Nation/World

Former Fermi physicist's Nobel Prize sells for $765,000 in online auction

By Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho — A 1988 Nobel Prize put up for auction by a retired experimental physicist has sold for $765,002.

The online auction went into overtime Thursday evening until a final bid went unchallenged for half an hour. Nate D. Sanders Auctions spokesman Sam Heller says the final amount is the fourth-highest ever paid among the 10 Nobel Prizes that have been sold at auction.

WHY NOT SELL IT? ‘We could have used the medal as a coaster’

The Los Angeles company declined to identify the buyer.

Leon Lederman won the Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists for discovering a subatomic particle called the muon neutrino.

He retired from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, in June 2012 and moved to Idaho.

The 92-year-old has said he decided to sell the prize because it has just been sitting on a shelf.

KEITH RIDLER, Associated Press

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