Taft, Horace Dwight, 1925-1983.

Horace Dwight Taft was born in 1925, the son of Senator Robert A. and Martha Bowers Taft, and grandson of President William Howard Taft. He attended the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, which was founded by a grand-uncle, Horace Dutton Taft. He received a B.A. degree (1950) from Yale University and a Master's degree (1953) and a Ph.D. (1955) from the University of Chicago. Taft joined the Yale faculty in 1956 as an instructor in physics, and was appointed a professor in 1964. He was master of Davenport College from 1966 to 1971, and dean of Yale College from 1971-1979. He served on numerous university committees and was director of undergraduate studies in physics. He died in New Haven, Connecticut on February 11, 1983.

Educator.

Horace Dwight Taft was born in 1925, the son of Senator Robert A. and Martha Bowers Taft, and grandson of President William Howard Taft. He attended the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, which was founded by a grand-uncle, Horace Dutton Taft. He received a B.A. degree (1950) from Yale University and a Master's degree (1953) and a Ph.D. (1955) from the University of Chicago. Taft joined the Yale faculty in 1956 as an instructor in physics, and was appointed a professor in 1964. He was master of Davenport College from 1966 to 1971, and dean of Yale College from 1971-1979. He served on numerous university committees and was director of undergraduate studies in physics. He died in New Haven, Connecticut on February 11, 1983.

Horace Dwight Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 2, 1925, the son of Senator Robert A. and Martha Bowers Taft, and grandson of President William Howard Taft. He attended the Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, which was founded by a grand-uncle, Horace Dutton Taft. After serving in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946, Taft enrolled in Yale University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1950. Taft was a research assistant and studied under Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago, where he received a master's degree (1953) and a Ph.D. (1955) in physics.

Taft joined the Yale faculty in 1956 as an instructor in physics, and was appointed a professor in 1964. He was master of Davenport College from 1966 to 1971, and dean of Yale College from 1971 to 1979. He served on numerous university committees and was director of undergraduate studies in physics.

Taft's research in 1962 with a group of American and European physicists led to the discovery and identification of one of the last predicted antimatter particles, known as the anti-XI-minus. The discovery helped establish the symmetry between matter and antimatter, a form of matter in which the property of each particle is the reverse of the usual matter in the universe. With Professor Irwin Pless of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Taft developed a device to help physicists read automatically the photographs of paths of subatomic particles and to extract highly specific kinds of information from them. At the time of his death he was involved in research to find a particle called the Tau-neutrino.

Taft was married to Mary Jane Badger. They had three sons, John G. Taft, Hugh B. Taft-Morales, and Horace D. Taft. Horace Dwight Taft died in New Haven, Connecticut on February 11, 1983.