Albert Wattenberg

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Albert Wattenberg
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Thesis Photo-neutron sources and the energy of the photo-neutrons  (1947)
Doctoral advisorWalter Zinn

Albert Wattenberg (April 13, 1917 – June 27, 2007), was an American

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1958 to 1986, where he pursued studies related to the atomic nucleus
.

Early life

Albert Wattenberg was born in

Italian Fascist sympathies. After he left Columbia, he took a summer course in spectroscopy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[5]

In 1939, Wattenberg joined

PhD. In 1941, his studies were interrupted by World War II. Enrico Fermi asked him to join the group at Columbia working on the nuclear fission of uranium that also included Herbert L. Anderson, Bernard T. Feld, Leo Szilard and Walter Zinn. Wattenberg learned how to build and maintain the Geiger counters and photon and neutron detectors.[5]

Manhattan Project

On 2 December 1946, the fourth anniversary CP-1 going critical, members of the team gathered at the University of Chicago. In the front row is Enrico Fermi, Walter Zinn, Albert Wattenberg and Herbert L. Anderson.

Arthur Compton concentrated the teams involved in plutonium and nuclear reactor research at Columbia University, Princeton University, the University of Chicago at the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago in early 1942.[6] There, Wattenberg built and maintained detectors and neutron sources. Indeed, after 1943, he built and maintained all the radium and beryllium neutron sources used by the entire Manhattan Project. He assisted in the construction of Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, and was one of those present on December 2, 1942, when it achieved criticality.[5] Afterwards, Eugene Wigner opened a bottle of Chianti to celebrate, which those present drank from paper cups.[7][8][9] The bottle was signed by those present, and kept as a souvenir by Wattenberg.[8][10] In 1980, he donated it to the Argonne National Laboratory.[5]

In 1943, Wattenberg married Shirley Hier,

Cook County Hospital from 1945 to 1947, as an instructor and clinical researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1954 to 1958, and as a caseworker, supervisor, and acting director of Family Services in Champaign, Illinois, from 1959 to 1966. She was an assistant professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from 1966 to 1973, and then with its College of Medicine. They had three daughters.[citation needed
]

After Fermi left the Metallurgical Laboratory for the

Federation of Atomic Scientists, the publishers of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.[1]

Later life

The Chianti bottle purchased by Eugene Wigner to help celebrate the first self-sustaining, controlled chain reaction. Wattenberg donated it to the Argonne National Laboratory in 1980.

With the war over, Wattenberg returned to his studies,[2] completing his PhD at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Walter Zinn. He wrote his thesis on "Photo-neutron sources and the energy of the photo-neutrons", and earned his doctorate in 1947.[13] Rather than work in academia, he chose to join Fermi at the Argonne National Laboratory, where he helped design and build nuclear reactors. Wattenberg became director of Argonne's Physics Division in 1949.[5] He did not agree with Zinn's decision, as director of the laboratory, to concentrate on reactor design rather than basic research.[14]

By 1950, the rise of

SLAC using colliding electron-positron beams. Between 1953 and 2003, he was the author of over 115 papers.[5] He retired in 1986.[1]

In retirement, Wattenberg became involved with the American Physical Society's Forum of the History of Physics, as a councillor, secretary-treasurer, and editor of the newsletter. He contributed articles to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about the beginnings of the

atomic age and his work assisting Fermi.[5] He co-edited Fermi's papers with Laura Fermi,[1] and participated in celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Enrico Fermi's birth at the University of Chicago in 2001.[5] During the 1980s he was on the executive committee of the Champaign-Urbana chapter of SANE/Nuclear Freeze. He was also a Democratic Party precinct committeeman. He made frequent appearances on Studs Terkel's radio show, and in NPR's All Things Considered, usually on the occasion of the anniversary of Chicago Pile-1 going critical, or of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[1]

Wattenberg's wife Shirley died in 1989. In 1992, he married Alice Wyers von Neumann,[1] a social worker.[15] He died at Clark-Lindsey Village in Urbana, Illinois, on June 27, 2007. He was survived by his wife Alice, daughters Beth, Jill and Nina, and his brother Lee.[1]

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Albert Wattenberg, 90, Pioneered Nuclear Energy". Vinyard Gazette. July 5, 2007. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  2. ^
    doi:10.1063/1.2883918
    .
  3. ^ "Albert Wattenberg in the 1940 Census". Ancestry.com. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  4. ^ Martindec, Douglas (December 18, 2014). "Lee W. Wattenberg, Who Saw Cancer Fighters in Foods, Dies at 92". The New York Times. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h "Albert Wattenberg". Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  6. ^ Rhodes 1986, pp. 399–400.
  7. ^ Anderson 1975, p. 95.
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4899-6313-0
    .
  9. ISBN 978-1-58729-750-2
    .
  10. ^ Wattenberg 1975, p. 118.
  11. ^ "Atomic Bomb: Decision – Szilard Petition version 1, July 3, 1945". Gene Dannen. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
  12. ^ Infield, Tom (December 2, 1992). "The Chain Reaction In Chicago That Shook The World In The Race To Build The Bomb, The U.s. Had An Advantage. It Had Some Of The Best Minds From Around The World". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 5 December 2015.
  13. OCLC 21318709
    . Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  14. ^ Holl, Hewlett & Harris 1997, p. 87.
  15. The News Gazette
    . Retrieved December 4, 2015.

Bibliography

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Wattenberg&oldid=1217531902"