Erwin Friedlander

Erwin Max Friedlander (May 29, 1925 – January 22, 2004) was a noted American expert in high-energy nuclear physics at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences.

A pioneer in the use of nuclear emulsions for cosmic ray and accelerator research, Friedlander founded and headed the Cosmic Rays Laboratory at the Institute for Atomic Physics in Bucharest, Romania, before emigrating to the United States in 1975.

He authored more than 250 scientific publications, was a professor at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Marburg in Germany, and conducted research at CERN, Fermilab, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia, and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.

Friedlander was the youngest person ever elected to the Romanian Academy, an honor withdrawn by the country's Communist regime after he defected to the West in 1975.

In 1978 Friedlander became actively involved in the worldwide human rights movement known as SOS — Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov and Sharansky.

Friedlander was also an accomplished pianist and organist and was fluent in seven languages.

He was the recipient of a Humboldt Prize in 1986.

Friedlander's research focused on multiparticle production dynamics.

His Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Romania was among the first to discover multiplicity scaling laws in proton-nucleus reactions.

During his years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Friedlander was engaged in the experimental study of the interactions of relativistic heavy ion nuclei and their secondary products.

He played a leading role in many international collaborations, including the initiation of a collaboration using relativistic heavy ion beams at the Bevatron.

In 2003 the Romanian Academy of Sciences awarded him an honorary membership in recognition of his lifelong contributions to physics.

He died on January 22, 2004, in Oakland, California, after a long struggle with heart disease.