Biographical Memoirs Volume 46 (1975) / Chapter Skim
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8. Charles Christian Lauritsen
8. Charles Christian Lauritsen
Pages 220-239
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From page 221... ...
He graduated in architecture from the Odense Tekniske Skole in 1911 and emigrated in 1917 to find his fortune in America. After various undertakings, from designing naval craft in Boston to professional fishing off the Florida coast, he went to Palo Alto in 1921 to work on ship-to-shore radio for Federal Telegraph.
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From page 222... ...
Lauritsen was able to show that the field emission was quite insensitive to temperature and displayed a simple exponential dependence on field strength that agreed very well with a theory developed by Oppenheimer on the basis of quantum-mechanical barrier penetration. In 1929 Lauritsen received his Ph.D.
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From page 223... ...
This idea proved quite interesting to Albert Soiland, a distinguished radiologist in Los Angeles, and after some preliminary experiments with animals, treatment of patients with "super-voltage" x rays began in the old High Voltage Laboratory at the California Institute in October 1930. In the following year, Millikan interested W
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From page 224... ...
The half moving downward were annihilated in the target adjacent to the electroscope and the resulting annihilation radiation discharged the electroscope. When the absorber was not in place, the half moving upward escaped into the atmosphere and were eventually annihilated at some distance from the electroscope—too far, in fact, to affect the discharge rate.
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From page 225... ...
I was one of the first of his students. He taught us everything from how to run a lathe to how to design and build electroscopes, ion sources, cloud chambers, magnetic spectrometers, electrostatic analyzers, and high voltage accelerators.
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From page 226... ...
At Oppenheimer's suggestion a calculation showed that the energy increase was entirely due to the coulomb interactions between the protons in these nuclei and that the intrinsic nuclear interactions between pairs of protons and pairs of neutrons were identical, thus establishing the charge symmetry of the nuclear forces. At a later date Lauritsen and his students and collaborators went on to show that the excited states of "mirror" nuclei were identical in energy, except for well-defined effects due to particle emission.
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From page 227... ...
One of Lauritsen's most significant discoveries was that of the capture of protons by carbon with the emission of gamma radiation. This process, called radiative capture, was a matter of considerable theoretical controversy until Niels Bohr introduced the concept of long-lived compound nuclei in connection with the radiative capture of neutrons.
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From page 228... ...
Sloan Laboratory of Mathematics and Physics. On the basis of laboratory observations made with these accelerators and with auxiliary electrostatic analyzers and magnetic spectrometers designed by Lauritsen and of theoretical calculations on stellar structure and evolution, it is possible to predict with considerable accuracy, for example, the flux of neutrinos from the sun at the surface of the earth.
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From page 229... ...
His principal work in the initial stages of this effort lay in organizing the development of proximity fuses and artillery rockets and in promoting the interest of the armed services in the exploitation of scientific research in the war effort. One of the earliest substantive results of this work was the establishment of a group at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism for the development of the proximity fuse under Merle Tuve.
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From page 230... ...
Late in the war, when it became apparent that a continuing development and test facility would be needed by the armed services, he persuaded the navy to establish the Naval Ordnance Test Station at Inyokern, California. He took an active part in the planning of this facility and supported its work over the years, both informally and as a member of its Advisory Board.
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From page 231... ...
Starting in 1950, Lauritsen took an active part In a number of major scientific study projects, carried out at the request of the armed services. Among these were Project Hartwell, 1950; Project Charles, 1950-1951; Project Michael, 1951; Project Vista, 1951-1952; and the Lincoln Ad Hoc Study Group for Continental Defense, 1951-1953.
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From page 232... ...
Charles Christian Lauritsen was an eminent research scientist and teacher. More than one hundred graduate students have received their doctoral degrees in the laboratory he founded, many under his direct supervision.
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From page 233... ...
Rev., 33:598. Electron emission from metals in intense electric fields.
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From page 234... ...
Further experiments with artificially produced radioactive substances.
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From page 235... ...
Gamma rays from boron bombarded with protons.
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Short range alpha-particles from fluorine bombarded with protons.
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From page 237... ...
Lauritsen. Gamma radiation from excited states of light nuclei.
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From page 238... ...
Angular distribution of gamma rays and short range alpha particles from Ni5 (p, a y)
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From page 239... ...
Angular correlation of alpha particles from decay of Lie.
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