Robert Serber
Robert Serber | |
---|---|
) | |
Spouses | |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Nuclear physics |
Institutions | Columbia University |
Doctoral advisor | John Hasbrouck Van Vleck |
Doctoral students | Keith Brueckner Leon Cooper H. Pierre Noyes Donald H. Weingarten Peter A. Wolff[1] |
Robert Serber (March 14, 1909 – June 1, 1997) was an American
Early life and education
He was born in
Shortly before receiving his doctorate, Serber was selected for a
Manhattan Project
He was recruited for the Manhattan Project in 1941, and was in
Serber's wife Charlotte Serber was appointed by Oppenheimer to head the technical library at Los Alamos, where she was the only wartime female section leader.[5]
Serber created the code-names for all three design projects, the "
After receiving an identification card noting that his civilian noncombatant duties were commensurate in profile to the
Post-war work and personal life
Although Oppenheimer sought an appointment for Serber in the Berkeley physics department following the end of the war, this was soon forestalled, possibly because of the
In 1948, Serber had to defend himself against anonymous accusations of disloyalty, mostly because his wife Charlotte's family were Jewish intellectuals with
While he reluctantly signed the loyalty oath stipulated by the
At Columbia, Serber served as doctoral advisor to future Nobelist
After being diagnosed with
Following his retirement, he married Fiona St. Clair, a fabric designer from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1979. He adopted her son Zachariah, and they had another son, William, in November 1980.
He served as president of the American Physical Society in 1971. A year later, Serber was awarded the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize.[10][11]
Serber appears in the Oscar-nominated documentary The Day After Trinity (1980).
Serber died June 1, 1997, at his home in
In popular culture
He was portrayed by Michael Angarano in Christopher Nolan's 2023 film Oppenheimer.
Bibliography
- Serber, Robert; ISBN 978-0-231-10546-0.
- Serber, Robert (1992). The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on how to Build an Atomic Bomb. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-07576-4. Original 1943 "LA-1", declassified in 1965, plus commentary and historical introduction.
- Serber, Robert (1987). Serber Says: About Nuclear Physics. World Scientific. ISBN 978-9971-5-0158-7.
- Robert Serber 1909—1997 A Biographical Memoir by Robert P. Crease, 2008, National Academy of Sciences, Washington.
References
- ^ "Robert Serber". Physics Tree. Archived from the original on 2016-05-28. Retrieved 2020-02-16.
- ^ a b Freeman, Karen, "Robert Serber, 88, Physicist Who Aided Birth of A-Bomb" Archived 2017-08-20 at the Wayback Machine; The New York Times, June 2, 1997
- ^ http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/serber-robert.pdf Archived 2017-04-04 at the Wayback Machine p.4, 7, 9
- ^ http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/serber-robert.pdf Archived 2017-04-04 at the Wayback Machine p.4
- ^ "The bomb and its makers". Archived from the original on 2013-09-15. Retrieved 2013-08-04.
- ISBN 978-0-231-10546-0.
- ^ Bird, Kai and Sherwin, Martin T., "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer", Vintage Books, 2006
- ^ "Michael Waters, The Librarian Who Guarded the Manhattan Project's Secrets". 23 June 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-06-30. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
- ^ "Robert Serber".
- ISBN 9780871963864.
- from the original on 15 September 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
Further reading
- ISBN 978-0-521-54117-6.
External links
- 1994 Audio Interview with Robert Serber by Richard Rhodes Voices of the Manhattan Project
- 1982 Audio Interview with Robert Serber by Martin Sherwin Voices of the Manhattan Project
- Annotated bibliography for Robert Serber from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues Archived 2006-08-28 at the Wayback Machine
- Naming of Fat Man & Thin Man after Churchill, Roosevelt? Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
- Oral History interview transcript with Robert Serber 26 November 1996, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives Archived 13 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- Oral History interview transcript with Robert Serber 10 February 1967, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives Archived 13 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- Eyewitness Account of the Trinity Test