Menu
Search by Name
Search by Name
David Ritson Obituary
David was born on November 10, 1924 in London, England. He studied classical languages at Merchant Taylor's Boarding School and then chemistry at Oxford. He received a PhD in Physics with work at Oxford and Bristol University. This early collaboration of universities was one of the starting places for modern particle physics. He became a professor at Rochester University (USA), where he met his wife Edda on a blind date in New York. They married. David and Edda moved to Massachusetts where David taught at MIT. In 1961, David accepted a position at Stanford University in the Physics department teaching and continued state of the art particle breaking work in high-energy physics. David worked both as a senior educator for Stanford and as a researcher at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, (SLAC), and at the other major particle accelerator centers. David's brilliant mind guided many physics student to careers and contributed to the discovery of sub-atomic particles and the most fundamental interactions of sub-atomic-particles.
David and Edda enjoyed the opportunities to live and travel widely. He took his family on two sabbaticals to Italy and England, providing them with wonderful educational and enjoyment opportunities.
David and Edda loved art, music, finding scenic spots and pleasant restaurants to enjoy.
After retiring from physics, David used his analytical skills to help make sense of global warming data and wrote multiple articles on the subject.
David was a very loving father for his children, a very devoted husband, and an inspiration to all that knew him.
David is survived by his daughter Francesca, sons Peter, Matt, Vincent, and Marc, seven grand children, and one great grandson.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Filoli, Bay Area Open Spaces, or the Avenidas Senior Center.
A memorial service will be held on Dec. 28, 2019 at 3 PM at David's home, 756 Santa Ynez, Stanford. All are welcome to attend and recount remembrances of David.
To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.
Memories and Condolences
for David Ritson
3 Entries
Linda Raffel
January 20, 2020
David was my lovely neighbor on Santa Ynez st at Stanford. We had good chats at neighborhood parties and
during walks. I'm sorry I only found out about his passing today. I would certainly have attended his memorial service. So good it was at the family home with his loving family. He will be joining his dear Italian wife.
How you can show support
Follow
Get email updates whenever changes are made.
Send flowers
Consider sending flowers.
Add photos
Share their life with photo memories.
Plant trees
Honor them by planting trees in their memory.
Donate in Memory
Make a donation in memory of your loved one.
Share this page
Invite other friends and family to visit the page.
Ida & Marcello Piccolo
December 27, 2019
We had the privilege of working with David in the MAC experiment at SLAC, and subsequently becoming friends of the Ritson family.
David was an exceptional physicist: he was always ahead of everybody else in grasping the issues, and always original in finding solutions. During our career, we had the chance to work with several Nobel laureates and other prominent figures in Particle Physics; David was the only one with whom we often found ourselves dreading that he would immediately notice a flaw in our reasoning. We were not the only ones intimidated by his brainpower: often at a conference or seminar, David would open his eyes after apparently dozing off and surprise the speaker with a very sharp question. We felt the greatest satisfaction when he would come back to us after a discussion and say: we are on the same wavelength.
A vivid memory we have of David as a great physicist, is when he walked into our office at SLAC, went to the blackboard, mumbling something we did not fully understand, and writing some math. His point was that the PEP's vacuum chamber did not have to be so wide, and a diameter of 3-4 cm would be enough for the machine to run. He was right, as usual, and the consequence was a revolution in machine and detector design: it was the start of the era of the vertex detectors positioned very close to be interaction point, and therefore able to measure particles' decay points with much higher precision.
We admired David as a physicist, and we really loved him as a human being; we cherished his friendship, and shared many family gatherings, both at Stanford and at Frascati. We had the pleasure to have both him and Edda as our guests in Italy; they were happy to spend some time in Frascati, where David also helped with the local accelerator, or to stop by before going to visit relatives in Tuscany. In the last few years, we would visit him every time we came to Palo Alto and enjoy discussing his new interest in global warming, or the status of Particle Physics today. We will miss him very much!
Marcello & Ida Piccolo
Alex Read
December 19, 2019
I was a PhD student on the MAC experiment in the early 1980's. Although I was from a different university and we didn't work directly together, Dave wrote me a very nice letter of recommendation that I am sure helped me get my first job and my career off to a great start. Dave is one of my absolute physics heros: He was a nice, mild-mannered man, a great particle physicist, I known he made some key contributions to at least 2 accelerators, and he wrote the most amazing beautiful FORTRAN code (for the MAC straw vertex detector) I have ever seen. My strongest memory is of him standing up in a MAC collaboration meeting, walking up to the screen where someone was showing a diagram of the detector, and telling us that our top priority should be to install a vertex detector where he was pointing. I don't remember the subject of the presentation but I am pretty sure we were not discussing the potential benefits of a vertex detector! The room went quiet. Sure enough, not extremely long after this meeting, the collaboration went all-in to build the vertex detector and it was a great success for the experiment.
Showing 1 - 3 of 3 results
Make a Donation
in David Ritson's name
Memorial Events
for David Ritson
People and places connected with David
Recent Obituaries
Recent Obituaries
Recent Obituaries
Recent Obituaries
How to support David's loved ones
Should I Send Sympathy Flowers?
What kind of arrangement is appropriate, where should you send it, and when should you send an alternative?
Read more
What Should I Write in a Sympathy Card?
We'll help you find the right words to comfort your family member or loved one during this difficult time.
Read more
Resources to help you cope with loss
How to Cope With Grief
Information and advice to help you cope with the death of someone important to you.
Read more
Estate Settlement Guide
If you’re in charge of handling the affairs for a recently deceased loved one, this guide offers a helpful checklist.
Read more
Obituaries, grief & privacy: Legacy’s news editor on NPR podcast
Legacy's Linnea Crowther discusses how families talk about causes of death in the obituaries they write.
Read moreWays to honor David Ritson's life and legacy
Obituary Examples
You may find these well-written obituary examples helpful as you write about your own family.
Read more
Obituary Templates – Customizable Examples and Samples
These free blank templates make writing an obituary faster and easier.
Read more
How Do I Write a Eulogy?
Some basic help and starters when you have to write a tribute to someone you love.
Read more
