Simon van der Meer in the AA Control Room

Simon van der Meer, spiritus rector of the Antiproton Accumulator, in the AA Control Room. Inventor of stochastic cooling, on which the AA was based, and of the magnetic horn, with which the antiprotons were focused, he also wrote most of the software with which the AA was controlled, and spent uncountable numbers of hours in this chair to tickle the AA to top performance. 8 months after this picture was taken, he received, in October 1984, the Nobel prize, together with Carlo Rubbia, the moving force behind the whole Proton-Antiproton Collider project that led to the discovery, in 1983, of the W and Z intermediate bosons.