Frederic de Hoffmann

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Frederic de Hoffmann (born July 8, 1924 in Vienna , † October 4, 1989 in La Jolla ) was an American physicist.

Life

Hoffmann was the son of Otto and Marianne von Hoffmann de Vagujhely. He grew up in Prague, where he attended the German-language grammar school, but as a Czech patriot was persecuted by the National Socialists. In 1941 he went to the USA (from 1946 he was a US citizen). He was studying physics at Harvard University when he was enlisted in the Manhattan Project in 1944 and worked there until 1946. In 1945 he made his bachelor's degree from Harvard University, where he received his doctorate in 1948. Then he was back in Los Alamos , where he worked on the hydrogen bomb under Edward Teller , mainly as a theorist (for example, he mathematically checked the Teller-Ulam design ), but also as Teller's “right hand”.

In 1955 he went to General Dynamics , which he persuaded to found General Atomics , which, under de Hoffmann, was the first president to develop a civil nuclear reactor. After the takeover by Gulf Oil, he was a manager there from 1967 to 1969.

In 1970 he became president of the Salk Institute , which he made one of the leading independent centers for biological research in the USA. Under his presidency, the budget grew from $ 4.5 million to $ 33 million annually and the number of employees more than doubled from 200 to 500.

He died of the effects of AIDS , which he contracted from a contaminated blood transfusion during a heart operation in 1984, shortly before blood tests for AIDS were introduced.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)