Pupin Hall

Infobox_nrhp | name =Pupin Physics Laboratory,
Columbia University
nrhp_type =nhl

---

caption =Pupin Hall
location= New York, NY
lat_degrees = 40 | lat_minutes = 48 | lat_seconds = 36.23 | lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 73 | long_minutes = 57 | long_seconds = 41.52 | long_direction = W
area =
built =1939
architect= Unknown
architecture= No Style Listed
designated= December 21, 1965 cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=396&ResourceType=Building
title=Pupin Physics Laboratory, Columbia University|date=2007-09-11|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added = October 15, 1966cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
governing_body = Private
refnum=66000550

Pupin Hall is the home of the physics and astronomy departments at Columbia University in New York City. It has been named a National Historic Landmark for its association with experiments relating to the splitting of the atom, achieved in connection with the later Manhattan Project, the attempt to construct the first atomic bomb.

By 1931, the building which would later become Pupin Hall was a leading research center. During this time Harold Urey (Nobel laureate in Chemistry) discovered deuterium and George Pegram was investigating the phenomena associated with the newly discovered neutron. In 1938, Enrico Fermi escaped fascist Italy after winning the Nobel prize for his work on induced radioactivity. In fact, he took his wife and children with him to Stockholm and immediately emigrated to New York. Shortly after arriving he began working at Columbia. His work on nuclear fission, together with I. I. Rabi's work on atomic and molecular physics, ushered in a golden era of fundamental research at the university. One of the country's first cyclotrons was built in the basement of Pupin Hall, where parts of it still remain. The building's historic significance was secured with the first splitting of a uranium atom in the United States, which was achieved by Enrico Fermi in Pupin Hall on January 25, 1939, just 10 days after the world's first such successful experiment, carried out in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Pupin Hall is named after Michael I. Pupin, a Serbian-American scientist and graduate of Columbia. Returning to the university's engineering school as a faculty member, he played a key role in establishing the department of electrical engineering. Pupin was also a brilliant inventor, developing methods for rapid x-ray photography and the "Pupin coil," a device for increasing the range of long-distance telephones. After his death in 1935, the university trustees named the newly constructed physics building the "Pupin Physics Laboratories" in his honor.

The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.cite web|url=PDFlink|http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/66000550.pdf "Pupin Physics Laboratories, Columbia University", March 1978, by Cecil McKithan] |386 KiB |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination|date=1983|publisher=National Park Service] cite web|url=PDFlink|http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/66000550.pdf Pupin Physics Laboratories, Columbia University--Accompanying photos, 1 exterior and 2 interior showing the cylclotron, from 1975.] |164 KiB |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination|date=1983|publisher=National Park Service]

ee also

*Columbia University
*Columbia University Physics Department
*Michael I. Pupin
*I.I. Rabi
*Enrico Fermi
*National Historic Landmarks

References

External links

* [http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail2.cfm?ResourceId=396&Date=2004&Ownership=Private&priorityname=Satisfactory&ResourceType=Building National Historic Landmarks database]