Kenneth Bainbridge

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kenneth Bainbridge

Born July 27, 1904
Cooperstown, New York
Died July 14, 1996
Nationality Flag of the United States United States
Fields Physics
Institutions Harvard
Alma mater Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.A., S.M.)
Princeton University (Ph.D.)
Known for Nuclear mass measurements
Director of the Trinity test

Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge (July 27, 1904 – July 14, 1996) was a physicist at Harvard University who did work on cyclotron research. His precise measurements of mass differences between nuclear isotopes allowed him to confirm Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence concept. He was the Director of the Trinity test of the Manhattan Project, which took place July 16, 1945. Bainbridge called the Trinity explosion a "foul and awesome display" and remarked to J. Robert Oppenheimer immediately after the test, "Now we are all sons of bitches."[1] This marked the beginning of his dedication to ending the testing of nuclear weapons and to efforts to maintain civilian control of future developments in that field.

Contents

[edit] Early career

Kenneth T. Bainbridge was born on July 27, 1904 in Cooperstown, New York. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1922 to 1926, earning B.A. and S.M. degrees in electrical engineering. Upon completing his work at MIT, he enrolled at Princeton University. Over the previous few years, he had developed an interest in physics, and chose to pursue this new interest at Princeton. In 1929, he was awarded a Ph.D. in his new field.

Bainbridge enjoyed a series of prestigious fellowships after graduation, first awarded by the National Research Council, then the Bartol Research Foundation, and finally the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. When his Guggenheim fellowship expired, he accepted an associate professorship at Harvard University and began working on a pair of cyclotrons. Bainbridge's work at Harvard resulted in his recruitment as leader of the MIT radiation laboratory's radar project. He worked with several notable physicists at the laboratory, including Hans Bethe and Robert Bacher. Their next assignment would call for the assembly of an atomic bomb.

In 1932, Bainbridge developed a mass spectrometer with a resolving power of 600 and a relative precision of one part in 10,000.[2] He used this instrument to verify the equivalence of mass and energy, E = mc2.[3]

“ By establishing accurate comparisons of the masses of the light particles concerned in nuclear disintegrations, particularly that of 7Li, discovered by Cockcroft and Walton, he achieved a noteworthy triumph in the experimental proof of the fundamental theory of Einstein of the equivalence of mass and energy. ”

—Francis William Aston, [4]

[edit] Manhattan Project

In May 1943, Bainbridge joined the Project Y staff at Los Alamos. First he led E-9, which was charged with instrumentation development. After the lab reorganization of 1944, he worked under George Kistiakowsky as X-2 leader. In this position, he was in charge of "gadget" engineering and test preparations. On July 16, 1945, Bainbridge and his colleagues detonated an implosion bomb. Bainbridge was relieved that the Trinity test had been a success, relating in a 1975 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article, "I had a feeling of exhilaration that the 'gadget' had gone off properly followed by one of deep relief. I wouldn't have to go to the tower to see what had gone wrong."

[edit] Postwar

Bainbridge returned to Harvard after the war, and initiated the construction of a 96-inch synchro-cyclotron which is still in use today. From 1950-1954, he chaired the physics department at Harvard. During those years, he drew the ire of Senator Joseph McCarthy for his aggressive defense of his colleagues in academia. Throughout the '50s, Bainbridge remained an outspoken proponent of civilian control of atomic energy and the abandonment of nuclear testing. In 1976, Bainbridge retired from Harvard. He died in 1996 at the age of 91.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Trinity Test, July 16, 1945. The Manhattan Project. U.S. Department of Energy. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
  2. ^ Audi, Georges (2006/4/1). "The history of nuclidic masses and of their evaluation". International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 251 (2-3): 85-94. doi:10.1016/j.ijms.2006.01.048. 
  3. ^ Bainbridge, Kenneth T. (July 1933). "The Equivalence of Mass and Energy". Phys. Rev. 44 (2): 123. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.44.123.2. 
  4. ^ Aston, Francis William. Mass Spectra and Isotopes. London: Edward Arnold & Co., 85. 

[edit] External links

This article incorporates text from the webs of the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), sites with content in the public domain.


Persondata
NAME Bainbridge, Kenneth Tompkins
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American physicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Cooperstown, New York
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1996
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages