William Shurcliff

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William Asahel Shurcliff (March 27, 1909 – June 20, 2006) was an American physicist.

Biography

Shurcliff was the son of landscape architect

American Cyanamid Company
.

Atomic bomb

In 1942 he joined the staff of the

atomic bomb. Shurcliff's role was specifically to be a censor of patents: he would review patent applications from the private sector which appeared to impinge on topics being developed in secret by the government, and put them under temporary secrecy orders. As he put it, his job was to "locate, examine, and make secret all non-gov’t-controlled U.S. patent applications related to S-1 (the atomic bomb)." Through October 1944, he "put to sleep" (as he put it) at least 131 patent applications from 95 separate inventors.[1]

He later served as an assistant to

Richard Tolman, another physicist working on the Manhattan Project, helping to copyedit the Smyth Report, the first official history of the Manhattan Project. In 1946, he serve as the official historian to Operation Crossroads
, the first postwar nuclear test series.

In the late 1940s, he worked for Polaroid Corporation, where "he worked extensively in optics, held more than 20 patents and refined the automatic-focus slide projector."[2]

Polarized light

In 1962

Mueller matrices with great clarity."[3] The bibliography was later republished in an anthology.[4]

Opposition to supersonic passenger planes

He "went on to play an outspoken role in defeating plans for a supersonic passenger plane in the 1960s, while working as a senior research associate at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator. He co-founded the Citizens' League Against the Sonic Boom, and was a member of the advisory committee to the Anti-Concorde Project.[5] "Shurcliff, as much as anyone in the United States, deserves credit for making it politically impossible to fly SST's over populated areas."[6]

Passive solar building design

In the 1970s and 1980s, he became an advocate for passive solar building design and superinsulation.[7]

Defense

He opposed the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Bibliography

  • 1947: Bombs at Bikini: the official report of Operation Crossroads, W. H. Wise via Biodiversity Heritage Library
  • 1955: "Haidinger's Brushes and Circularly Polarized Light", Journal of the Optical Society of America 45(5):399.
  • 1962: Polarized Light: Production and Use via Internet Archive
  • 1964: (with Stanley S. Ballard) Polarized Light, Van Nostrand Momentum Book (for the Commission on College Physics)
  • 1970: SST and Sonic Boom Handbook, Ballantine Books.
  • 1978: Solar Heated Buildings of North America: 120 Outstanding Examples, Brick House Publishing.
  • 1979: New Inventions in Low Cost Solar Heating: 100 Daring Schemes Tried and Untried, Brick House Publishing.
  • 1980: Thermal Shutters and Shades: Over 100 Schemes for Reducing Heat-Loss Through Windows, Brick House Publishing.
  • 1981: Super Insulated Houses and Double Envelope Houses: A Survey of Principles and Practice, Brick House Publishing.
  • 1983: Super Solar Houses: Saunder's 100% Solar, Low-Cost Designs, with Norman Saunders, Brick House Publishing.

References

  1. ^ Alex Wellerstein, "Patenting the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Intellectual Property, and Technological Control" _Isis_ 99 (2008): 57–87.
  2. Washington Post
    .
  3. ISSN 0002-9505
    .
  4. ISBN 0-470-83997-X
  5. ^ Wald, Matthew L. (June 28, 2006). "William A. Shurcliff, Who Helped Develop Atomic Bomb, Dies at 97". New York Times.
  6. Frank von Hippel (April 1972) Scientists, Politics and the SST: a Critical Review, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, pages 24 to 30 via Google Books
  7. ISBN 978-0847840052
    .

External links
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