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Lot 93
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L. Alvarez, Nobel Prize Winner, to Groves on Nuclear Physics - Fantastic Scientific Content
L. Alvarez, Nobel Prize Winner, to Groves on Nuclear Physics - Fantastic Scientific Content
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Description:

Groves Leslie



L. Alvarez, Nobel Prize Winner, to Groves on Nuclear Physics - Fantastic Scientific Content

 

“These machines all played an important role in expanding the frontiers in nuclear physics.”

 

Typed Letter Signed, to Leslie R. Groves Jr., May 27, 1959, Berkeley, CA. 1 p., 8.5" x 11". Very good.

 

Excerpts

“You are quite right in your recollections of my postwar plans for a long proton linear accelerator. You are also correct in remember that it was abandoned when the theory of phase stability (due to Ed McMillan) was beautifully demonstrated at the 37-inch cyclotron, and a year later at the 184-inch cyclotron. These successes led to the plans for and the eventual construction of the Bevatron. There seems little doubt that circular, magnetic machines are much superior to linear machines, when it comes to accelerating ‘heavy particles’ like protons.”

 

“It is a pleasure to recall the foresight you had immediately after the war, when you authorized ‘full steam ahead’ on the 184-inch cyclotron, the 300 Mev synchrotron, and the 32 million volt linear accelerator. These machines all played an important role in expanding the frontiers in nuclear physics.”

 

Historical Background

In the years immediately following World War II, the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley became a center of research for nuclear physics. In this letter, physicist Alvarez thanks General Groves for his support in building several particle accelerators at the Radiation Lab that aided many developments in nuclear physics, including a 184-inch cyclotron, capable of rocketing atomic particles to energies in excess of 100 million electron volts (MeV), completed in 1946; the first 300 MeV synchrotron, brought online in 1949; and Alvarez’s own 32 MeV proton linear accelerator, invented in 1948.

 

 

Luis W. Alvarez (1911-1988) was born in San Francisco and received a doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1936. He began his career as an experimental physicist at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley. During World War II, he developed improvements in radar for military use and worked on nuclear reactors for Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago. While Alvarez was at Chicago, General Leslie Groves tasked Alvarez with developing a method of determining whether the Germans were operating any nuclear reactors. Alvarez suggested an airplane with a system that could detect radioactive gases that a reactor produces. The experiment detected no such gases because the Germans had not developed a reactor capable of a chain reaction. In the spring of 1944, Alvarez joined J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, New Mexico, to work on the Manhattan Project. Alvarez developed a detonator for the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki. After the war, he improved particle accelerators in tandem with other scientists and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for the discovery of many new resonant states through his techniques.

 

Leslie R. Groves Jr. (1896-1970) was a United States Army General with the Corps of Engineers who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb during World War II. Born in New York to a Protestant pastor who became an army chaplain, Groves graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1918 in a course shortened because of World War I. He entered the Corps of Engineers and gained promotions to major by 1940. In 1941, he was charged with overseeing the construction of the Pentagon, the largest office building in the world, with more than five million square feet. Disappointed that he had not received a combat assignment, Groves instead took charge of the Manhattan Project, designed to develop an atomic bomb. He continued nominally to supervise the Pentagon project to avoid suspicion, gained promotion to brigadier general, and began his work in September 1942. The project headquarters was initially in the War Department building in Washington, but in August 1943, moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer selected the site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for a laboratory, and Groves pushed successfully for Oppenheimer to be placed in charge. Groves was in charge of obtaining critical uranium ores internationally and collecting military intelligence on Axis atomic research. Promoted to major general in March 1944, Groves received the Distinguished Service Medal for his work on the Manhattan Project after the war. In 1947, Groves became chief of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. He received a promotion to lieutenant general in January 1948, just days before meeting with Army Chief of Staff Dwight D. Eisenhower, who reviewed a long list of complaints against Groves. Assured that he would not become Chief of Engineers, Groves retired in February 1948. From 1948 to 1961, he was a vice president of Sperry Rand, an equipment and electronics firm. After retirement, he served as president of the West Point alumni association and wrote a book on the Manhattan Project, published in 1962.


Ex. Leslie Groves Family, Christies Auction.

 

 

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