John H. Manley

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John H. Manley

John H. Manley (born July 21, 1907 in Harvard (Illinois) , † June 11, 1990 in Los Alamos (New Mexico) ) was an American physicist and group leader at the Manhattan Project .

Manley received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of Illinois in 1929 and a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1934 . He became a lecturer at Columbia University and was professor at the University of Illinois from 1937 to 1942. In 1938 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society .

With the prospect of a long war, a group of theoretical physicists around Robert Oppenheimer met in Berkeley in the summer of 1942 to determine plans for the development and design of a nuclear weapon . Fundamental questions about the properties of fast neutrons remained open. John H. Manley, a friend and colleague of Oppenheimer's who was at the University of Chicago's metallurgical laboratory when the war broke out , coordinated research groups for Oppenheimer across the country to answer this question.

Manley arrived on April 4, 1943 at Los Alamos National Laboratory , where he and others helped set up the laboratory building. He also installed the Cockcroft-Walton accelerator that he had brought back from Urbana . During the war he was responsible for laboratory management and an advisor to Oppenheimer.

After the Second World War , Manley served as the executive secretary of the general advisory committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission and returned shortly afterwards to Los Alamos for further research. From 1951 to 1957 Manley taught physics at the University of Washington . He retired in 1974.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stanley Goldberg: Groves and Oppenheimer: The Story of a Partnership . In: Antioch Review (ed.): The Antioch Review . 53, No. 4, 1995, p. 491.
  • Lawrence Badash, JO Hirschfelder, HP Broida, eds., Reminiscences of Los Alamos 1943-1945 (Studies in the History of Modern Science), Springer, 1980, ISBN 90-277-1098-8 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Manley, John H.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 21, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Harvard (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1990
Place of death Los Alamos (New Mexico)