James Cronin

James Cronin
Cronin at the 2010 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
Born	James Watson Cronin (1931-09-29)September 29, 1931 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	August 25, 2016(2016-08-25) (aged 84) Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.
Nationality	American
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of Chicago
Alma mater	Southern Methodist University University of Chicago
Known for	Nuclear physics
Notable awards	E. O. Lawrence Award (1976) Nobel Prize in Physics (1980) John Price Wetherill Medal National Medal of Science

James Watson Cronin (September 29, 1931 – August 25, 2016) was an American particle physicist.

Cronin was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He and co-researcher Val Logsdon Fitch were awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics for a 1964 experiment that proved that certain subatomic reactions do not adhere to fundamental symmetry principles. Specifically, they proved, by examining the decay of kaons, that a reaction run in reverse does not merely retrace the path of the original reaction, which showed that the interactions of subatomic particles are not indifferent to time reversal. Thus the phenomenon of CP violation was discovered.

Cronin received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1976 for major experimental contributions to particle physics including fundamental work on weak interactions culminating in the discovery of asymmetry under time reversal. In 1999, he was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Cronin was Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago and a spokesperson emeritus for the Auger project. Cronin was a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

James Cronin was born on September 29, 1931. His father, James Farley Cronin, was a graduate student of classical languages at the University of Chicago. After his father had obtained his doctorate the family first moved to Alabama, and later in 1939 to Dallas, Texas, where his father became a professor of Latin and Greek at Southern Methodist University. After high school Cronin stayed in Dallas and obtained an undergraduate degree at Southern Methodist University in physics and mathematics in 1951.