Bernard Vonnegut
Bernard Vonnegut (born August 29, 1914 in Indianapolis , Indiana , † April 25, 1997 in Albany , New York ) was an American scientist. He is best known for inventing the inoculation of clouds with silver iodide .
Life
Vonnegut was the older brother of the writer Kurt Vonnegut . He studied chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a bachelor's degree in 1936 and a doctorate in physical chemistry in 1939. He then went to the research laboratories of General Electric in Schenectady . There Irving Langmuir had started research on inoculating clouds with condensation nuclei (generating precipitation) using dry ice. Vonnegut suggested the use of silver iodide, which is still used today for such projects. In 1952 he went from General Electric to Arthur D. Little Inc. and from 1967 he was Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the State University of New York in Albany. In 1984 he became a Distinguished University Professor and in 1985 he retired .
He held 28 patents. In 1997 he received the Ig Nobel Prize for a thesis on the degree of plucking of chickens as a measure of the strength of tornadoes. Vonnegut was a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society , the American Geophysical Union, and the Royal Meteorological Society . He was Honorary President of the International Commission of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics .
Kurt Vonnegut referred to the work of his brother in some of his novels (for example in Cat's Cradle on inoculating clouds).
literature
- Ginger Strand: The Brothers Vonnegut: Science and Fiction in the House of Magic . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-374-11701-6 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vonnegut, Bernard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American meteorologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 29, 1914 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Indianapolis , Indiana |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 25, 1997 |
| Place of death | Albany , New York |