Richard Garwin | |
|---|---|
 Garwin in 2011 | |
| Born | Richard Lawrence Garwin (1928-04-19)April 19, 1928 |
| Died | May 13, 2025(2025-05-13) (aged 97) Scarsdale, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3, includingLaura |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | An experimental investigation of the beta-gamma angular correlation in beta decay (1949) |
| Doctoral advisor | Enrico Fermi |
| Doctoral students | Myriam Sarachik |
Richard Lawrence Garwin (April 19, 1928 – May 13, 2025) was an American physicist and government advisor, best known as the author of the firsthydrogen bomb design.[1][2][3]
In 1978, Garwin was elected a member of theNational Academy of Engineering for contributing to the application of the latest scientific discoveries to innovative practical engineering applications contributing to national security and economic growth. In 2015 he received thePresidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to science, technology and security.
Garwin was born to a Jewish family inCleveland on April 19, 1928.[4][5] He received hisbachelor's degree from theCase Institute of Technology in 1947, and two years later hisDoctor of Philosophy, at the age of 21, from theUniversity of Chicago under the supervision ofEnrico Fermi. Another of Fermi's students,Marvin L. Goldberger, claims that Fermi said that "Garwin was the only true genius he had ever met".[1]
After graduating from the University of Chicago, Garwin joined the physics faculty there and spent summers as a consultant toLos Alamos National Laboratory working onnuclear weapons. Garwin was the author of the actual design used in the firsthydrogen bomb (code-namedMike) in 1952.[2] He was assigned the job byEdward Teller, with the instructions that he was to make it as conservative a design as possible in order to prove the concept was feasible.[6] He also worked on the development of the firstspy satellites, for which he was named one of the ten founders of national reconnaissance.[7] While at IBM, his work on spin-echo magnetic resonance laid the foundations forMRI;[8] he was the catalyst for the discovery and publication of theCooley–Tukey FFT algorithm, today a staple of digital signal processing; he worked ongravitational waves; and played a crucial role in the development oflaser printers and touch-screen monitors.[8] He was granted 47 patents and published over 500 papers.[9]
In December 1952, he joined IBM's Watson laboratory, where he worked continuously until his retirement in 1993. He was until his deathIBM FellowEmeritus at theThomas J. Watson Research Center inYorktown Heights, New York. During his career Garwin divided his time betweenapplied research,basic science, and consulting to theU.S. Government onnational-security matters. Parallel to his appointment at IBM, at different periods he held an adjunct professorship in physics atColumbia University; an appointment as theAndrew D. White Professor-at-Large atCornell University; and a professorship in public policy, and in physics, atHarvard University.[10][11] He was also thePhilip D. Reed Senior Fellow at theCouncil on Foreign Relations in New York, NY.[12]
Garwin served on theU.S. President's Science Advisory Committee from 1962–65 and 1969–72, underPresidents Kennedy,Johnson, andNixon.[11] He was a member of theJASON Defense Advisory Group from 1966. As a member of the Institute for Defense Analyses' Jason Division of U.S. university scientists. on Sat. February 3, 1968, Garwin “traveled to Vietnam” withHenry Way Kendall and several other scientists “to check on the operation of the electronic barrier”[further explanation needed] he and other Jason scientists developed for the Pentagon to utilize in Indochina, according to The Jasons byAnn Finkbeiner. And, in the 1960s, "Jason scientist Richard Garwin, a nuclear physicist who, years before, helped design the Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb, held a seminar on the SADEYE cluster bomb and other munitions that would be most effective when accompanying the sensors" of the electronic barrier in Vietnam, according to page 205 ofAnnie Jacobsen's book, "The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top Secret Military Research Agency," thatLittle Brown & Company, NY published in 2015. During the 1980s and 1990s he advocated anti-ballistic missile concepts such as thebed of nails defense,[13] a plan that was never implemented.
From 1993 to August 2001, he chaired the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board of theU.S. Department of State. From 1966 to 1969 he served on theDefense Science Board. He also served on theCommission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States in 1998. He was until his death a member of theNational Academies'Committee on International Security and Arms Control and served on 27 other National Academies committees.[14]
In 2017, science journalist Joel N. Shurkin published a biography of Garwin,True Genius: The Life and Work of Richard Garwin, in which Shurkin writes about "the most influential scientist you never heard of."[15][16]
In 1947, Garwin married Lois Levy (died 2018), and they had three children, one of whom is musician and journalistLaura Garwin.[4] He died at his home inScarsdale, New York, on May 13, 2025, at the age of 97.[4]
Garwin received theNational Medal of Science, the United States' highest honor for the fields of science and engineering (award year 2002), for "his research and discoveries in physics and related fields, and of his longstanding service to the Nation by providing valuable scientific advice on important questions of national security over a half a century."[17] He also received the equivalent, LaGrande Médaille de l'Académie des Sciences, from France for his role in discoveringparity violation inpion decay. He is among a select few scientists to have been elected to all threeU.S. National Academies: theNational Academy of Sciences (elected 1966),[18] theNational Academy of Medicine (1975), and theNational Academy of Engineering (1978). He was also a member of both theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969) and theAmerican Philosophical Society (1979).[19][20] In 2016, PresidentBarack Obama honored Garwin with aPresidential Medal of Freedom.[21] Garwin also received 1988AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility and the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement in 1997.[22]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
| Current programs |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Facilities & commands |
| |
| Technology & Science | ||
| Satellite lines & projects |
| |
| People | ||
| History | ||
| Past programs |
| |
| Founders | ||
