UC Physicist Gets Fermi Award

Luis W. Alvarez, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and University of California, today was named by the Department of Energy as the winner of the 1987 Enrico Fermi Award.

The award, which includes a gold medal and $100,000, carried the citation “for the importance and breadth of his pioneering contributions in the physical sciences.” Among Alvarez’ accomplishments was pioneering work with his son, Walter, a geologist, in what has become known as “the extraterrestrial impact theory” for explaining the mass extinction which occurred on earth 65 million years ago.