 | This article includes alist of references,related reading, orexternal links,but its sources remain unclear because it lacksinline citations. Please helpimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(March 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Charles Lauritsen | |
|---|---|
 Lauritsen's Los Alamos badge | |
| Born | Charles Christian Lauritsen April 4, 1892 Holstebro, Denmark |
| Died | 13 April 1968 (1968-04-14) (aged 76) |
| Alma mater | Odense Tekniske Skole Caltech(PhD, 1929) |
| Known for | X-ray therapy Nuclear physics Pumpkin bomb Quartz fiber dosimeter Millikan–Lauritsen plots |
| Children | PhysicistThomas Lauritsen |
| Awards | Medal for Merit(1948) Captain Robert Dexter Conrad Award(1958) Tom W. Bonner Prize(1967) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics Nuclear Physics |
| Institutions | Caltech |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert A. Millikan |
| Doctoral students | H. Richard Crane William A. Fowler |
Charles Christian Lauritsen (April 4, 1892 – April 13, 1968) was a Danish-Americanphysicist.[1]
 | This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. Find sources: "Charles Lauritsen" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Lauritsen was born inHolstebro, Denmark and studiedarchitecture at the Odense Tekniske Skole, graduating in 1911. In 1916 he emigrated to theUnited States with his wife Sigrid Henriksen and son Tommy, first to Florida, where the family lived for a time on a houseboat, and later to Boston, where he worked as a draftsman during theGreat War and was a witness to theBoston Molasses Disaster.[2] By 1921, he was working inPalo Alto on radio for communicating between ship and shore. He became interested in the design ofradio receivers, and for a few months in 1922 was in business with two partners building radios. By 1923, he had moved toSt. Louis where he was chief engineer at the Kennedy Corporation, a producer of consumer radio receivers.
In 1926, Lauritsen attended a public lecture byRobert Millikan who, in casual conversation afterwards, invited him to visitCaltech. Lauritsen and his family soon moved toPasadena where he talked his way into graduate study in physics. In 1929, he received hisPh.D., and, in 1930, he joined the physics department faculty. He spent the remainder of his academic career as professor of physics at this institution, finally retiring in 1962.
In 1928, he and Ralph D. Bennett developedX-ray tubes of exceptionally high voltage. These tubes were then used for radiation therapy ofcancer patients in the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, built as a treatment clinic in 1931. Sigrid Lauritsen, who was one of the first female graduates of theUniversity of Southern California medical school, worked in the clinic as a radiologist.
In 1932, he converted one of his X-ray tubes into an accelerator of protons and helium ions and began to study nuclear reactions. In 1934, Lauritsen and H. Richard Crane used a sample of recently discovereddeuterium, obtained from G.N. Lewis at Berkeley, to generateneutrons with which they made the first accelerator-produced artificial radioactivity. He later measured the radiation produced when apositron and anelectron annihilate each other. One of his most significant discoveries was to show that protons could be captured by acarbonnucleus, releasinggamma rays. This radiative capture process was applied to the study of the nuclear processes at the heart of astar, and the production of the heavier elements. In 1939, the laboratory ceased to do medical therapy and concentrated on nuclear physics. (Lauritsen was director of the laboratory from its inception until he retired in 1962.)
In 1937, he invented a radiation detector called the Lauritsen electroscope, widely used asquartz fiber radiation dosimeters.
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved. Find sources: "Charles Lauritsen" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In 1940, more than a year before the U.S. enteredWorld War II, Lauritsen began work on weapons and weapons design. His initial work was on the design and development of the proximity fuze, but for most of the war he ran a large program at Caltech that developed and manufactured a variety of rocket weapons, mostly for the Navy. In this connection he helped found the Naval Ordnance Test Station (now The Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division, China Lake, with a laboratory bearing his name) atInyokern, California. In the last months of the war, he helped in the American efforts to design and build anatomic bomb, including development of the "pumpkin bomb", a high explosive copy of theFat Man bomb.
He continued his weapons work in the years following the war, and much of his work was classified. Among the projects in which he participated wereProject Hartwell,Project Charles, Project Michael, andProject Vista. During theKorean War he was at the front lines just after theInchon landings observing and evaluating American weaponry for the Defense Department. He served as an adviser to the U.S. government and as a member of many committees and other groups.
After a lengthy struggle with cancer, he died on April 13, 1968, aged 76.[where?]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
