and Deirdre Lomon; his son, Dylan Lomon; grandchildren Devin Lomon, Alexia Layne-Lomon, and Benjamin Garner; and six great-grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at a later time; in lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation.