Alvin M. Weinberg

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Alvin M. Weinberg, about 1960

Alvin Martin Weinberg (born April 20, 1915 in Chicago , † October 18, 2006 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee ) was an American reactor physicist and science organizer. He invented the pressurized water reactor .

biography

Alvin Weinberg was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, and his father, originally a tailor, worked his way up to the position of manager of a clothing factory in Chicago.

Vineyard jr. received her PhD in mathematical biophysics from the University of Chicago in 1939 . During his subsequent work in the metallurgy department at the University of Chicago, he was also involved in the Manhattan project . There he helped Eugene Wigner develop the Hanford reactors that produced plutonium. In 1948 he became head of research at the Oak Ridge Laboratory. From 1955 to 1973 he was director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory . During this time he led research on the use of isotopes in nuclear medicine , research into the effects of radioactivity on humans and the effects of nuclear energy generation on the environment. The design of his pressurized water reactors became the standard in the nuclear submarines of the US fleet and later in the production of nuclear energy (the other type of light water reactor , the boiling water reactor , was invented by Samuel Untermyer II ).

A project that was particularly close to Weinberg's heart was the development of a molten salt reactor from 1965 that was supposed to work as a thermal thorium breeder . Since 1972 he warned of dangers in light water reactors and fast breeder reactors as well as escalating costs in the development of the "fast breeder". According to information in his memoir (1994), he was then suggested to resign as ORNL director. The molten salt reactor project was no longer funded after an evaluation in 1973.

In 1963, as chairman of John F. Kennedy's Panel of Science Information Committee, he wrote the report entitled Science, Government, and Information with suggestions for improving the communication of information between science and the public, which was also named after him as the Weinberg Report . Weinberg was an influential government advisor who particularly emphasized the need for large research centers and coined terms such as "Big Science", "Technological Fix" and " Trans-Science ".

Weinberg was a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the National Academy of Engineering '(1975) and the American Philosophical Society (1977). On May 18, 1960, he and Walter Henry Zinn received the Atoms for Peace Award . Also in 1960, Weinberg was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1991 he received the Eugene P. Wigner Reactor Physicist Award .

The American Nuclear Society has awarded the Alvin M. Weinberg Medal annually since 1995 for achievements in promoting understanding of the social effects of nuclear power .

Fonts

  • With Eugene P. Wigner : The Physical Theory of Neutron Chain Reactors. University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1958.
  • Reflections on Big Science. MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.) 1967.
  • The First Nuclear Era: The Life and Times of a Technological Fixer. AIP Press, Woodbury (NY) 1997, ISBN 1-563-96358-2 .
  • Science, Government and Information. Approved German translation of the Weinberg report, The White House , January 10, 1963, Ed .: DGI / DGD with a preface by Erich Pietsch .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on AM Weinberg (Engl.)
  2. ↑ https://www.nae.edu/MembersSection/MemberDirectory/28387.aspx
  3. ↑ Member History: Alvin M. Weinberg. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 15, 2018 .
  4. ^ Translation posted in 1998 on the translator's homepage at the Humboldt University in Berlin; here: Memento from July 7, 1998
personal data
SURNAME Weinberg, Alvin M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weinberg, Alvin Martin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist and science organizer
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago
DATE OF DEATH October 18, 2006
Place of death Oak Ridge, Tennessee