Leona Woods

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Leona Woods 1946

Leona Harriet Woods , later Leona Woods Marshall , Leona Woods Marshall Libby , (born August 9, 1919 in La Grange (Illinois) , †  November 10, 1986 in Santa Monica ) was an American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project to build the Atom bomb and - as the only scientist - was involved in the construction of the first nuclear reactor ( Chicago Pile ) in Chicago under Enrico Fermi .

Private life

In 1943 Leona Woods married her fellow physicist John Marshall (1917–1997), both of whom had two sons, born in 1944 and 1949. In 1954 the couple separated. They divorced in 1966, and Woods married Nobel Prize winner Willard F. Libby that same year .

Professional background

Woods earned her high school degree in La Grange at the age of 14 and studied chemistry at the University of Chicago with a bachelor's degree in 1938. She received her doctorate in physics in 1943 with Robert Mulliken ( On the Silicon Oxide Bands ). In 1942 she was recruited by Herbert L. Anderson for the team that built the first nuclear reactor in Chicago. She was responsible for the construction of detectors for the neutron flux. She also supported her mother, who ran a farm near Chicago. Woods was involved in the construction of the plutonium breeder reactors in Hanford in 1944/45, where the xenon poisoning of reactors was discovered. After the war she was at the Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago, where she dealt with neutron scattering and became an assistant professor in 1953. In 1957/58 she was at the Institute for Advanced Study , from 1958 to 1960 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and in 1960 she became Associate Professor and 1962 Professor at New York University . In 1964 she moved to the University of Colorado as a professor and was with the Rand Corporation from 1963 to 1970 . She was also visiting professor at UCLA from 1970, where her husband, Willard Libby, taught.

Group photo of the team that built the first nuclear reactor, including Leona Woods as the only woman next to Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi in the front left

At the end of the 1950s she switched from nuclear physics to elementary particle physics. She also published on astrophysics (including quasars ), molecular spectroscopy, quantum chemistry, and, like Libby, dealt with irradiation of food against pests and the use of radioactive isotopes e.g. B. in age determination, paleoclimatology and geology. Among other things, she wrote a study for the Rand Corporation on the creation of an artificial atmosphere on the moon (1969). Woods published a biography of Libby and memories of the time of the Manhattan Project (Uranium People 1979).

From 1960 to 1962 she was on the editorial board of Physical Review.

Fonts

  • The Uranium People, Charles Scribner's Sons 1979
  • Past Climates: Tree Thermometers, Commodities, and People, University of Texas Press 1983
  • with Fermi: Interactions between neutrons and electrons, Phys. Rev., Vol. 72, 1947, 1139-1146 (as L. Marshall)
  • with Ernest Courant : Mass separation of high energy particles in quadruple lens focusing systems, Review of Scientific Instruments, Volume 3, 1960, 193-196
  • Elements in the region of platinum formed by fusion in fission explosions, Phys. Rev., Vol. 129, 1963, 740-743
  • with GP Fisher, V. Domingo u. a .: Hyperon production in interactions of 2.7 GeV / c Antiprotons on Protons, Phys. Rev., Vol. 161, 1967, 1335-1343
  • Repulsive core and interaction energy in proton-proton scattering, Physics Letters B, Volume 29, 1969, 345-347
  • with Libby: Vulcanism and radiocarbon dates, in TA Rafter, T. Grant-Taylor, Proc. Int. Conf. Radio Carbon Dating, Volume 1, Royal Society of New Zealand 1973, A 72-75
  • with Libby: Geographical coincidence of high heat flow, high seismicity and upwelling with hydrocarbon deposits, phosphorites, evaporites and uranium ores, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Vol. 71, 1974, pp. 3931-3935
  • with LJ Pandolfi: Temperature dependence of isotope ratios in tree rings, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., Vol. 71, 1974, p. 2482

She edited the Libby Collected Papers (UCLA Press, 4 volumes 1981)

literature

  • Burt Folkart, Leona Marshall Libby Dies; Sole Woman to Work on Fermi's 1st Nuclear Reactor, Los Angeles Times obituary, Nov. 13, 1986, online

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A descendant of John Marshall
personal data
SURNAME Woods, Leona
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Woods, Leona Harriet (full name); Woods Marshall, Leona (full name); Woods Marshall Libby, Leona (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH La Grange (Illinois)
DATE OF DEATH November 10, 1986
Place of death Santa Monica