Inventions / Communications Change, Modern U.S. History: Luis Alvarez

Inventions / Communications Change, Modern U.S. History Word Document

Similar content addressed in SOLs: VS.1a-i; USII.1a-h; USII7.d, USII8a-b

  • Luis AlvarezDr. Luis Alvarez, whose family was of Spanish descent, was a noted physicist in the 20th century. Among many projects, he worked on identifying subatomic particles, creating of the atomic bomb, and studying the impact of asteroids on the earth. He won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics.
  • Letter, Franklin D. Roosevelt to J. Robert Oppenheimer thanking the physicist and his colleagues for their ongoing secret atomic research, 29 June 1943. (J. Robert Oppenheimer Papers)Dr. Alvarez worked with Dr. Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the group of scientists who created the atomic bomb during World War II.
  • Dinosaur exhibit at the Field Museum, with the tail of the dinosaur at the right of the imageWith the aid of his son, Walter, a geologist, Luis correctly showed that asteroids colliding with the earth’s surface were responsible for severe climate changes 65 million years ago. These climate changes had a number of affects on the earth, the foremost of which was the extinction of the dinosaurs.
  • BerkeleyAlvarez spent most of his career at the University of California, Berkeley.
  • U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland. Class in physicsAlvarez was also a Professor of Physics at various universities.