Herbert L. Anderson

Herbert L. Anderson (24 May 1914 in New York City, New York – 16 July, 1988 in Los Alamos, New Mexico) was an American nuclear physicist who contributed to the Manhattan Project. He was also a member of the team which made the first demonstration of nuclear fission in the United States, in the basement of Pupin Hall at Columbia University. He participated in the first atomic bomb test, codenamed Trinity. After the close of World War II, he was a professor of physics at the University of Chicago until 1982. There, he helped Fermi establish the Enrico Fermi Institute and was its director from 1958 to 1962. The latter part of his career was as a senior fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He was a recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award.

Education

Anderson earned three degrees as Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts in 1931, a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1935, and a Ph.D. in 1940. [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

John R. Dunning, professor of physics at Columbia, closely followed the work of Ernest Lawrence on the cyclotron. Dunning wanted a more powerful neutron source and the cyclotron appeared as an attractive tool to achieve this end. During 1935 and 1936, he was able to construct a cyclotron using many salvaged parts to reduce costs and funding from industrial and private donations. The cyclotron design and building project began as Anderson was completing his engineering degree. At the suggestion of Professor Dana Mitchell, Dunning offered Anderson a teaching assistant position if he would also help with the design and building of the cyclotron. While working on his doctorate, Anderson made two major contributions to the project. The first was to design a high frequency filament supply, rather than the commonly used direct current version. This fostered longer filament life in the high magnetic field environment of a cyclotron. The second and more important contribution was the use of a pair of concentric lines to feed the cyclotron dees (cyclotron electrodes in the shape of a “D”), rather than the usual induction system. This refinement resulted in greater cyclotron efficiency and thereafter became a regular feature in cyclotron design. Others assisting Anderson in the construction of the cyclotron were Eugene T. Booth, G. Norris Glasoe, Hugh Glassford, and, of course, professor Dunning. In anticipation of conducting experiments with the cyclotron, Anderson also built an ionization chamber and a linear amplifier in late 1938. [ Broad, William J. "Columbia’s Historic Atom Smasher Is Now Destined for the Junk Heap", "New York Times" [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/nyregion/20atom.html 20 December 2007] . [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/physics/pdf-files/pupincyclotron.pdf PDF] .] [ Herbert L. Anderson " [http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/jdunning.pdf John Ray Dunning 1907 – 1975] " in "Biographical Memoir" 163-186 (National Academy of Sciences, 1989).] [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

In December 1938, the German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sent a manuscript to " Naturwissenschaften" reporting they had detected the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons; [ O. Hahn and F. Strassmann "Über den Nachweis und das Verhalten der bei der Bestrahlung des Urans mittels Neutronen entstehenden Erdalkalimetalle" ("On the detection and characteristics of the alkaline earth metals formed by irradiation of uranium with neutrons"), "Naturwissenschaften" Volume 27, Number 1, 11-15 (1939). The authors were identified as being at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Chemie, Berlin-Dahlem. Received 22 December 1938.] simultaneously, they communicated these results to Lise Meitner. Meitner, and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch, correctly interpreted these results as being nuclear fission. [Lise Meitner and O. R. Frisch "Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction", "Nature", Volume 143, Number 3615, 239-240 [http://www.nature.com/physics/looking-back/meitner/index.html (11 February 1939)] . The paper is dated 16 January 1939. Meitner is identified as being at the Physical Institute, Academy of Sciences, Stockholm. Frisch is identified as being at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Copenhagen. ] Frisch confirmed this experimentally on 13 January 1939. [ O. R. Frisch "Physical Evidence for the Division of Heavy Nuclei under Neutron Bombardment", "Nature", Volume 143, Number 3616, 276-276 [http://dbhs.wvusd.k12.ca.us/webdocs/Chem-History/Frisch-Fission-1939.html (18 February 1939)] . The paper is dated 17 January 1939. [The experiment for this letter to the editor was conducted on 13 January 1939; see Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" 263 and 268 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).] ] In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission. Some historians have documented the history of the discovery of nuclear fission and believe Meitner should have been awarded the Nobel Prize with Hahn. [ Ruth Lewin Sime "From Exceptional Prominence to Prominent Exception: Lise Meitner at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry" [http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/KWG/Ergebnisse/Ergebnisse24.pdf Ergebnisse 24] Forschungsprogramm "Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft im Nationalsozialismus" (2005).] [ Ruth Lewin Sime "Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics" (University of California, 1997).] [ Elisabeth Crawford, Ruth Lewin Sime, and Mark Walker "A Nobel Tale of Postwar Injustice", "Physics Today" Volume 50, Issue 9, 26-32 (1997).]

Even before it was published, Meitner’s and Frisch’s interpretation of the work of Hahn and Strassmann crossed the Atlantic Ocean with Niels Bohr, who was to lecture at Princeton University. Isidor Isaac Rabi and Willis Lamb, two University of Columbia physicists working at Princeton, heard the news and carried it back to Columbia. Rabi said he told Fermi; Fermi gave credit to Lamb. Bohr soon afterwards went from Princeton to Columbia to see Fermi. Not finding Fermi in his office, Bohr went down to the cyclotron area and found Anderson. Bohr grabbed him by the shoulder and said: “Young man, let me explain to you about something new and exciting in physics.” [ Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" 268 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).] It was clear to a number of scientists at Columbia that they should try to detect the energy released in the nuclear fission of uranium from neutron bombardment. On 25 January 1939, Anderson was a member of the experimental team at Columbia University which conducted the first nuclear fission experiment in the United States, [ H. L. Anderson, E. T. Booth, J. R. Dunning, E. Fermi, G. N. Glasoe, and F. G. Slack "The Fission of Uranium", "Phys. Rev." Volume 55, Number 5, 511 - 512 (1939). Institutional citation: Pupin Physics Laboratories, Columbia University, New York, New York. Received 16 February 1939.] which was conducted in the basement of Pupin Hall; the other members of the team were Eugene T. Booth, John R. Dunning, Enrico Fermi, G. Norris Glasoe, and Francis G. Slack. [ Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" 267-270 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).]

Fermi had only arrived at Columbia a short time before this historic demonstration. This bringing together of Fermi and Anderson resulted in a rewarding relationship lasting until the death of Fermi in 1954. Fermi and Anderson conducted a series of experiments at Columbia on the slowing down of neutrons in graphite, absorption and reflection of slow neutrons by numerous relevant materials, fissioning of uranium, and preliminary experiments using a lattice of uranium in graphite. A paper based on Anderson’s Ph.D. thesis, "Resonance Capture of Neutrons by Uranium", [ Herbert L. Anderson "Resonance Capture of Neutrons by Uranium", "Phys. Rev." Volume 80, Issue 4, 499 - 506 (1950). Institutional citation: Columbia University, New York, New York. Received 27 April 1940.] for security reasons, was not published until 10 years later. [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

When, as part of the Manhattan Project, the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) was started up at the University of Chicago, in February 1942, Fermi and Anderson, along with Walter Henry Zinn from Columbia, became leaders in the design and construction of Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1), which achieved the first man-made nuclear chain reaction on 2 December 1942. Thereafter, Anderson led the construction of CP-2 at Argonne National Laboratory in 1943. He was also a key consultant to DuPont in the design and construction of the Hanford reactors, which generated fissionable plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

In 1944, Anderson went to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he participated in using the Omega reactor to determine the critical mass of uranium-235. In preparation for the first nuclear device test on 16 July 1945, which was codenamed Trinity, Anderson, with his radiochemist colleagues, developed a method of determining the nuclear yield by collecting fission products at the detonation site. This technique was later perfected for nuclear yield determinations through the analysis of airborne fission products. [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).] [ Richard Rhodes "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" 652-653, 655, and 677 (Simon and Schuster, 1986).]

After the conclusion of World War II, Fermi and Anderson returned to the University of Chicago. There, they established the Institute for Nuclear Studies (today, the Enrico Fermi Institute). At the University, Anderson was assistant professor of physics 1946 to 1947, associate professor 1947 to 1950, professor 1950 to 1977, and distinguished service professor 1977 to 1982. From 1958 to 1962, Anderson was director of the Enrico Fermi Institute. [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

In addition to Anderson’s work in Italy and Brazil, he was intermittently at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Finally, he returned there in 1978 as a fellow and then a senior fellow until his death from an almost forty-year struggle with berylliosis. His death on 16 July 1988, was on the 42^nd anniversary of the first test of an atomic bomb. [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

Honors and Appointments

Anderson’s distinguished career earned him a number of honors: [ Harold M. Agnew " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences).]

*1955 to 1957 – Appointed a Guggenheim Fellow

*1956 to 1957 – Fulbright Lecturer in Italy

*1960 – Elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences

*1978 – Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

*1982 – Enrico Fermi Award

elected Literature

*H. L. Anderson, E. T. Booth, J. R. Dunning, E. Fermi, G. N. Glasoe, and F. G. Slack "The Fission of Uranium", "Phys. Rev." Volume 55, Number 5, 511 - 512 (1939). Institutional citation: Pupin Physics Laboratories, Columbia University, New York, New York. Received 16 February 1939.

*H. L. Anderson, E. Fermi, and Leo Szilard "Neutron Production and Absorption in Uranium", "Phys. Rev." Volume 56, Issue 3, 284 - 286 (1939). Institutional citation: Columbia University, New York, New York. Received 3 July 1939.

*Harold M. Agnew and Herbert L. Anderson "Double Magnetic Lens Nuclear Spectrometer", "Rev. Sci. Instrum." Volume 20, 869 (1949). Institutional citation: Institute for Nuclear Studies, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

*Herbert L. Anderson "Resonance Capture of Neutrons by Uranium", "Phys. Rev." Volume 80, Issue 4, 499 - 506 (1950). Institutional citation: Columbia University, New York, New York. Received 27 April 1940. When Anderson submitted the paper, based on his doctoral thesis, he was a University Fellow, at Columbia University. For national security reasons, the paper was not published until 10 years later. By then, Anderson was at the Institute for Nuclear Studies, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

Books

*Herbert L. Anderson "AIP 50th Anniversary Physics Vade Mecum" (American Institute of Physics, 1981) ISBN: 0883182890

*Herbert L. Anderson (Editor-in-Chief) "A Physicist's Desk Reference" (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1989) ISBN: 0883186101

*Herbert L. Anderson " [http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/jdunning.pdf John Ray Dunning 1907 – 1975] " in "Biographical Memoir" 163-186 (National Academy of Sciences, 1989).

Bibliography

*Harold M. Agnew [Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory 1970 to 1979] " Biographical Memoirs: [http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/biomems/handerson.html Herbert L. Anderson] " (National Academy of Sciences)

Notes