Luis W. Alvarez Biography

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Luis W. Alvarez (June 13, 1911 – September 1, 1988) was an American experimental physicist and inventor, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968. The American Journal of Physics declared, "Luis Alvarez (1911–1988) was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century."
Luis Walter Alvarez was born in San Francisco, California on my birthday, June 13, 1911. His father, Dr.Walter Clement Alvarez was a physician and his grandfather was Luis F. Alvarez, a doctor that found better method for diagnosing macular leprosy. Alvarez went to the University of Chicago where he received his bachelor's degree, his master's degree, and his PhD. Still in college, he create an apparatus of Geiger counter tubes arranged as a telescope and his teacher, Arthur Compton …show more content…

One of the first projects was to build apparatus to transition from the British long-wave radar to the new microwave centimeter-band radar made by the cavity magnetron.
The National Aeronautic Association's Collier Trophy awarded Alvarez, "for his conspicuous and outstanding initiative in the concept and development of the Ground Control Approach system for safe landing of aircraft under all weather and traffic conditions".
Alvarez spent his summer of 1943 in England testing GCA at the front lines, landing planes returning from battle in bad weather, and also training them how to use the system. In the fall, Alvarez returned to the United States with an offer from Robert Oppenheimer to work at Los Alamos on the Manhattan project. Oppenheimer advise that he should spend a few months at the University of Chicago working with Enrico Fermi before coming to Los Alamos.
As a result of his work and the few months, he spent with Fermi, Alvarez arrived at Los Alamos in the spring of 1944, later than many of his companion. The work on the "Little Boy" was almost complete, so Alvarez became involved in the design of the "Fat

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