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Luis Water Alvarez was a Nobel Prize winning physicist who developed radar systems, witnessed atomic explosions, and explained the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Alvarez was born on June 13, 1911 in San Francisco, California to a mother of Irish descent and a father of Spanish and Cuban heritage. He attended the city's Polytechnic High School until his father, a university researcher and practicing physician, accepted a position at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. When Luis developed an interest in physics, his father hired a tutor to provide instruction on weekends. In 1928, Alvarez enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he planned to major in chemistry. During his junior year, he tired of his coursework and renewed his interest in physics. After changing his major, he earned three degrees, including a Ph.D. in physics in 1936. As a graduate student, Alvarez studied under Arthur H. Compton, a Princeton-educated scientist who won the Nobel Prize in 1927 for his studies of electromagnetic radiation. Upon the completion of his studies, Alvarez married Geraldine Smithwick and joined the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.
During his time at Berkeley, Alvarez earned the nickname "prize wild idea man". First, he discovered how some atomic nuclei absorb first-orbital electrons in a process called K-electron capture. Next, he developed a mercury vapor lamp whose wavelength was later adopted as a measure of length by the U.S. Bureau of Standards. Additional research resulted in the production of a beam of slow-moving electrons whose magnetic moment could be determined. As World War II engulfed Europe, Alvarez discovered tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, and moved cross-country to work for the U.S. military at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Alvarez developed radar systems that American forces could use to land planes, locate targets, and identify enemy aircraft in stormy skies.
In 1943, Alvarez joined the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico and helped develop the detonator for the first atomic bomb. After observing the blast at the Trinity test site, Alvarez flew aboard the B-29 that followed the Enola Gay on its mission to Hiroshima. Although he had twice witnessed the Bomb's destructive potential, Alvarez remained one of the few American scientists who supported the continued development of atomic weapons. After the war, Alvarez returned to Berkeley to teach physics and research particle acceleration. Soon, the 40-ft. proton accelerator that was completed in 1947 was outpaced by a 184-in. synchrocyclotron that could achieve even greater velocities. During the 1950s, Alvarez specialized in particle detection and developed bubble chambers that could detect particles during their passage through a container of superheated fluid. Although neither particle accelerators nor bubble chambers were new, Alvarez's pioneering methods led to the discovery of dozens of new elementary particles. In 1968, the "prize wild idea man" won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
A holder of 22 patents, Alvarez broadened his research during the final phase of his career, inventing a system for color television and an indoor golf machine for President Eisenhower. He also worked for the Warren Commission, using physics to explain the movement of President Kennedy's head during his assassination in Dallas in 1963. In 1968, Alvarez led a team of archaeologists to the Middle East, aiming a beam of high-energy particles at the pyramids of Giza in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the hidden chambers of an Egyptian king. In 1980, Alvarez helped his son Walter, a professor of geology at Berkeley, to date a band of sedimentary rock that contained large amounts of iridium. Working together, the duo posited that the rare metal came from an asteroid that struck the earth some 65 million years ago. The resulting cloud of smoke and dust eradicated the planet's plant life and, in turn, its dinosaurs. Although scientists still debate this theory of extinction, science still mourns the loss Luis Alvarez. After a long bout with cancer, a disease that may have been caused by his years of research, Alvarez died on September 1, 1988 at Berkeley, California. He was 77 years old.
Resources:
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1968/alvar ez-bio.html
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1927/compt on-bio.html
http://www.gale.com/free_resources/chh/bio/alvarez _l.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/boalv a.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/luis-alvarez
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