- Ferdinand Brickwedde
Ferdinand Graft Brickwedde (1903-1989), a physicist at the National Bureau of Standards (now the
National Institute of Standards and Technology ), in 1931 produced the first sample ofhydrogen in which the spectrum of its heavy isotope,deuterium , could be observed. This was a critical step in the discovery of deuterium, for which Brickwedde's collaborator,Harold Urey , was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934.Brickwedde was educated at
The Johns Hopkins University , B.A. 1922, M.A. 1924, and Ph.D. 1925. An [http://www.pha.jhu.edu/events/bw/2005/Ferdinand%20G.%20Brickwedde%20Lecture%20in%20Physics.html| endowed lectureship in his name] is maintained there. In 1925 he joined the National Bureau of Standards as a postdoctoral Mansell Research Associate, was promoted to Chief of its Low Temperature Laboratory in 1926, and became Chief of its Heat and Power Division in 1946.In 1956, Brickwedde was appointed Dean of the College of Chemistry and Physics at the
Pennsylvania State University . He served in this position until 1963, and then was appointed Evan Pugh Research Professor of Physics Emeritus, in which position he served until his death in 1989.External links
* [http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v39/i1/p164_1 "A Hydrogen Isotope of Mass 2," Harold C. Urey, F. G. Brickwedde and G. M. Murphy, The Physical Review, v. 39, pp. 164-165 (1932)]
* [http://nvl.nist.gov/pub/nistpubs/sp958-lide/html/043-045.html Account of the discovery of deuterium]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE3DD173CF932A35757C0A96F948260 Obituary in the New York Times]
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