Draft:John Maxwell Bailey

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: I have to declare a slight COI, but elaborating on what that COI is would doxx me. Regardless, I think it is slight enough for me to be able to review.
  Based on my personal understanding there is a possibility the subject meets NPROF #1. However this is not demonstrated adequately by any of the sources, for much of the same reasons you have been told. The article remains narrative in tone. The CERN sources are promising but not sufficient. Also you can't cite Wikipedia (source 4). Fermiboson (talk) 22:45, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

• File:Symbol opinion vote.svg Comment: Please look at the pages for other academics and rewrite:
  * Use the proper style for references
  * Provide information on his awards (critical)
  * All claims must have sources (not links) to verify
  * Remove material that is narrative --that he read detective novels is not relevant here
  * Change the "notable papers" to five Selected papers
  * Get help at the Teahouse
  The current version will continue to be rejected if you don't make it more standard. You have to prove his notability. Ldm1954 (talk) 00:36, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

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John Maxwell Bailey (30 September 1935 – 14 February 2024) was an Australian particle physicist and pioneering expert in muon storage rings who worked on the Muon 'g minus 2' experiments at CERN in collaboration with Emilio Picasso and Francis Farley.

Life and career

Bailey was the eldest child of Victor Albert Bailey, Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science; and Joyce Hewitt, a professional concert pianist from New Zealand. During WWII due to VA Bailey's work in Radio-physics, the family moved to the countryside. After they returned, Bailey joined the Sydney Boys High School. He became an accomplished Chess player, winning NSW Junior Chess Champion.

Bailey obtained a degree in Mathematics at the University of Sydney (1953-56) and did National Service in the Australian Navy. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to study Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford (1957–1960). Arriving at The Queen's College, Oxford (his father's alma mater), he was elected Captain of the Oxford University Chess Team. He also met his future wife Elizabeth Rippon, a fellow student from Sheffield.

Graduating with a DPhil, Bailey was awarded a postdoctoral research position at Yale University (1960-4) before being recruited to join the team at CERN (1964-72). The Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire had started operations only ten years earlier to re-establish a collaborative centre of scientific excellence after WWII. Archive video 'In the heart of CERN in 1967' showcases their work of this time, featuring Bailey's presentation of his team's project. Over the next few years Bailey developed his expertise in sub-atomic particles, becoming a world expert in Muon storage rings.

File:The CERN Muon (g-2) Team in 1984.jpg

The CERN Muon (g-2) Team (Back: Danby, Field, Farley, Picasso, Krienen; Front: Bailey, Hughes, Combley)

Bailey was involved in the planning, design and operation of high energy particle physics experimental facilities during his time at CERN. He worked on the 'g minus 2' series as a founding member of the original (g-2) experimental team led by Francis Farley alongside Emilio Picasso. This group worked on measuring the anomalous magnetic movement of the muon and discovered the 'magic energy' (3.1GeV) at which electric fields do not affect the spin precession. As the team's expert on muon storage rings, Bailey was a key contributor to the CERN muon (g-2) experiments. In the Acknowledgements of their summary review 'The Muon (g-2) Experiments at CERN', Farley and Picasso single Bailey's contribution out for special mention. Bailey's key role was developing a muon storage ring with a uniform magnetic field and vertical focusing using an electric quadrupole field. This was the foundation for subsequent research into muons, and was recognized in the CERN Courier in 2015.

High energy physics at CERN involved working with colleagues from around the globe and Bailey was a skilled linguist. His subsequent work took him to other leading edge particle accelerators including Daresbury, Brookhaven, DESY, NIKHEF and TRIUMF. During this international career he became fluent in French, German and Dutch, also conversant in Italian, Turkish and Russian.

During the 1980s Bailey lectured at the University of Liverpool and contributed to experiments at Rutherford Laboratory. Following retirement, he used his expertise to install speaking software on home computers for the blind. John and Elizabeth Bailey had five daughters, two of whom followed their father and grandfather to The Queen's College, Oxford. The first, Jane F. Bailey, matriculated in 1979 amongst the first fifteen female undergraduates at the college. The fourth, Lucy Bailey, was appointed Dean of Bahrain College (University of Bahrain).

Selected publications

John Maxwell Bailey was a highly cited researcher with numerous papers listed on INSPIRE-HEP. From his early work with the Muon (g-2) team at CERN, the most notable publications are:

• Bailey, J. et al (1968) Precision measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon

• Bailey, J. et al (1975) New measurement of (g−2) of the Muon

• Bailey, J. et al (1977) The anomalous magnetic moment of positive and negative muons

• Bailey, J. et al (1977) Measurements of relativistic time dilatation for positive and negative muons in a circular orbit

• Bailey, J.M. et al (1979) Final Report on the CERN Muon Storage Ring

References

Category:Australian physicists Category:1935 births Category:Chess Category:Rhodes Scholars Category:Experimental physics Category:Particle physics Category:CERN