Luis Walter Alvarez

Luis Walter Alvarez
Alvarez with a magnetic monopole detector in 1969
Born	(1911-06-13)June 13, 1911 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	September 1, 1988(1988-09-01) (aged 77) Berkeley, California, U.S.
Education	University of Chicago (BS, MS, PhD)
Known for	Accelerator mass spectrometry, Alvarez hypothesis, AN/CPS-1, Electron capture, Exploding-bridgewire detonator, Ground-controlled approach, Linear particle accelerator, Liquid hydrogen bubble chamber, Muon-catalyzed fusion, Muon tomography, Isolation of helium-3, Isolation of tritium, Measurement of neutron magnetic moment
Spouses	Geraldine Smithwick ​ ​ (m. 1936; div. 1957)​ Janet L. Landis ​ (m. 1958)​
Awards	Collier Trophy (1945) Medal for Merit (1947) John Scott Medal (1953) Albert Einstein Award (1961) National Medal of Science (1963) Pioneer Award (1963) Michelson–Morley Award (1965) Nobel Prize in Physics (1968) Enrico Fermi Award (1987)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Arthur Compton
Signature

Luis Walter Alvarez (June 13, 1911 – September 1, 1988) was an American experimental physicist, inventor, and professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his discovery of resonance states in particle physics using the hydrogen bubble chamber.^[1] In 2007 the American Journal of Physics commented, "Luis Alvarez was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century."^[2]

After receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1936, Alvarez went to work for Ernest Lawrence at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Alvarez devised a set of experiments to observe K-electron capture in radioactive nuclei, predicted by the beta decay theory but never before observed. He produced tritium using the cyclotron and measured its lifetime. In collaboration with Felix Bloch, he measured the magnetic moment of the neutron.

In 1940, Alvarez joined the MIT Radiation Laboratory, where he contributed to a number of World War II radar projects, from early improvements to Identification friend or foe (IFF) radar beacons, now called transponders, to a system known as VIXEN for preventing enemy submarines from realizing that they had been found by the new airborne microwave radars. The radar system for which Alvarez is best known and which has played a major role in aviation, most particularly in the post war Berlin airlift, was Ground Controlled Approach (GCA). Alvarez spent a few months at the University of Chicago working on nuclear reactors for Enrico Fermi before coming to Los Alamos to work for Robert Oppenheimer on the Manhattan project. Alvarez worked on the design of explosive lenses, and the development of exploding-bridgewire detonators. As a member of Project Alberta, he observed the Trinity nuclear test from a B-29 Superfortress, and later the bombing of Hiroshima from the B-29 The Great Artiste.

After the war Alvarez was involved in the design of a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber that allowed his team to take millions of photographs of particle interactions, develop complex computer systems to measure and analyze these interactions, and discover entire families of new particles and resonance states. This work resulted in his being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1968. He was involved in a project to x-ray the Egyptian pyramids to search for unknown chambers. With his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, he developed the Alvarez hypothesis which proposes that the extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs was the result of an asteroid impact.