Luis Walter Alvarez
13 June 1911 – 1 September 1988
Luis Walter Alvarez was an American experimental physicist who worked at the University of California, Berkeley for most of his career. He developed radar systems during the Second World War, took part in the Manhattan Project, and later used the hydrogen bubble chamber to discover a large number of short-lived particle resonances, work for which he received the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics. With his son Walter he proposed that an asteroid impact caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Luis Walter Alvarez.
- Alan Paton (1903–1988) Overlapped 77 years →
- Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002) Overlapped 77 years →
- Bette Davis (1908–1989) Overlapped 77 years →
- Cahit Arf (1910–1997) Overlapped 77 years →
- Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) Overlapped 77 years →
- Dorothy Vaughan (1910–2008) Overlapped 77 years →
Life events
He was the son of the physician and medical writer Walter C. Alvarez.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe had taken his bachelor's and master's degrees at the same university.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe remained associated with the university for the rest of his career.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHis projects included the ground-controlled approach system for landing aircraft in poor visibility.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe devised the detonators used in the implosion design of the plutonium bomb.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe accompanied the mission in an instrument aircraft to measure the blast.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe detectors and their automated film analysis revealed many short-lived particle resonances.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgThe prize recognised his work on elementary particles and hydrogen bubble chamber techniques.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgWith his son Walter and colleagues he reported anomalous iridium in boundary clay layers.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHe died of complications of oesophageal cancer.
Source: en.wikipedia.org