biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1908– )
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| biography:
| Physicist, born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied at Karlsruhe, Munich, and Göttingen universities, and under Niels Bohr at Copenhagen. He left Germany in 1933, moving to the USA in 1935. He contributed profoundly to the modern explanation of solar energy, anticipating the theory behind thermonuclear explosions. He was a member of the team under Fermi that produced the first nuclear chain reaction (1941), and worked on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos (1943–5). He favoured immediate development of a thermonuclear weapon, but had to wait until 1950 for Truman to give approval, and the first H-bomb was tested in 1952. He was director of the Livermore Laboratory, CA (1958–60), and professor of physics at California, Berkeley (1963). He supported the use of nuclear power for peaceful means, including the use of nuclear devices to excavate large areas for harbours, canals, and mining. |
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