Ernest Courant

Ann Arbor on April 21, 2020, at the age of 100. Courant was a distinguished

scientist. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a

recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award, awarded by the United States

Government in recognition of lifetime scientific achievement, as well as

many other honors and awards for his scientific work. He was known as the

“father of modern particle accelerators.” Essentially all high-energy

accelerators in use today incorporate principles that he helped to develop.

He spent most of his career at Brookhaven National Laboratory, interspersed

with visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of

Cambridge, Yale University, the University of Michigan, Stony Brook

University, and Fermilab, among other places.

Ernest Courant was born in Goettingen, Germany, in 1920. His father,

Richard Courant, was head of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences at the

University of Goettingen, and his mother, Nina, was a musician. Ernest was

the oldest of four children, all of whom are now deceased. In 1933 Richard

Courant was removed from his position as a professor by the Nazi regime.

In 1934 the family moved to New Rochelle, a suburb of New York. Richard

became head of the math department at New York University, which became

the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Ernest graduated from high school at the Fieldston School in the Bronx,

received his undergraduate degree in physics from Swarthmore College at

the age of 20, and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Rochester in

1943. He spent 1944 and 1945 working on nuclear physics at the Montreal

Laboratory, which was part of the Manhattan Project that developed the

atomic bomb. Montreal was also the home of Sara Paul, who worked as lab

technician. She and Ernest were married in 1944.

In 1948 Ernest moved to Brookhaven Lab, where he spent most of his life

and did most of his work, designing and building particle accelerators. He

“retired” in 1990 but continued to be scientifically active for more than

twenty more years, spending a day a week at Brookhaven even after he and

Sara had moved to Manhattan.

Ernest was an active hiker, skier, flute-player, photographer, bicycle-rider,

opera buff, and concertgoer. He swam several days a week and frequently

rode his bicycle around Central Park well into his eighties. Ernest and Sara

moved to Ann Arbor from New York in 2013.

Courant is survived by his wife of 75 years, who spent her career as a

librarian and library director, and by his children, Paul (Marta Manildi), who is a professor at the University of Michigan, and Carl, who is a retired

economist with the New York Power Authority. He is also survived by

dozens of students and colleagues, three grandchildren, Ernest Mendel,

Noah, and Sam, and three great-children, who provided him with limitless

joy.