Physicist from Ridgewood who worked on Nobel Prize-winning discovery speaks at alma mater
FRIDAY OCTOBER 5, 2012, 6:08 PM
BY EVONNE COUTROS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — A physicist who collaborated in a Nobel Prize-winning discovery returned Friday to the high school from which he graduated in 1952 to offer hope to students who hadn’t excelled in their studies or stood out as prodigies.
David Hand Coward, a 1952 graduate of Ridgewood H. S., spoke to Ridgewood H.S. students at an assembly.
David Hand Coward, whose work aided in the discovery of quark particles some four decades ago which led to physicists at Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology winning a 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics, came clean on Friday: he wasn’t a stellar English student in high school and he wasn’t a star at Cornell University where he studied physics.
Coward, 77, who is attending his 60th class reunion this week and is being recognized with a Distinguished Alumni award, told 400 students at Ridgewood High School that he was no slacker, either.