45 Facts About George Kistiakowsky

George Kistiakowsky made his way to Germany, where he earned his PhD in physical chemistry under the supervision of Max Bodenstein at the University of Berlin.

George Kistiakowsky emigrated to the United States in 1926, where he joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1930, and became a citizen in 1933.

George Kistiakowsky was involved in research into the hydrodynamic theory of explosions, and the development of shaped charges.

George Kistiakowsky was placed in charge of X Division, which was responsible for the development of the explosive lenses necessary for an implosion-type nuclear weapon.

From 1962 to 1965, George Kistiakowsky chaired the National Academy of Sciences's Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, and was its vice president from 1965 to 1973.

George Kistiakowsky severed his connections with the government in protest against the war in Vietnam, and became active in an antiwar organization, the Council for a Livable World, becoming its chairman in 1977.

George Kistiakowsky's grandfather Aleksandr Fedorovych Kistiakovsky was a professor of law and an attorney of the Russian Empire who specialized in criminal law.

George Kistiakowsky's father Bogdan Kistiakovsky was a professor of legal philosophy at the University of Kyiv, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1919.

George Kistiakowsky's mother was Maria Berendshtam, and he had a brother, Alexander who became an ornithologist.

George Kistiakowsky attended private schools in Kyiv and Moscow until the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917.

In 1926, George Kistiakowsky traveled to the United States as an International Education Board fellow.

Hugh Stott Taylor, another student of Bodenstein, accepted Bodenstein's assessment of George Kistiakowsky, and gave him a place at Princeton University.

That year, George Kistiakowsky married a Swedish Lutheran woman, Hildegard Moebius.

In 1930, George Kistiakowsky joined the faculty of Harvard University, an affiliation that continued throughout his career.

George Kistiakowsky became increasingly involved in consulting for the government and industry.

George Kistiakowsky became an associate professor again, this time at Harvard in 1933.

George Kistiakowsky was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences the following year.

George Kistiakowsky appointed Kistiakowsky to head its Section A-1, which was concerned with explosives.

Bush became Chairman of the OSRD, Conant succeeded him as Chairman of the NDRC, and Kistiakowsky became head of Section B In a reorganization in December 1942, Division B was broken up, and he became head of Division 8, which was responsible for explosives and propellants, remaining in this position until February 1944.

George Kistiakowsky was unhappy with the state of American knowledge of explosives and propellants.

Conant established the Explosives Research Laboratory near the laboratories of the Bureau of Mines in Bruceton, Pennsylvania in October 1940, and George Kistiakowsky initially supervised its activities, making occasional visits; but Conant did not formally appoint him as its Technical Director until the spring of 1941.

George Kistiakowsky visited England in 1941 and again in 1942, where he met with British experts, including William Penney and Geoffrey Taylor.

George Kistiakowsky realized that the deviations from hydrodynamic theory were the result of the speed of the chemical reactions themselves.

George Kistiakowsky's name was immediately suggested, and he was brought into the project as a consultant in October 1943.

George Kistiakowsky was initially reluctant to come, "partly because", he later explained, "I didn't think the bomb would be ready in time and I was interested in helping to win the war".

George Kistiakowsky introduced techniques such as photography and X-rays to study the behavior of shaped charges.

George Kistiakowsky brought with him to Los Alamos a detailed knowledge of all the studies into shaped charges, of explosives like Composition B, and of the procedures used at the ERL in 1942 and 1943.

Increasingly, the ERL itself would be drawn into the implosion effort; its deputy director Duncan MacDougall took charge of the Manhattan Project's Project Q Kistiakowsky replaced Neddermeyer as head of E Division in February 1944.

In March 1945, George Kistiakowsky became part of the Cowpuncher Committee, so-called because it rode herd on the implosion effort.

On July 16,1945, George Kistiakowsky watched as the first device was detonated in the Trinity test.

George Kistiakowsky divorced Hildegard in 1942 and married Irma E Shuler in 1945.

In 1957, during the Eisenhower Administration, Kistiakowsky was appointed to the President's Science Advisory Committee, and succeeded James R Killian as chairman in 1959.

George Kistiakowsky directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1959 to 1961, when he was succeeded by Jerome B Wiesner.

In 1958, George Kistiakowsky suggested to President Eisenhower that inspection of foreign military facilities was not sufficient to control their nuclear weapons.

George Kistiakowsky cited the difficulty in monitoring missile submarines, and proposed that the arms control strategy focus on disarmament rather than inspections.

Between his work for the Manhattan Project and his White House service, and again after he left the White House, George Kistiakowsky was a professor of physical chemistry at Harvard.

George Kistiakowsky retired from Harvard as professor emeritus in 1972.

From 1962 to 1965, George Kistiakowsky chaired the National Academy of Science's Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, and was its vice president from 1965 to 1973.

George Kistiakowsky received several awards over the years, including the Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service in 1957.

George Kistiakowsky was awarded the Medal for Merit by President Truman, the Medal of Freedom by President Eisenhower in 1961, and the National Medal of Science by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

George Kistiakowsky was a recipient the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award for public service from the American Chemical Society in 1961, Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society in 1972, and the Franklin Medal from Harvard.

In later years, George Kistiakowsky was active in an antiwar organization, the Council for a Livable World.

George Kistiakowsky severed his connections with the government in protest against the US involvement in the Vietnam War.

George Kistiakowsky died of cancer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 17,1982.

George Kistiakowsky's body was cremated, and his ashes scattered near his summer home on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.