Richard E. Taylor was nearly ten years old when World War II began, which he credits for sparking his interest in physics when the atomic bomb ended the war. He had already developed an interest in explosives, and had blown off three fingers of his left hand. Later he entered the University of Alberta, registering in a special program emphasizing mathematics and physics. He became interested in experimental physics, and got his Master's degree from the same institution. Then he went to Stanford, California, and after two years joined the High Energy Physics Laboratory, working with the new linear accelerator. By the early 60s he was working on the design of the experimental areas of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), helping to build the equipment and taking part in electron scattering experiments. Along with Jerome Friedman and Henry Kendall of MIT, Taylor won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1990 for work the trio had done from 1967 to 1973. They provided the first experimental evidence that protons and neutrons, once believed indivisible, are made up of quarks.
