Merle Antony Tuve

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Merle Antony Tuve (born June 27, 1901 in Canton , USA; † May 20, 1982 in Bethesda , USA) was an American physicist and geophysicist .

Life

Family and childhood

His grandparents came from Norway and emigrated to the USA . His father, Anthony G. Tuve, was president of Augustana College and his mother, Ida Marie Larsen Tuve, taught music there. His neighbor and childhood friend was the future physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence , with whom he began building radio accessories at the age of 13. Tuve had two brothers: George Lewis Tuve who became a professor of mechanical engineering and Richard Larsen Tuve who worked as an inventor and chemist. His sister, Rosemond Tuve , became a writer and professor of Renaissance literature at Connecticut College.
Tuve's father died during a flu epidemic in 1918, after which the family moved to Minneapolis .

Education and career

Tuve began there to study at the University of Minnesota (Bachelor 1922, Master 1923) and received his doctorate in 1926 in physics from Johns Hopkins University . In 1923/24 he was an instructor at Princeton University and from 1926 at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC , where he stayed until his death and was director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) from 1946 to 1966 as the successor to John Adam Fleming .

research

ionosphere

During his time in Minnesota, he became friends with Gregory Breit , a theoretical physicist . Together they began to research the ionosphere using radio waves .

Back then, electrical instruments were primitive and insensitive. In order to prove the existence of the ionosphere, it was necessary to find evidence that radio waves reach their recipient in at least two ways: as a ground wave and as an air wave. Depending on how high the ionic layer in the atmosphere is, there would be a measurable time difference when the two waves hit.

Tuve developed suitable technical equipment and together with Breit they experimented in the Naval Research Laboratory . Proof of the ionosphere opened up a new area of ​​research, and Tuve's experiments helped show the practical feasibility of radar .

Breit then convinced Johns Hopkins University to accept the work as the basis for Tuve's doctoral thesis, whereupon he received his doctorate in 1926.

Research in nuclear physics

In 1926 he recognized the importance of research into atomic nuclei and initially decided to go to Ernest Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory . Breit and John Fleming (1877-1956) convinced him, however, to come to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, DC , which was headed by Fleming and where he should develop devices for generating high-energy particles. Years of difficult and frustrating work followed. When Robert Jemison Van de Graaff invented his high voltage generator, Tuve was able to modify it for his experiments in nuclear physics . In February 1933 Tuve, Lawrence Hafstad, and Odd Dahl observed nuclear reactions using a 600 keV beam, the energy of which they could well control. They succeeded in observing a resonance in the scattering of protons on lithium . The theoretical analysis by Breit and Eugene Wigner led to the Breit-Wigner formula . The theorist Breit also stayed in close contact with Tuve when he left the Carnegie Institution and went to New York and then to Wisconsin.

In 1934 they increased the equipment to 1.2 MeV and examined numerous nuclear reactions.

In 1935 Tuve, Hafstad and Norman P. Heydenburg (1908–1998) succeeded in carrying out groundbreaking experiments with proton-proton scattering. The theoretical analysis by Edward Condon , Breit and Richard Present showed the attractive effect of the nuclear force in proton-proton collisions at short distances, which proved to be identical to that between protons and neutrons ( isospin invariance).

Until 1940 Tuve concentrated his work on nuclear physics. He led the development of an advanced Van de Graaff generator that achieved energy in excess of 4 MeV. He also began designing a 60-inch cyclotron that would produce large quantities of radioactive isotopes .

Weapons development

The Second World War - especially the air force attacks on England - influenced Tuve in his work. In August 1940, he had the idea of ​​a proximity fuse to increase the effectiveness of the air defense. However, mechanically stable vacuum tubes that could withstand the acceleration forces when fired were required. He and his team succeeded in developing tubes that could withstand 20,000 g; the detonators followed. Finally, its development was tested by the United States Navy and production began in August 1942. In order to guarantee the quality, larger premises were necessary, which is why there was a change of location from the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism to the newly established Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, of which Tuve was director. Tuve was responsible for the entire development and he held all the strings in hand, from staff to production to contacts in industry and research.

At the end of the war 112 factories were entrusted with the production, 22 million pieces of ammunition were produced in various designs. Tuve's invention, which he described not as the invention of an individual but as the product of a development in a team, thus became one of the decisive factors in the war.

After the war, Tuve received the Medal of Merit from President Harry S. Truman and was given the title of Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire . He also received the John Scott Award of the City of Philadelphia .

Research promoter

Despite having proven in wartime that he had a knack for running large corporations, he decided to return to the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism when its director had barely 15 people and was tight on budget. It was his goal to advance research with small teams of scientists. To do this, he first changed the direction of the institution, away from the subject of magnetism and towards general physics. This gave his employees greater freedom, which enabled them to achieve innovative results, for example: dating methods of rocks, studies of electricity in thunderstorms or the discovery of cosmic rays from the sun .

Seismograph Research

Although Tuve was busy with administrative tasks from 1946-66, his main concern was still research. He was interested in exploring the interior of the earth, for which he developed sensitive seismographs , which he u. a. tested in the Andes . In 1952, his area of ​​interest changed in the direction of high-frequency radio waves , which made his institution a leading center for radio astronomy from 1953 to 1965. In addition, image intensifiers with photocathodes were developed under Tuves' direction for optical telescopes , which have a higher sensitivity than photographic plates.

State projects and positions

Throughout his career, he has repeatedly been involved in government projects such as the US National Commission for UNESCO , the National Research Council's Committee on Growth and the US Committee for the International Geophysical Year . From 1946 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and became first chairman of the Geophysical Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences and Home Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences .

Awards

literature

  • Ralph B. Baldwin: The Deadly Fuze - The secret weapon of World War II . 1st edition. Presidio Press, 1980
  • John Steinhart: The Earth Beneath the Continents: A Volume of Geophysical Studies in Honor of Merle A Tuve . American Geophysical Union, Washington 1966. (Geophysical Monograph)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Translated by: Philip H. Abelson: Merle Antony Tuve . (English) accessed March 9, 2012
  2. ↑ a b c d Abbreviated literal translation by: Philip H. Abelson: Merle Antony Tuve . (English) accessed March 9, 2012
  3. ^ Hafstad, Tuve: Physical Review , Volume 48, 1935, p. 306
  4. ^ Breit, Wigner: Capture of slow neutrons . In: Physical Review , Volume 49, 1936, p. 519
  5. ↑ a b c Literally translated by: Philip H. Abelson: Merle Antony Tuve . (English) accessed March 9, 2012
  6. ↑ Tuve, Hafstad, Heyden Castle: The scattering of protons by protons , Physical Review, Volume 50, 1936, p 806
  7. ^ Breit, Condon, Present Theory of Scattering of Protons by Protons . In: Physical Review , Volume 50, 1936, p. 825
  8. ↑ Abbreviated translation by: Philip H. Abelson: Merle Antony Tuve . (English) accessed March 9, 2012
  9. ↑ Member History: Merle Antony Tuve. American Philosophical Society, accessed November 13, 2018 .
  10. ↑ cosmosclubfoundation.org , accessed on 21 February 2012 found.
personal data
SURNAME Tuve, Merle Antony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American physicist and geophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Canton , USA
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1982
Place of death Bethesda , USA