Leo Szilard

Leo Szilard (February 11th, 1898 - May 30th 1964) was a Hungarian physicist who contributed greatly to the development of the atomic bomb and several other smaller accomplishments. He was a student of some of the great physicists of history such as Albert Einstein and Max Planck. He fled Central Europe to London and then to the United States to escape persecution by the Nazi Party in power in Germany.

Biography

Szilard was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary which is now simply just Hungary. He decided to become an engineer like his father and went to a university in Budapest. Shortly after going to school there he decided to join the army and fight in World War 1. He never saw front line action because of a sickness. After moving around for a while and switching majors he ended up studying physics at the University of Berlin. He worked extensively in thermodynamics and the earned his PhD in 1922.

He worked with Max von Laue as a research assistant for a few years. During this time he also worked with Albert Einstein on types of refrigeration that was safer than the current types that were being used that used toxic gases. In 1927 he became a professor at the University of Berlin and published a paper based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics. After leaving Berlin in 1934 he worked in London on finding a way to produce the chain reactions that would eventually lead to discoveries related to atomic energy and weapons.

In 1938 he left London to come to the United States. He got a job as a teacher at Columbia University in New York. He along with Albert Einstein were concerned about the development of the nuclear fission by German scientists. He wrote a confidential letter to President Roosevelt regarding his concerns. He worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago. Like most people involved in the development of the Atomic Bomb he worked most of the rest of his life to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

Refrigeration

After a refrigeration leak killed an entire family in Berlin Szilard and Einstein worked to find a refrigeration system that did not use mechanical compression or toxic gas. They worked to develop the Einstein-Szilard Electromagnetic pump. The key part of the pump was that it did not have any working parts. The way the pump worked was running a current through a electric coil which moves liquid metal in the system. The system never saw mass use as Freon, a nontoxic refrigerant, was developed in the mid 1930s.

Manhattan Project

Szilard worked with Italian physicist Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago to make the worlds first self sustaining chain reaction. This reaction was the first nuclear reactor. He and Fermi together together hold the patent for the reactor. He did not agree with the way that the military was leading the development of the bomb. Once he realized that the plan was to drop the bomb on Japan he campaigned in the scientific community against its use. He said it needed to have more scientific research before it was used.

External links

[https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201011/physicshistory.cfm [1] [2]

References

Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2015. "Leo Szilard (1898 - 1964)." Leo Szilard. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2015. "This Month in Physics History." This Month in Physics History. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2015.