The American physicist Carl David Anderson (1905-1991) opened up the whole field of particle physics for research by his discoveries of the first known antiparticle, the positron, and of the meson.

On September 3, 1905, Carl David Anderson was born in New York City of Swedish ancestry. He attended Los Angeles Polytechnic High School and in 1924 entered the California Institute of Technology, with which he would be associated throughout his life. In 1927 Anderson received his bachelor's degree, and then continuing in graduate school as a Coffin research fellow and next as a teaching fellow, he obtained a doctorate magna cum laude in 1930 under the physicist and Nobel laureate R. A. Millikan. After working with Millikan at Cal Tech as a research fellow for 3 years, Anderson was promoted to assistant professor in 1933, to associate professor in 1937, to full professor in 1939, and to chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy...