caption doctoral_advisor death_date death_place birth_name birth_place awards nationality workplaces field birth_date known_for image article_title name alma_mater
john linsley 's 1963 passport photograph edward p. ney 25 september 2002 albuquerque , new mexico , usa john david linsley minneapolis , minnesota , usa nominated -rrb- for the nobel prize in physics -lrb- 1980 united states university new mexico university of palermo of minnesota massachusetts institute of technology university of physics 12 march 1925 seminal contributions to study of cosmic rays johnlinsley1963passportphoto.jpg john linsley
 john david linsley university of minnesota
john linsley

john david linsley -lrb- 12 march 1925 -- 25 september 2002 -rrb- was an american physicist who performed pioneering research on cosmic rays , particularly ultra-high-energy cosmic rays .
he did his most significant work from 1959 to 1978 using a ground-based array of detectors at volcano ranch in new mexico .
he is best known for being the first to detect an air shower created by a primary particle with an energy of 1020 ev .
this was the highest energy cosmic ray observed up to that point .
linsley 's observations suggested that not all cosmic rays are confined within the galaxy and showed the first evidence of a flattening of the cosmic ray spectrum at energies above 1018 ev .
