Norris Bradbury
| Norris Bradbury | |
|---|---|
Norris Bradbury
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| Born |
30 May 1909 Santa Barbara, California |
| Died | 20 August 1997 (aged 88) Los Alamos, New Mexico |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions |
Stanford University University of California Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| Alma mater |
Pomona College BA University of California, Berkeley PhD |
| Thesis | Studies on the mobility of gaseous ions (1932) |
| Doctoral advisor | Leonard B. Loeb |
| Known for | Succeeded J. Robert Oppenheimer as Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory |
| Notable awards |
Legion of Merit (1945) Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service (1966) Enrico Fermi Award (1970) |
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Norris Edwin Bradbury (30 May 1909 – 20 August 1997), was an American physicist who served as Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25 years from 1945 to 1970. He succeeded Robert Oppenheimer, who personally chose Bradbury for the position of director after working closely with him on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Bradbury was in charge of the final assembly of "the Gadget", detonated in July 1945 for the Trinity test.
Bradbury took charge at Los Alamos at a difficult time. Staff were leaving in droves, living conditions were poor and there was a possibility that the laboratory would close. He managed to persuade enough staff to stay, and got the University of California to renew the contract to manage the laboratory. He pushed continued development of nuclear weapons, transforming them from laboratory devices to production models. Numerous improvements made them safer, more reliable and easier to store and handle, and made more efficient use of scarce fissionable materiel.
In the 1950s Bradbury oversaw the development of thermonuclear weapons, although a falling out with Edward Teller over the priority given to their development led to the creation of a rival nuclear weapons laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. In later years, he branched out, constructing the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility to develop the laboratory's role in nuclear science, and during the Space Race of the 1960s, the laboratory developed the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA). The Bradbury Science Museum is named in his honor.
Norris Bradbury was born in Santa Barbara, California, on 30 May 1909, one of four children of Edwin Pearly and his wife Elvira née Clausen. One sister died as an infant, and the family adopted twins Bobby and Betty, both of whom served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. Bradbury was educated at Hollywood High School and Chaffey High School in Ontario, California, graduating at the age of 16. He then attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, from which he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in chemistry in 1929. This earned him membership of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. At Pomona, he met Lois Platt, an English Literature major who was the sister of his college room mate. They were married in 1933, and had three sons, James, John, and David.
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