Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
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He died when he was only 30 years old in a laboratory accident.
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Sam Ruben was born to a Jewish family on November 8th, 1913, in San Francisco, California. He was a proficient student and attended University of California where he earned his undergraduate degree and doctorate. Not one to rely on tradition to solve the world’s modern problems, he became a passionate researcher.
Dr. Ruben discovered the Carbon-14 isotope with Martin Kamen on February 27th, 1940. Ruben and Kamen created Carbon-14 by “using a cyclotron accelerator at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley” (American Chemistry Society). The discovery of Carbon-14 allowed for the advent of radio-carbon dating, the most prominent and frequently used dating technique for scientific research.
Carbon-14 decays at an exponentially decreasing rate over time as it turns into Carbon-12. This decay rate can be turned into a mathematical function that can calculate how long an item with Carbon-14 has existed by measuring how much Carbon-14 is in an item as opposed to how much Carbon-12.
Tragically, Dr Ruben died in a laboratory accident while working as an Official Investigator for the Office of Scientific Research and Development. He was 30 years old and left behind a wife and three children.
