Seymour sack
Seymour Sack (born September 8, 1929 in New York City , † November 29, 2011 in Berkeley , California ) was an American physicist and leading American nuclear weapons developer.
Seymour Sack received his PhD in physics from Yale University in 1954 and was at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from 1955 . He was first in the theory department and then in Section B, one of the leading developers of hydrogen and atomic bombs . In particular, he developed the plutonium bomb and explosive elements of the first stage hydrogen bombs (for example, the hydrogen bombs in the 1960s, which were small enough to fit in the Polaris, Minuteman, and Poseidon warheads). Some of his inventions have been incorporated into all nuclear weapons, whether developed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory or in Los Alamos. He also developed computer codes for the design. In the 1970s and early 1980s, it focused on disaster-safe nuclear weapons for aircraft and cruise missiles. The fire resistance of the plutonium envelopes and the most insensitive explosives possible were important. This culminated in the development of the Peacekeeper warhead in the 1980s . In 1990 he officially retired, but remained an advisor to the laboratory.
In 2003 he received the Enrico Fermi Prize and in 1973 the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Prize . In 1997 he received the Fleet Ballistic Missile Achievement Award for developing the W62 and W68 warheads.
Most recently, he was activated from retirement in 2007 to appraise the new development of the Reliable Replacement Warhead of the Lawrence Livermore Lab (the USA abandoned new nuclear weapons tests in 1992 and the US Navy had to be convinced that the new development was reliable even without tests). Lawrence Livermore won the contract to develop new warheads against competition from Los Alamos. The design was based on Sack's ideas in the 1980s.
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Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Sack, Seymour |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 8, 1929 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 29, 2011 |
| Place of death | Berkeley , California |