Thomas Fulton, the retired professor considered to be the father of high-energy physics at Hopkins, passed away on April 8 in Ruxton, Md.
He died due to heart failure.
Fulton was born Tomas Feuerzeug in Budapest in the early 1900s.
He emigrated from Hungary to Spain in 1941 to escape the Nazis during World War II. From there, he borrowed one hundred dollars to buy three boat tickets to Cuba.
He left for New York City soon after, changing his name to Thomas Fulton upon arrival.
Fulton studied at Stuyvesant High School and went on to receive a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a doctorate in physics from Harvard University.
After earning his doctorate, Fulton worked at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study under the wing of J. Robert Oppenheimer, developer of the atomic bomb.
While at Princeton, Fulton received the opportunity to have an hour-long private meeting with world renowned scientist Albert Einstein in the fall of 1954.
Fulton had requested the meeting and wrote in his (as of yet unpublished) memoir about Einstein’s flowing white hair. He also references Einstein’s number-filled blackboard in his office; Einstein was attempting to construct a unified theory of gravitation and electromagnetism.
Fulton moved to Baltimore in 1956 to work as a physics professor at Hopkins.
He first served as an assistant professor and then a full professor at Hopkins until his retirement in 2000.
He did extensive work at Hopkins in particle physics and atomic physics.
He brought expertise in the area of high-energy physics, which hitherto was fairly obscure at Hopkins.
Additionally, he was highly involved in university service; he was a member of the academic counsel.
He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and was awarded a Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
“He played an important role in the early development of the department working in particle physics, which grew in the ‘50s and ‘60s,” Professor Daniel Reich from the Department of Physics and Astronomy said. “He made a significant contribution in a number of science areas.”
In 1952, Fulton married Babette Pilzer. They have two daughters.
His wife passed away in 2006.
He is survived by his daughters Judy Fulton and Ruth Kiselewich of Baltimore, as well as four grandchildren.
