History: W. Zinn, 93, nuclear pioneer, physicist

["Mike Grissom" <mpg1@coastside.net>]

radsafe'rs,

The following was in the 2/26/00 San Jose Mercury
News (no byline-unable to locate a companion
Web site at Argonne National Laboratory):


----------
W. Zinn, 93, nuclear
pioneer, physicist

Walter H. Zinn, a nuclear physicist who oversaw
construction of the world's first nuclear reactor,
pioneered the development of commercial atomic
reactors and was the first director of the Argonne
National Laboratory, died on Feb. 14 at a hospital
in Clearwater, Fla. [Florida, USA] A former
resident of Connecticut, he was 93.

Mr. Zinn's career in nuclear engineering began
in 1939 when Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist,
told American colleagues that he thought that the
uranium atom could be split into roughly equal
halves, with a great release of energy. He based
his belief on experiments by German scientists
the year before.

The experiments were promptly confirmed by
American scientists working at the cyclotron
laboratory at Columbia University. Mr. Zinn
worked there h Leo Szilard on another
experiment that showed the possibility of chain
reaction.

But when the government decided in 1941 to
proceed at full speed with the development of
an atomic bomb, the Columbia laboratory
proved too small for what was given the code
name the Manhattan Project. The project was
moved to a larger laboratory at the University
of Chicago, where Zinn worked in utmost
secrecy as a principal assistant to Enrico Fermi.

Mr. Zinn oversaw the construction of the
project's nuclear reactor, and the team achieved
the first chain reaction in December 1942. He
stayed with the Manhattan Project until 1946,
when the Atomic Energy Commission created
the Argonne center near Chicago [Illinois, USA]
to study and develop nuclear power for peaceful
use. He was director of the laboratory from 1946
to 1956.

----------

S.,

MikeG.

Michael P. Grissom
Email:  mpg1@coastside.net


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html