1926-

American physicist who invented the bubble chamber, used in detecting products of atomic collisions. Glaser realized that he could heat pressurized liquid helium and it would remain a superheated liquid if the pressure were reduced slightly. Charged particles traversing the super-heated liquid would create localized boiling along their paths, which were bent by a magnetic field, giving information about the particles' mass, energy, and charge. Glaser was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize for Physics for this invention.