Marshak, Robert E.

Marshak, Robert E. (Eugene)

(1916–92) physicist, educator; born in New York City. He taught at Rochester (1939–70), was president of City College, N.Y. (1970–79), then became a Distinguished Professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (1979–87). He proposed his pioneering meson theory in 1947, and published his discovery of a universal weak force in subatomic particle behavior in 1957. After observing the effects of the atomic bomb he helped design, he worked to promote international peace.