Rudolf Thun ’65

Rudi Thun died suddenly Aug. 6, 2012, at his home in Ann Arbor, where he was a professor of physics at the University of Michigan.

He was a key participant in the Michigan ATLAS group and spent his 2006 sabbatical at CERN in Switzerland. His contributions were rewarded with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, which was announced at CERN the month before his unfortunate and untimely death.

Rudi was born in Dresden, Germany, and immigrated with his family in 1955. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton, where he took his meals at the Woodrow Wilson Society. He received a Ph.D. from SUNY Stony Brook and spent 38 year teaching in Ann Arbor. His interest and activities extended to writing fiction, oil painting, competitive chess, and mountain climbing — not to mention investigations into the nature of binocular vision and the physical basis of consciousness.

He is survived by Melissa, his wife of 43 years; children Rachel Simin, Rudi, and Charles; his mother, Brigitte; brother Hans; and four grandchildren. To them all, the class extends condolences on their loss and congratulations on Rudi’s participation in the successful search for one of the primary building blocks of the universe.