:Jack Steinberger

Steinberger was born in the city of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, Germany, on May 25, 1921, into a Jewish{{Cite web|title=Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Physics|url=https://www.jinfo.org/Nobels_Physics.html|access-date=March 29, 2023|website=www.jinfo.org}} family. The rise of Nazism in Germany, with its open anti-Semitism, prompted his parents, Ludwig Lazarus (a cantor and religious teacher) and Berta May Steinberger,{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1988/steinberger/biographical/|title=Jack Steinberger – Biographical|website=www.nobelprize.org|access-date=December 16, 2020|url-status=live|archive-date=September 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901214447/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1988/steinberger/biographical/}}{{Cite book|last1=McMurray|first1=Emily J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QfI5AQAAIAAJ&q=JACK+STEINBERGER+BERTA+LUDWIG|title=Notable Twentieth-century Scientists: S-Z|last2=Kosek|first2=Jane Kelly|last3=Valade|first3=Roger M.|date=1995|publisher=Gale Research|isbn=978-0-8103-9185-7|language=en|access-date=December 16, 2020|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171359/https://books.google.ca/books?id=QfI5AQAAIAAJ&q=JACK+STEINBERGER+BERTA+LUDWIG&dq=JACK+STEINBERGER+BERTA+LUDWIG&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjLjo_w89LtAhUPElkFHf4NAPAQ6AEwAnoECAcQAQ|url-status=live}} to send him out of the country.{{Cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|date=December 16, 2020|title=Jack Steinberger, Nobel Winner in Physics, Dies at 99|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/science/jack-steinberger-dead.html|access-date=December 17, 2020|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171433/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/science/jack-steinberger-dead.html|url-status=live}}

Steinberger emigrated to the United States at the age of 13, making the trans-Atlantic trip with his brother Herbert. Jewish charities in the U.S. arranged for Barnett Farroll to care for him as a foster child. Steinberger attended New Trier Township High School, in Winnetka, Illinois.{{Cite book|last1=Chattopadhyay|first1=Swapan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J-Y7DwAAQBAJ&q=Steinberger+emigrated+to+the+United+States+at+the+age+of+13,+making+the+trans-Atlantic+trip+with+his+brother+Herbert.&pg=PA20|title=Fermilab At 50|last2=Lykken|first2=Joseph D.|date=October 13, 2017|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=978-981-322-747-7|language=en}} He was reunited with his parents and younger brother in 1938.

Steinberger studied chemical engineering at Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology) but left after his scholarship ended to help supplement his family's income. He obtained a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Chicago, in 1942. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Signal Corps at MIT.{{Cite web|title=Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Jack Steinberger|url=https://freepressonline.com/Content/Features/Features/Article/Nobel-Prize-Winning-Physicist-Jack-Steinberger/52/78/28551|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=freepressonline.com|language=en-us|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171423/https://freepressonline.com/Content/Features/Features/Article/Nobel-Prize-Winning-Physicist-Jack-Steinberger/52/78/28551|url-status=live}} With the help of the G.I. Bill, he returned to graduate studies at the University of Chicago in 1946, where he studied under Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi. His Ph.D. thesis concerned the energy spectrum of electrons emitted in muon decay; his results showed that this was a three-body decay, and implied the participation of two neutral particles in the decay (later identified as the electron ($\backslash nu\_e$) and muon ($\backslash nu\_\backslash mu$) neutrinos) rather than one.{{Cite journal|last=Steinberger|first=J.|date=October 1, 2013|title=Two cosmic ray experiments in the 40ʼs, one of them my Phd thesis|url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920563213005422|journal=Nuclear Physics B: Proceedings Supplements|series=Proceedings of the IV International Conference on Particle and Fundamental Physics in Space|language=en|volume=243–244|pages=25–30|doi=10.1016/j.nuclphysbps.2013.09.018|bibcode=2013NuPhS.243...25S|issn=0920-5632|access-date=December 17, 2020|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171436/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0920563213005422|url-status=live}}

After receiving his doctorate, Steinberger attended the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton for a year. In 1949 he published a calculation of the lifetime of the neutral pion,{{cite journal|author=J. Steinberger|year=1949|title=On the use of subtraction fields and the lifetimes of some types of meson decay|url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PHRVA,76,1180|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121210095636/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PHRVA,76,1180|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 10, 2012|journal=Physical Review|volume=76|page=1180|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.76.1180|bibcode=1949PhRv...76.1180S|issue=8}} which anticipated the study of anomalies in quantum field theory.{{Cite journal|title=QCD, from its inception to its stubbornly unsolved problems|journal=International Journal of Modern Physics A|year=2019|doi=10.1142/S0217751X19300151|arxiv=1910.13891|last=De Rújula|first=A.|volume=34|issue=32|pages=1930015–432|bibcode=2019IJMPA..3430015D|s2cid=204961417}}

Following Princeton, in 1949, Steinberger went to the Radiation Lab at the University of California at Berkeley, where he performed an experiment which demonstrated the production of neutral pions and their decay to photon pairs. This experiment utilized the 330 MeV synchrotron and the newly invented scintillation counters.

{{cite journal|author1=J. Steinberger|author2=W. K. H. Panofsky|author3=J. Steller|year=1950|title=Evidence for the production of neutral mesons by photons|url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PHRVA,78,802|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121215010312/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PHRVA,78,802|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 15, 2012|journal=Physical Review|volume=78|page=802|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.78.802|bibcode=1950PhRv...78..802S|issue=6|s2cid=15696296|hdl=2027/mdp.39015077591991|hdl-access=free }} Despite this and other achievements, he was asked to leave the Radiation Lab at Berkeley in 1950, due to his refusal to sign the so-called non-Communist Oath.

Steinberger accepted a faculty position at Columbia University in 1950. The newly commissioned meson beam at Nevis Labs provided the tool for several important experiments. Measurements of the production cross-section of pions on various nuclear targets showed that the pion has odd parity.{{cite journal|author1=C. Chedester|author2=P. Isaacs|author3=A. Sachs|author4=J. Steinberger|year=1951|title=Total cross-sections of π-mesons on protons and several other nuclei|url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PHRVA,82,95|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121212071520/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PHRVA,82,95|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 12, 2012|journal=Physical Review|volume=82|page=958|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.82.958|bibcode=1951PhRv...82..958C|issue=6 }} A direct measurement of the production of pions on a liquid hydrogen target, then not a common tool, provided the data needed to show that the pion has spin zero. The same target was used to observe the relatively rare decay of neutral pions to a photon, an electron, and a positron. A related experiment measured the mass difference between the charged and neutral pions based on the angular correlation between the neutral pions produced when the negative pion is captured by the proton in the hydrogen nucleus.{{cite journal|author1=W. Chinkowsky|author2=J. Steinberger|year=1954|title=The mass difference of neutral and negative π mesons|journal=Physical Review|volume=93|page=586|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.93.586|bibcode=1954PhRv...93..586C|issue=3}} Other important experiments studied the angular correlation between electron–positron pairs in neutral pion decays, and established the rare decay of a charged pion to an electron and neutrino; the latter required use of a liquid-hydrogen bubble chamber.{{cite journal|author1=G. Impeduglia|author2=R. Plano|author3=A. Prodell|author4=N. Samios|author5=M. Schwartz|author6=J. Steinberger|year=1958|title=β decay of the pion|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=1|page=249|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.1.249|bibcode=1958PhRvL...1..249I|issue=7|s2cid=119538301}}

During 1954–1955, Steinberger contributed to the development of the bubble chamber with the construction of a 15 cm device for use with the Cosmotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The experiment used a pion beam to produce pairs of hadrons with strange quarks to elucidate the puzzling production and decay properties of these particles.{{cite journal|title=Properties of heavy unstable particles produced by 1.3 BeV π⁻ mesons|author1=R. Budde|author2=M. Chretien|author3=J. Leitner|author4=N.P. Samios|author5=M. Schwartz|author6=J. Steinberger|journal=Physical Review|volume=103|year=1956|page=1827|doi=10.1103/PhysRev.103.1827|bibcode=1956PhRv..103.1827B|issue=6}} In 1956, he used a 30 cm chamber outfitted with three cameras to discover the neutral Sigma hyperon and measure its mass.{{cite journal|author1=R. Plano|author2=N. Samios|author3=M. Schwartz|author4=J. Steinberger|year=1957|title=Demonstration of the existence of the Σ⁰ hyperon and a measurement of its mass|journal=Il Nuovo Cimento|volume=5|issue=1|page=216|doi=10.1007/BF02812828|bibcode=1957NCim....5..216P|s2cid=118504283}} This observation was important for confirming the existence of the SU(3) flavor symmetry which hypothesizes the existence of the strange quark.{{Cite journal|last=Georgi|first=Howard|date=January 8, 2008|title=Flavor SU(3) Symmetries in Particle Physics|url=https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.881148|journal=Physics Today|language=en|volume=41|issue=4|pages=29–37|doi=10.1063/1.881148|issn=0031-9228|access-date=December 17, 2020|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171453/https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.881148|url-status=live}}

An important characteristic of the weak interaction is its violation of parity symmetry. This characteristic was established through the measurement of the spins and parities of many hyperons. Steinberger and his collaborators contributed several such measurements using large (75 cm) liquid-hydrogen bubble chambers and separated hadron beams at Brookhaven.

F. Eisler, R. Plano, A. Prodell, N. Samios, M. Schwartz, J. Steinberger, P. Bassi, V. Borelli, G. Puppi, G. Tanaka, P. Woloschek, V. Zoboli, M. Conversi, P. Franzini, I. Mannelli, R. Santangelo, V. Silvestrini, D. A. Glaser, C. Graves, and M. L. Perl [http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.108.1353 Demonstration of Parity Nonconservation in Hyperon Decay].Phys. Rev. 108, 1353 – Published December 1, 1957 One example is the measurement of the invariant mass distribution of electron–positron pairs produced in the decay of Sigma-zero hyperons to Lambda-zero hyperons.{{Cite journal|author=C. Alff-Steinberger|year=1963|journal=Siena 1963 Conference Report|page=205|display-authors=etal}}

In the 1960s, the emphasis in the study of the weak interaction shifted from strange particles to neutrinos. Leon Lederman, Steinberger and Schwartz built large spark chambers at Nevis Labs and exposed them in 1961 to neutrinos produced in association with muons in the decays of charged pions and kaons. They used the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) at Brookhaven, and obtained a number of convincing events in which muons were produced, but no electrons.{{cite journal|author1=G. Danby|author2=J.-M. Gaillard|author3=K. Goulianos|author4=L. M. Lederman|author5=N. B. Mistry|author6=M. Schwartz|author7=J. Steinberger|year=1962|title=Observation of high-energy neutrino reactions and the existence of two kinds of neutrinos |url=http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PRLTA,9,36|archive-url=https://archive.today/20121205054940/http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?j=PRLTA,9,36|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 5, 2012|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=9|issue=1|page=36|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.9.36|bibcode=1962PhRvL...9...36D}} This result, for which they received the Nobel Prize in 1988, proved the existence of a type of neutrino associated with the muon, distinct from the neutrino produced in beta decay.{{Cite web|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1988/press-release/|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=NobelPrize.org|language=en-US|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171409/https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1988/press-release/|url-status=live}}

The CP violation (charge conjugation and parity) was established in the neutral kaon system in 1964. Steinberger recognized that the phenomenological parameter epsilon (ε) which quantifies the degree of CP violation could be measured in interference phenomena (See CP violation). In collaboration with Carlo Rubbia, he performed an experiment while on sabbatical at CERN during 1965 which demonstrated robustly the expected interference effect, and also measured precisely the difference in mass of the short-lived and long-lived neutral kaon masses.{{cite journal|author=C. Alff-Steinberger|year=1966|title=K_S and K_L interference in the π⁺π⁻ decay mode, CP invariance and the K_S−K_L mass difference|journal=Physics Letters|volume=20|page=207|doi=10.1016/0031-9163(66)90937-1|bibcode=1966PhL....20..207A|issue=2|display-authors=etal}}{{cite journal|author=C. Alff-Steinberger|year=1966|title=Further results from the interference of K_S and K_L in the π⁺π⁻ decay modes|journal=Physics Letters|volume=21|page=595|doi=10.1016/0031-9163(66)91312-6|bibcode=1966PhL....21..595A|issue=5|display-authors=etal}}{{third-party inline|date=December 2020}}

Back in the United States, Steinberger conducted an experiment at Brookhaven to observe CP violation in the semi-leptonic decays of neutral kaons. The charge asymmetry relates directly to the epsilon parameter, which was thereby measured precisely.{{cite journal|author1=S. Bennett|author2=D. Nygren|author3=H. Saal|author4=J. Steinberger|author5=J. Sutherland|year=1967|title=Measurement of the charge asymmetry in the decay {{SubatomicParticle|K-long0}} → {{SubatomicParticle|pion+-}}+{{SubatomicParticle|Electron-+}}+ν|journal=Physical Review Letters|volume=19|pages=993|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.19.993|bibcode=1967PhRvL..19..993B|issue=17}} This experiment also allowed the deduction of the phase of epsilon, and confirmed that CPT is a good symmetry of nature.{{Cite web|last=Siegel|first=Ethan|title=This Is The One Symmetry That The Universe Must Never Violate|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/03/25/the-one-symmetry-that-the-universe-forbids-us-from-violating|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=Forbes|language=en|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171404/https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/03/25/the-one-symmetry-that-the-universe-forbids-us-from-violating/|url-status=live}}

In 1968, Steinberger left Columbia University and accepted a position as a department director at CERN.{{Cite web|title=Happy birthday, Jack Steinberger|url=https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/happy-birthday-jack-steinberger|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=CERN|language=en}} He constructed an experiment there utilizing multi-wire proportional chambers (MWPC), recently invented by Georges Charpak.{{Cite web|title=Charpak's 1968 paper on multiwire proportional counters {{!}} CERN|url=https://home.cern/resources/publication/accelerators/charpaks-1968-paper-multiwire-proportional-counters|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=home.cern|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171457/https://home.cern/resources/publication/accelerators/charpaks-1968-paper-multiwire-proportional-counters|url-status=live}} The MWPCs, augmented by micro-electronic amplifiers, allowed much larger samples of events to be recorded. Several results for neutral kaons were obtained and published in the early 1970s, including the observation of the rare decay of the neutral kaon to a muon pair, the time dependence of the asymmetry for semi-leptonic decays, and a more-precise measurement of the neutral kaon mass difference. A new era in experimental technique was opened.{{Cite web|last=Sauli|first=Fabio|date=May 12, 2004|title=From Bubble Chambers to Electronic Systems: 25 Years of Evolution in Particle Detectors at CERN (1979–2004)|url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/789779/files/phep-2004-040.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171409/https://cds.cern.ch/record/789779/files/phep-2004-040.pdf|archive-date=December 17, 2020|access-date=December 16, 2020|website=European Organization for Nuclear Research}}

These new techniques proved crucial for the first demonstration of direct CP-violation. The NA31 experiment at CERN was built in the early 1980s using the CERN SPS 400 GeV proton synchrotron. As well as banks of MWPCs and a hadron calorimeter, it featured a liquid argon electromagnetic calorimeter with exceptional spatial and energy resolution. NA31 showed that direct CP violation is real.{{cite journal|author=H. Burkhardt|year=1988|title=First evidence for direct CP violation|journal=Physics Letters B|volume=206|issue=1|page=169|doi=10.1016/0370-2693(88)91282-8|bibcode=1988PhLB..206..169B |display-authors=etal|doi-access=free}}

Steinberger worked on the ALEPH experiment at the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), where he served as the experiment's spokesperson.{{Cite web|title=CERN Accelerators – Jack Steinberger|url=https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/happy-birthday-jack-steinberger|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171414/https://home.cern/news/news/accelerators/happy-birthday-jack-steinberger|archive-date=December 17, 2020|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=CERN}} Among the ALEPH experiment's initial accomplishments was the precise measurement of the number of families of leptons and quarks in the Standard Model through the measurement of the decays of the Z boson.{{cite journal|author=D. Decamp|year=1989|title=A Precise Determination of the Number of Families With Light Neutrinos and of the Z Boson Partial Widths|journal=Physics Letters B|volume=235|issue=3–4|page=399|doi=10.1016/0370-2693(90)91984-J|display-authors=etal|url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/203580|access-date=July 12, 2019|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171433/https://cds.cern.ch/record/203580|url-status=live}}

He retired from CERN in 1986, and went on to become a professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa in Italy. He continued his association with the CERN laboratory through his visits into his 90s.{{Cite web|title=Jack Steinberger (1921-2020)|url=https://home.cern/news/obituary/cern/jack-steinberger-1921-2020|access-date=December 18, 2020|website=CERN|language=en}}

Steinberger was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988, "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino".{{cite journal|last1=Anthony|first1=Katarina|title=In conversation with Nobel laureate Jack Steinberger|journal=CERN Bulletin|date=July 11, 2011|issue=28–29|url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/1364617}} He shared the prize with Leon M. Lederman and Melvin Schwartz; at the time of the research, all three experimenters were at Columbia University.{{Cite web|title=The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1988/summary/|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=NobelPrize.org|language=en-US|archive-date=June 17, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617142341/https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1988/index.html|url-status=live}}

The experiment used charged pion beams generated with the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The pions decayed to muons which were detected in front of a steel wall; the neutrinos were detected in spark chambers installed behind the wall. The coincidence of muons and neutrinos demonstrated that a second kind of neutrino was created in association with muons. Subsequent experiments proved this neutrino to be distinct from the first kind (electron-type). Steinberger, Lederman and Schwartz published their work in Physical Review Letters in 1962.

He gave his Nobel medal to New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois (USA), of which he was an alumnus.{{Cite web|title=CELEBRITIES WALKED THESE HALLS OF FAME – Chicago Tribune|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-10-12-0010110290-story.html|access-date=December 17, 2020|website=www.chicagotribune.com|date=October 12, 2000 |archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171447/https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3A49jeuusmmn0J%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.chicagotribune.com%2Fnews%2Fct-xpm-2000-10-12-0010110290-story.html+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us|url-status=live}}

He was also awarded the National Medal of Science in 1988, by the then US president, Ronald Reagan and was the recipient of the Matteucci Medal in 1990, from the Italian Academy of Sciences.{{Cite web|title=Medaglia Matteucci – Accademia XL|url=https://www.accademiaxl.it/medaglia-matteucci/|access-date=December 17, 2020|language=it-IT|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171416/https://www.accademiaxl.it/medaglia-matteucci/|url-status=live}}

• Steinberger, J. & A. S. Bishop. [https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4402104-detection-artificially-produced-photomesons-counters "The Detection of Artificially Produced Photomesons with Counters"], Radiation Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (March 8, 1950).
• Steinberger, J., W. K. H. Panofsky & J. Steller. [https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4399921-evidence-production-neutral-mesons-photons "Evidence for the Production of Neutral Mesons by Photons"], Radiation Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (April 1950).
• Panofsky, W. K. H., J. Steinberger & J. Steller. [https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4414341-further-results-production-neutral-mesons-photons "Further Results on the Production of Neutral Mesons by Photons"], Radiation Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (October 1, 1950).
• Steinberger, J. [https://www.osti.gov/biblio/4002432-experimental-survey-strange-particle-decays "Experimental Survey of Strange Particle Decays"], Columbia University, Nevis Laboratories, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 1964).
• {{Cite book|last=Steinberger, J.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/56654442|title=Learning about particles : 50 privileged years|date=2005|publisher=Springer|isbn=3-540-21329-5|location=Berlin|oclc=56654442}}

Steinberger's first marriage to Joan Beauregard ended in a divorce, after which he married his former student, biologist Cynthia Alff. He had four children, two from each of his marriages.{{Cite news|title=Washington Post – Jack Steinberger Obituary|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/jack-steinberger-nobel-died/2020/12/16/8d3e2f50-3f60-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171448/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/jack-steinberger-nobel-died/2020/12/16/8d3e2f50-3f60-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html|archive-date=December 17, 2020|access-date=December 16, 2020|newspaper=Washington Post}} His son Ned Steinberger is the founder of the eponymous company for headless guitars and basses, and his daughter Julia Steinberger is an ecological economist at the University of Lausanne.{{Cite web|title=Physik-Nobelpreisträger Jack Steinberger ist gestorben|url=https://www.infranken.de/lk/bad-kissingen/nur_saalezeitung/physik-nobelpreistraeger-jack-steinberger-ist-gestorben-art-5132117|access-date=December 15, 2020|website=inFranken.de|language=de|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171415/https://www.infranken.de/lk/bad-kissingen/nur_saalezeitung/physik-nobelpreistraeger-jack-steinberger-ist-gestorben-art-5132117|url-status=live}} As an atheist and a humanist, Steinberger was a Humanist Laureate in the International Academy of Humanism.[http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=iah&page=index The International Academy of Humanism] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424101318/http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=iah&page=index|date=April 24, 2008}} at the website of the Council for Secular Humanism. Retrieved October 18, 2007. Some of this information is also at the [http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-association-building-momentum International Humanist and Ethical Union] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120418195201/http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-association-building-momentum|date=April 18, 2012}} website{{cite book|author=Istva ́n Hargittai, Magdolna Hargittai|title=Candid Science VI: More Conversations with Famous Scientists|publisher=Imperial College Press|year=2006|isbn=9781860948855|page=749|quote=Jack Steinberger: "I'm now a bit anti-Jewish since my last visit to the synagogue, but my atheism does not necessarily reject religion."}} In his own words, he is noted to have enjoyed tennis, mountaineering and sailing.

In the 1980s Steinberger resumed relations with his native town Bad Kissingen. He often visited Bad Kissingen after that. The school he had attended there was named Jack-Steinberger-Gymnasium in 2001. In 2006 Steinberger was made honorary citizen of Bad Kissingen. "I feel welcome in Bad Kissingen. This is my hometown and I was raised there. I feel as a German again now" he told the Bavarian broadcasting company Bayerischer Rundfunk in 2013.[https://web.archive.org/web/20201217034934/https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/bad-kissingen-trauert-um-nobelpreistraeger-jack-steinberger,SJJQfXe Bad Kissingen trauert um Nobelpreisträger Jack Steinberger, Bayerischer Rundfunk, December 16, 2020 (in German)]

He died on December 12, 2020, at his home in Geneva. He was aged 99.{{Cite news|last=Martin|first=Douglas|date=December 16, 2020|title=Jack Steinberger, Nobel Winner in Physics, Dies at 99|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/science/jack-steinberger-dead.html|access-date=December 16, 2020|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=December 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201217171458/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/16/science/jack-steinberger-dead.html|url-status=live}}

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

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• {{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1988 Experiments with High-Energy Neutrino Beams
• [http://public-archive.web.cern.ch/public-archive/en/People/Steinberger-en.html Jack Steinberger] at CERN
• {{INSPIRE-HEP author}}
• [https://www.biografisches-gedenkbuch-bk.de/en/biographies/database/40240.Biographies.html?detID=694 Jack Steinberger] at Biographical Memorial Book of the Jews of Bad Kissingen

{{Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates 1976-2000}}

{{1988 Nobel Prize winners}}

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