Robert Fox Bacher
Created and claimed by Palavi Vaidya, PHYS 2212 11/30/15
Personal Life
Robert Fox Bacher, an American nuclear physicist, recruited by J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1942 for the Manhattan Project. He was to serve as the leader of the experimental physics division and bomb physics division. Bacher was born in Loudonville, Ohio and attended University of Michigan for his undergraduate degree and doctorate in physics completing his thesis on the Zeeman effect of the hyperfine structure of atomic levels. He also attended California Insitute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After completing his post-doctorate work in 1932, unfortunately, Bacher was not employed and became interested in nuclear physics. Bacher accepted a faculty position at Columbia University. Only climbing the ladder to full professor from associate professor and soon become the leader at the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. At MIT, Robery Oppenheimer asked him to become the head person for the Experimental Physics Division in Los Alamos. He became the leader of G, or "Gadget" name for the bomb division. He helped design of the implosion, or "Fat Man" bomb.