Sheldon Lee Glashow contributed to the independent work of Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam to develop the electroweak theory, which shows how two fundamental forces--the weak and electromagnetic forces--can be viewed as separate manifestations of a single, more basic force, termed an electroweak force. Among his contributions to the Weinberg-Salam theory was his invention of the property of charm for elementary particles. For his research, he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics with Weinberg and Salam.

Glashow was born in New York City on December 5, 1932. His parents, Lewis Gluchovski and Bella (Rubin) Gluchovski, had immigrated to New York from Bobruisk, Russia, to avoid anti-Semitic oppression by the Czarist government. Upon his arrival in the United States, the senior Gluchovski changed his name to Glashow and opened a plumbing business that would become very successful. The Glashows had two other sons, 14 and 18 years older than Sheldon; one became a...