H. Richard Crane

Who was H. Richard Crane?

Dr. Horace Richard Crane was an American physicist, the inventor of the Race Track Synchrotron, a recipient of President Ronald Reagan's National Medal of Science "for the first measurement of the magnetic moment and spin of free electrons and positrons". He was also noted for proving reality of neutrinos. The National Academy of Sciences called Crane "an extraordinary physicist". The University of Michigan called him "one of the most distinguished experimental physicists of the 20th century". Crane was a chairman of the department of physics and a professor of physics at the University of Michigan, a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

During World War 2, he worked on radar at MIT and proximity fuses at the Carnegie Institute of Washington and the University of Michigan. He consulted for the National Defense Research Commission and the Office of Scientific Research and Development.

From 1957 to 1960, Crane was President of the Midwestern Universities Research Association. In addition, he was President of the American Association of Physics Teachers in 1965, and on the Board of Governors of the American Institute of Physics from 1964 to 1975.