RIP …

… Caltech Mourns the Passing of Murray Gell-Mann (1929–2019) | www.caltech.edu. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Gell-Mann helped bring order to the field of particle physics in the 1950s and 1960s—a time when a bewildering array of new particles was being found in "atom-smashing" experiments. He devised a new method for sorting the particles into simple groups of eight, based on their electric charge, spin, and other characteristics (Israeli scientist Yuval Ne'eman also came up with a similar classification scheme). Gell-Mann termed his method the "eightfold way" after the Buddhist Eightfold Path to enlightenment, and for this research and related work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.