Robert Bacher

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Robert Bacher (around 1947)

Robert Fox Bacher (born August 31, 1905 in Loudonville , Ohio , † November 18, 2004 in Montecito , California ) was an American nuclear physicist .

Life

Robert Bacher was an experimental nuclear physicist , received his doctorate in 1930 from the University of Michigan and, after post-doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , the University of Michigan and Columbia University, became an instructor in 1935 and later professor of physics at Cornell University , where he / 47 headed the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies and worked with Hans Bethe . During the Second World War he worked in the Manhattan project for the development of the first atomic bomb as head of the department for experimental physics (1943/44), and after the bomb was completed in 1944/45 as head of the "bomb physics division".

Not least because of this, he received the US President's Medal of Merit in 1946 . Even after Los Alamos he was active in the development of weapons and as a government advisor (e.g. in the negotiations on the 1958 test stop agreement). From 1946 to 1949 he was on the Atomic Energy Commission of the United States and from 1957 to 1962 on the Naval Research Advisory Committee of the US Navy. From 1957 to 1959 he was on the President's Advisory Committee (PSAC).

In 1949 he went to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he fulfilled important administrative functions. He was head of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy from 1949 to 1962 and made it a national attraction for talented students by being responsible for bringing Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann to Caltech. He shaped the high energy physics program there and initiated the expansion of radio astronomy at Caltech. In the 1960s he was Provost (1962 to 1970) and Vice President of Caltech. In 1976 he retired.

Bacher was widowed since 1994. He leaves behind the son Andrew and the daughter Martha Bacher Eaton.

Since 1947 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and since 1948 of the American Philosophical Society . In 1953 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . 1950 to 1960 he was in the Council (Board of Trustees) of the Rand Corporation and 1959 to 1976 in the Carnegie Corporation. In 1964 he was president of the American Physical Society .

Web links

Commons : Robert Bacher  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member History: Robert Fox Bacher. American Philosophical Society, accessed April 15, 2018 .
  2. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1950–1999. Retrieved September 23, 2015 (PDF).
personal data
SURNAME Bacher, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bacher, Robert Fox (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American nuclear physicist involved in the Manhattan Project
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Loudonville , Ohio , United States
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 2004
Place of death Montecito , California , United States