George Cowan

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Arthur Cowan (born February 15, 1920 in Worcester , Massachusetts , † April 20, 2012 in Los Alamos , New Mexico ) was an American chemist , philanthropist and entrepreneur .

Career

Cowan studied chemistry at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute , then was on the cyclotron project at Princeton University (where he wanted to study physics) and then worked during the Second World War, initially at the metallurgical laboratory of the University of Chicago with Eugene Wigner on the construction of the first nuclear reactor, which was run by Enrico Fermi in Chicago in 1942. He then continued to work in the Manhattan Project , where his chemical knowledge was in demand. Cowan was one of the few who knew all the details of the project. By analyzing soil samples taken in neighboring regions of the Soviet Union , he was able to prove in 1949 that the USSR had nuclear weapons. After the war, he received his PhD in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and then returned to Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1950 , where he stayed for 39 years and eventually headed chemistry research, became an associate director and senior fellow of the laboratory.

At the same time he was culturally and commercially active in the area of ​​Los Alamos. In 1953 he founded the Santa Fe Opera with Arthur Spiegel and in 1963 the Los Alamos National Bank, originally to help laboratory workers to own homes. In 1983 he was one of the founders of the Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, of which he was president until 1991.

He received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award , the Enrico Fermi Prize and the Los Alamos Laboratory's highest honor, the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal. In 1997 he was in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elected in 2001 gave him the Carnegie Mellon University , the honorary doctorate .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Santa Fe Institute: George Cowan passes away at 92 ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.santafe.edu archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.4 MB). , April 20, 2012.
  2. ↑ Spiegel 18/2012, page 146
personal data
SURNAME Cowan, George
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cowan, George A .; Cowan, George Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist and philanthropist
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Worcester , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 2012
Place of death Los Alamos (New Mexico) , New Mexico