Brazilian physicist who discovered the pion dies

Brazil The Brazilian physicist Cesare Mansueto Giulio Lattes, aged 80, known as Cesar Lattes died on March 8, 2005  at 3:40 pm. His death was caused by a cardio-respiratory failure and occurred at the Hospital of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), in the Barão Geraldo district, in the city of Campinas, São Paulo state, Brazil.

Lattes, along with Giuseppe Occhialini and Cecil Powell was responsible for the discovery of the subatomic particle called the pion, in 1947. This discovery was very important for the understanding of the sub-atomic structure of the atom.

The physicist was born on July 11, 1924 in Curitiba, Paraná. For the last 30 years of his life he lived at Campinas, in Barão Geraldo. He worked at the Brazilian university Unicamp and he was the founder of its Department of Cosmic Rays and Chronology of the "Gleb Wataghin" Physics Institute.