Biographical Memoirs Volume 65 (1994) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2. Harrison Brown
2. Harrison Brown
Pages 40-55
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 41... ...
Patterson, and George Tilton.
|
From page 42... ...
For his cloctoral studies, Harrison developed mass spectrometric techniques for studying the isotopic composition of cobalt as part of the clevelopment of knowledge concerning relative stabilities of nuclides, and of the more general case of occurrences of nuclear species in solar nebula former! from nuclear reactions in stars.
|
From page 43... ...
After the two atomic fission bombs were exploded and the war with Japan ended, Harrison joined other Manhattan Project scientists in expressing their grave concern about the future, for no matter what strong justifications for their involvement in the bomb project may have been during the war, they felt powerfully committed to do things that would help rectify existing social evils. By December 1945, Harrison had completed a 160-page book, Must Destruction Be Our Destiny?
|
From page 44... ...
During this same period Harrison's outstanding intuitive ability as a scientist became focused on problems in three major fields: estimating relative elemental abundances in the solar system by determining the composition of meteorites; determining the temporal progress of magmatic evolution of the Earth's crust by measuring uranium/lead ages of common igneous rocks; and determining the age of the Earth by measuring the isotopic composition of lead in iron meteorites. He had developed these concepts through earlier doctoral studies in measuring isotopic abundances by mass spectrometric techniques in collaboration with colleagues who worked in fields of neutron activation analyses, in fields of elemental solar abundances coupled either with nuclear stabilities and structures or with the chemical composition of the proto-earth, and in the field of geology.
|
From page 45... ...
These ciata formect part of a larger context Harrison developed of occurrences of elements in solar nebula resulting from nuclear reactions, which helpec! his colleagues Hans Suess and Maria Meyer formulate concepts concerning shell stabilities of the atomic nucleus.
|
From page 46... ...
His student, George TiTton, developed a new isotope dilution mass spectrometric method for determining trace amounts of uranium in micro quantities of igneous rock minerals. To do this TiTton had to track down, evaluate, and eliminate ubiquitous sources of uranium contamination that existed in the laboratory he was using at Argonne National Laboratory, in order to properly utilize the ultra-sensitive IDMS analytical method for uranium he had developed.
|
From page 47... ...
Harrison suggested that it might be possible to extend these concepts to determine the age of formation of the elements themselves by making use of extinct radioactive nuclicies such as iodine 129. He also carried out theoretical studies with his University of Chicago faculty colleagues to propose features of the secondary origin of the Earth's present atmosphere, using differences between relative abundances of noble gases in solar nebula source material at the time of Earth formation and relative abundances of the gases in the present atmosphere.
|
From page 48... ...
He stimulated his geologist postdoctoral student, Leon Silver at the California Institute of Technology, to develop sophisticated knowledge of occurrences and stabilities of uranium and thorium containing micro minerals in rocks (related to development of knowledge concerning magmatic origins of those rocks using lead isotopic tracers) , which Harrison used to promote the recognition of the existence of potentially unending supplies of energy that might become available to society in the future.
|
From page 49... ...
From this experience he wrote his most famous book, a monumental survey of the human prospect entitled The ChaZZenge of Man's Future, published by the Viking Press in 1954 and reprinted in 1984. In this book he contendect that the division of human society into a set of industrialized, relatively prosperous nations containing a minority of the worId's population, and a set of primarily agrarian nations containing an impoverished majority, is not only unsatisfactory from a humane point of view but is fundamentally unstable anc!
|
From page 50... ...
The agenda was soon broadened to inclucle problems of Thircl World development, European security, and certain environmental problems. For example, the International Foundation for Science, which supports research by young Third World scientists in their own countries, is a direct outcome of the Pugv`Tash Conferences.
|
From page 51... ...
NASCO usecl to meet every summer in this Pike family fiefdom and practically lived on Maine lobsters while they were there. George Kistiakowsky, President Eisenhower's science acIvisor, decicled to use the NASCO report as a demonstration of what a presidential science advisor could do in organizing and influencing the federal government.
|
From page 52... ...
Agency for International Development, some fifty workshops and study groups on aspects of science and development in a dozen countries resulted in eclucational, research, and industrial projects as well as in the creation of scientific bodies and institutions. These were described in a book publishect in 1973 by Harrison Brown and Theresa Tellez, International Development Programs of the Office of the Foreign Secretary.
|
From page 53... ...
Brown was a member of IIASA's first executive committee and chairman of its finance committee. Harrison Brown also focused his concerns on the International Council of Scientific Unions, linking academies of science in some sixty countries, plus international scientific unions in seventeen fields.
|
From page 54... ...
However, Harrison became increasingly dissatisfied with the pace of clevelopment of the social sciences at Caltech, anti in 1977 he accepted the appointment as director of the newly created Resource Systems Institute at the East-West Center in Hawaii. There he assemblecl a team of analysts, including energy anct environment specialist Kirk Smith, geologist Richard Sheldon, marine scientist John Bardach, and energy economists Fereiclun Fesharaki and Corazon Si(lciayo.
|
From page 55... ...
~ will conclude this memoir by quoting part of Holdren's final paragraph. "Harrison Brown was a warm and witty man, cheerful, always a twinkle in his eye, and surprisingly modest....
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.