Obituaries

Edwin E. Salpeter Astrophysicist

Edwin E. Salpeter, 83, an astrophysicist whose work in the "Salpeter-Bethe equation" showed how helium changes to carbon, died Nov. 25 at his Ithaca, N.Y., home. He had leukemia.

"Ed's contributions to astrophysics revolutionized whole subfields," said Saul Teukolsky, a colleague and chairman of Cornell University's physics department.

In 1951, Dr. Salpeter and Cornell theoretical physicist Hans Bethe, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in physics, introduced an equation showing how helium nuclei fuse to form carbon inside ancient stars. Until then, the origin of elements beyond helium in the periodic table was a mystery.

From that work, Dr. Salpeter determined the formation rates of stars of different masses in the galaxy. It remains the basis of studies into the rates of stellar births and deaths.

In 1964, while working independently, Dr. Salpeter and Soviet physicist Yakov Zeldovich were the first to propose that a stream of gas falling toward a black hole could be heated to produce detectable X-rays. Thirty years later, data from the Hubble telescope confirmed the idea.

In 1997, Dr. Salpeter and Fred Hoyle, a British scientist who coined the term "Big Bang," shared the $500,000 Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their work in the study of nuclear reactions in stars.

Edna Parker World's Oldest Person

Edna Parker, who was validated as the world's oldest person more than a year ago, died Nov. 26 in a Shelbyville, Ind., nursing home. She was 115 years, 220 days old.

University of California at Los Angeles gerontologist Stephen Coles said Parker's great-nephew notified him that Parker died Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville. Robert Young, a senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records, confirmed her age.

Mrs. Parker was born April 20, 1893, in central Indiana's Morgan County and had been recognized by Guinness as the world's oldest person since the death last year in Japan of Yone Minagawa, who was four months her senior.

Coles maintains a list of the world's oldest people and said Mrs. Parker was the 14th oldest validated supercentenarian in history. Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who was born Sept. 10, 1893, is now the world's oldest living person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

-- From News Services