Emil Konopinski

Emil Konopinski

Emil John Konopinski , also Emil Jan Konopinski (born December 25, 1911 in Michigan City (Indiana) , † May 26, 1990 in Bloomington (Indiana) ) was an American physicist .

Life

Konopinski was of Polish origin and the son of Joseph Konopinski and Sophia Sniegowska. He received his PhD in Physics from the University of Michigan in 1934 and later became Professor of Physics at Indiana University . During the Second World War , he worked with Enrico Fermi on the first nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago . In 1939 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society .

Services

In order to have his research work and the general theory of the fission reactions appraised, Robert Oppenheimer organized a research summer in June 1942 at the University of California at Berkeley . The participants Hans Bethe , John H. van Vleck , Edward Teller , Felix Bloch , Richard C. Tolman and Emil Konopinski came to the conclusion that a nuclear fission-based bomb was possible, and assumed that a critical one was needed to start the chain reaction Mass must be present. Konopinski was involved in the Manhattan project right from the start.

Konopinski, together with C. Marin and Edward Teller , determined whether a thermonuclear explosion would ignite the earth's atmosphere and thus destroy the earth.

From 1946 to 1968 Konopinski was an advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission .

Publications

• 1966 The Theory of Beta Radioactivity, ISBN 978-0-19-851241-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Emil Konopinski, 78, Atomic Bomb Scientist. Retrieved August 19, 2013 . 
2. ↑ E.J Konopinski, C. Marvin; Edward Teller: Ignition of the Atmosphere with Nuclear Bombs . (PDF) In: Los Alamos National Laboratory . No. LA-602, 1946, declassified Feb. 1973. Retrieved August 19, 2013.