Pomona College (BA) University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known for
Succeeded J. Robert Oppenheimer as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Awards
Legion of Merit (1945) Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service (1966) Enrico Fermi Award (1970)
Scientific career
Fields
Physics
Institutions
Stanford University University of California Los Alamos National Laboratory
Thesis
Studies on the mobility of gaseous ions (1932)
Doctoral advisor
Leonard B. Loeb
Signature
Norris Edwin Bradbury (May 30, 1909 – August 20, 1997), was an American physicist who served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25 years from 1945 to 1970. He succeeded Robert Oppenheimer, who personally chose Bradbury for the position of director after working closely with him on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Bradbury was in charge of the final assembly of "the Gadget", detonated in July 1945 for the Trinity test.
Bradbury took charge at Los Alamos at a difficult time. Staff were leaving in droves, living conditions were poor and there was a possibility that the laboratory would close. He managed to persuade enough staff to stay and got the University of California to renew the contract to manage the laboratory. He pushed continued development of nuclear weapons, transforming them from laboratory devices to production models. Numerous improvements made them safer, more reliable and easier to store and handle, and made more efficient use of scarce fissionable materiel.
In the 1950s Bradbury oversaw the development of thermonuclear weapons, although a falling-out with Edward Teller over the priority given to their development led to the creation of a rival nuclear weapons laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. In later years, he branched out, constructing the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility to develop the laboratory's role in nuclear science, and during the Space Race of the 1960s, the laboratory developed the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA). The Bradbury Science Museum is named in his honor.
Norris Edwin Bradbury (May 30, 1909 – August 20, 1997), was an American physicist who served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25...
director, serving from 1943 to December 1945, when he was succeeded by NorrisBradbury. In order to enable scientists to freely discuss their work while preserving...
and was named for the Laboratory's second director (1945–1970), Norris E. Bradbury. Among the museum's early exhibits, artifacts and documents from World...
implies that Oppenheimer was being hypocritical. Despite an offer from NorrisBradbury, who had replaced Oppenheimer as the director of Los Alamos in November...
former colleagues were shocked. The postwar director of Los Alamos, NorrisBradbury, later said that: Fuchs was a strange man. I knew him, though not well...
" as scientist Alvin C. Graves communicated to Los Alamos director NorrisBradbury. But, Graves continued, because high-yield shots were "dangerous" (as...
employees. He took over at a time of great change. His predecessor, NorrisBradbury, had rebuilt the laboratory from scratch after the war, and many of...
Oppenheimer retired from the directorship, and it was taken over by NorrisBradbury, whose initial mission was to make the previously hand-assembled atomic...
the University of California and Groves appointed NorrisBradbury as an interim replacement; Bradbury remained in the post for the next 25 years. Groves...
December 17, 1945, Henry Newson, in a memo to Los Alamos director NorrisBradbury, had estimated that for Baker, "there will probably be enough plutonium...
the Los Alamos Laboratory, Neddermeyer's group was renamed X-1, with NorrisBradbury as group leader. The implosion method championed by Neddermeyer was...
Los Alamos National Laboratory for four more years and to appoint NorrisBradbury, who had replaced Oppenheimer as its director in October 1945, as a...
worked on the Atlas family of rockets. In 1961, J. Carson Mark and NorrisBradbury offered him a position at Los Alamos, which he held until he retired...
that had not been possible under the pressure of wartime development. NorrisBradbury, who replaced Robert Oppenheimer as director at Los Alamos, felt that...
Oppenheimer resigns as director of Los Alamos, and is succeeded by NorrisBradbury the next day. February: News of the Russian spy ring in Canada exposed...
Fields Physics Institutions University of California, Berkeley Doctoral advisor Robert Andrews Millikan Doctoral students NorrisBradbury Arthur F. Kip...
director at Livermore was its chairman, and its other members were NorrisBradbury from LASL; Edward Teller and Herbert York from Livermore; Abe Silverstein...
bomb. Permission for this was obtained from the laboratory director, NorrisBradbury. The plan was to detonate a "20-kiloton nuclear bomb, comparable to...
director at Livermore was its chairman, and its other members were NorrisBradbury from LASL; Edward Teller and Herbert York from Livermore; Abe Silverstein...
experienced weapons physicists at the Los Alamos Laboratory, led by NorrisBradbury. Wheeler agreed to go to Los Alamos after a conversation with Bohr...
it easiest to get them through Navy channels. Lieutenant Commander NorrisBradbury said that he did not wish to join Project Y, but was soon on his way...
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