Larned B. Asprey

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Larned B. Asprey
Larry and Marge Asprey with their family, celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary in 2004
Born(1919-03-19)March 19, 1919
Sioux City, Iowa
DiedMarch 6, 2005(2005-03-06) (aged 85)
Mesilla Park, New Mexico
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Known for
rare-earth and fluorine
chemistry
Awards
  • Glenn T. Seaborg Actinide Separations Award (1986)
Scientific career
Institutions
Thesis Equilibria in the oxide systems of praseodymium and americium  (1949)
Doctoral advisorBurris B. Cunningham

Larned (Larry) Brown Asprey (March 19, 1919 – March 6, 2005) was an American

rare-earth, and fluorine chemistry, and for his contributions to nuclear chemistry on the Manhattan Project and later at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.[1]

Biography

Asprey was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on March 19, 1919, the son of Gladys Brown Asprey and Peter Asprey Jr. He had an older sister and a younger brother: mathematician and computer scientist Winifred Asprey, founder of Vassar College's computer science department,[2] and military historian and writer Robert B. Asprey.[3]

Asprey received a

U.S. Army in 1941, and posted to Fort Warren, Wyoming. He applied for and was accepted into the Army Specialized Training Program, which allowed soldiers to continue their education for a time, and went to Ohio State University to continue his chemistry studies. In January 1944, he was assigned to the Manhattan Project's Special Engineer Detachment,[4] with the rank of technician third grade.[5]

Asprey was posted to the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) at the University of Chicago, where he joined the effort under Glenn T. Seaborg to devise techniques to separate and purify plutonium. There, with Herbert H. Anderson, he developed the PUREX process (Plutonium–URanium EXtraction); their patent "Solvent Extraction Process for Plutonium" was filed in 1947.[6] He was among the atomic-bomb scientists who signed the Szilárd petition in July 1945 to ask U.S. President Harry S. Truman to exercise extreme care in any decision to use the atomic bomb in the war.[7]

In 1945, Asprey and

Glenn Seaborg on November 11, 1945, on the radio show Quiz Kids. Elements 95 and 96, originally called "pandemonium" and "delirium", were eventually named americium and curium by analogy with the chemically related elements europium and gadolinium. Asprey's later discovery, with S. E. Stephanou and Robert A. Penneman at Los Alamos, of the hexapositive, fluoride-soluble oxidation state of americium was one of the keys to the subsequent discovery of element 97, berkelium, at Berkeley, California, in 1949.[8]

While working in Chicago, he met his future wife Margaret (Marge) Williams, who also worked at the Metallurgical Laboratory.[9] They were married at her parents' house in Chicago on May 3, 1944; the Catholic Church did not permit them to marry in a Church, because he was an atheist.[10] They eventually had seven children: Peter Larned, twins Elizabeth (Betty) and Barbara (Barb), Robert Russell (Bobby), Margaret Susan (Peggy), Thomas Arthur (Tom), and William John (Bill).[11] Marge had seven sisters (including one who died in early childhood), and brother Grant R. Williams who died as a Navy test pilot.

Asprey was discharged from the Army in February 1946. He decided to enter the

Walter H. Zinn Award in 2005,[15] shortly after his death on March 6, 2005, in Mesilla Park, New Mexico.[6]

Notes

  1. ^ "Dr. Larned "Larry" Brown Asprey". Obituaries. Albuquerque Journal. March 11, 2005. Retrieved March 21, 2016.
  2. ^ "Winifred "Tim" Asprey, computer pioneer and longtime professor at Vassar College, dies at 90". Vassar Office of College Relations. Retrieved March 21, 2016.
  3. ^ "New College Receives Gift from Estate of Robert B. Asprey". New College of Florida. June 15, 2009. Archived from the original on May 28, 2010.
  4. ^ Asprey 2014, pp. 105–106.
  5. ^ Asprey 2014, p. 111.
  6. ^
    ISSN 1936-3109. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on February 1, 2014.
  7. ^ Dannen, Gene. "A Petition to the President of the United States". dannen.com. Retrieved March 21, 2016.
  8. ISBN 978-1-86094-087-3
    .
  9. ^ Asprey 2014, pp. 101–105.
  10. ^ Asprey 2014, pp. 110, 349.
  11. ^ Asprey 2014, pp. 114, 133, 139, 154, 156.
  12. ^ Asprey 2014, p. 120.
  13. ^ "Equilibria in the oxide systems of praseodymium and americium". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved March 21, 2016.
  14. ^ "The Glenn T. Seaborg Actinide Separations Award" (PDF). 30th Actinide Separations Conference. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. p. 8. Retrieved December 13, 2009.
  15. ^ "Walter H. Zinn Award recipients". Honors and Awards, Recipients. American Nuclear Society. Retrieved February 14, 2011.

References

  • Asprey, Margaret Williams (2014). A True Nuclear Family. Bloomington, Indiana: Trafford.
    OCLC 870564799
    .
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