Life
Steinberger was born in the city of Bad Kissingen in Bavaria, Germany, in 1921. The rise of the Nazi party in Germany, with its open anti-Semitism, prompted his parents to send him out of the country.
Steinberger emigrated to the United States at the age of 13, making the trans-Atlantic trip with his brother Herbert. Barnett Farroll cared for him as a foster child, the connection was made by Jewish charities in the United States. During this period, Steinberger attended New Trier Township High School, in Winnetka, Illinois.
Steinberger studied chemical engineering at Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology) but left after his scholarship ended to help supplement his family's income. He obtained a bachelor's degree in Chemistry from the University of Chicago, in 1942. Shortly thereafter, he joined the Signal Corps at MIT. With the help of the G.I. Bill, he returned to graduate studies at the University of Chicago in 1946, where he studied under Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi. His Ph.D. thesis concerned the energy spectrum of electrons emitted in muon decay; his results showed that this was a three-body decay, and implied the participation of two neutral particle in the decay (later identified as the electron (ν
e) and muon (ν
μ) neutrinos) rather than one.
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