Robert Fox Bacher was an American nuclear physicist and one of the leaders of the Manhattan Project.
52 Facts About Robert Bacher
2.
In December 1940, Robert Bacher joined the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, although he did not immediately cease his research at Cornell into the neutron cross section of cadmium.
3.
At Los Alamos, Robert Bacher headed the project's P Division, and later its G Division.
4.
Robert Bacher worked closely with Oppenheimer, and the two men discussed the project's progress on a daily basis.
5.
Robert Bacher served on the US Atomic Energy Commission, the civilian agency that replaced the wartime Manhattan Project, and in 1947 he became one of its inaugural commissioners.
6.
Robert Bacher left in 1949 to become head Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at Caltech.
7.
Robert Bacher was appointed a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee in 1958.
8.
Robert Bacher stepped down from the post of provost in 1970, and became a professor emeritus in 1976.
9.
Robert Bacher was born in Loudonville, Ohio, on August 31,1905, the only child of Harry and Byrl Fox Robert Bacher.
10.
Robert Bacher entered the University of Michigan, where he joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity and lived in the frat house.
11.
Robert Bacher became the house manager in his sophomore year, but moved back home in his junior year to concentrate on physics.
12.
Robert Bacher's fees were paid by his family, but his father had a heart attack and could no longer afford them, so in 1927 Bacher moved back to Ann Arbor, where he lived at home, and attended the University of Michigan.
13.
Robert Bacher received a Charles A Coffin Foundation Fellowship from General Electric.
14.
Robert Bacher immediately signed up for Goudsmit's course on atomic structure.
15.
Robert Bacher's mother gave them a Ford Model A and the use of the family's lakeside holiday house, where they entertained guests including Paul Ehrenfest and Enrico Fermi.
16.
Robert Bacher decided to create a work listing the energy, coupling constant, parity and electron configurations of all the known atoms and ions, working with Goudsmit back in Ann Arbor.
17.
Robert Bacher therefore accepted an offer from Hans Bethe to work with him at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
18.
At Cornell Robert Bacher worked with Bethe on his book Nuclear Physics.
19.
In December 1940 Robert Bacher joined the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, but did not immediately cease his research.
20.
Robert Bacher reached an arrangement with its director, Lee Alvin DuBridge, to return to Cornell for four days every three weeks until it was completed.
21.
Robert Bacher was researching the neutron cross section of cadmium, a topic of interest to Enrico Fermi, who was attempting to build a nuclear reactor, but whose figures did not agree with Bacher's.
22.
Robert Bacher carefully checked his results, and Fermi, convinced of their correctness, urged Robert Bacher to publish them.
23.
Robert Bacher submitted a paper to the Physical Review with instructions to withhold publication until after the war, and the paper was not published until 1946.
24.
Robert Bacher felt that this was his first contribution to the success of the project.
25.
Robert Bacher met with Oppenheimer at Los Alamos in April 1943, but was not convinced that he was needed.
26.
Robert Bacher then accepted the job at Los Alamos, moving there in May 1943 with his family to become the head of the Experimental Physics Division.
27.
Robert Bacher worked closely with Oppenheimer, and the two men discussed the project's progress on a daily basis.
28.
Three days before the day the bomb was to be test detonated in the New Mexico desert, Robert Bacher was part of the pit assembly team, which assembled the nuclear capsule in an old farmhouse near the Alamogordo testing site.
29.
Robert Bacher recognized that expansion of the capsule due to the heat given off by the plutonium core was causing the jam, and that leaving the two parts in contact would equalize temperatures and allow the capsule to be inserted fully.
30.
Robert Bacher had already set G Division the task of designing and building new types of cores and assemblies, and he co-authored a report with Robert Wilson urging the development of Edward Teller's Super bomb.
31.
Robert Bacher served on a committee chaired by Richard Tolman that looked into declassifying documents produced by the Manhattan Project, and one chaired by Manson Benedict that investigated the technical feasibility of international control of nuclear energy.
32.
Robert Bacher agreed with Bethe that what Cornell needed to become a major player in high energy nuclear physics was a new synchrotron, but first he needed to find somewhere to put it.
33.
However, in 1946 Robert Bacher was appointed to the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the new United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, along with fellow United States representatives Tolman and Oppenheimer.
34.
Robert Bacher therefore had to divide his time between Ithaca and New York City.
35.
In October 1946 David Lilienthal asked Robert Bacher to become one of the inaugural commissioners of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, the civilian agency that was being formed to replace the wartime Manhattan Project.
36.
Robert Bacher found that only nine atomic bombs had been built in 1946; only four would be in 1947, primarily due to production problems with the reactors at Hanford.
37.
Robert Bacher resigned in May 1949, and this time the President was unable to dissuade him.
38.
Bacher wished to return to academia, but Robert Wilson was now the head of Cornell's Laboratory for Nuclear Studies, and Bacher felt that it would be awkward working for someone who was one of his group leaders at Los Alamos.
39.
Robert Bacher therefore accepted an offer from Lee DuBridge of the chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at Caltech.
40.
Robert Bacher felt obligated to return to Washington to testify on Lilienthal's behalf before the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.
41.
Robert Bacher joined Oppenheimer, Parsons, General Hoyt Vandenberg, the Atomic Energy Commissioners and a British delegation under William Penney to discuss what to do.
42.
Oppenheimer and Robert Bacher saw the evidence of a nuclear test as conclusive, and Robert Bacher in particular came down strongly on the side of making a public announcement, as the number of people who already knew made a leak almost inevitable.
43.
In moving into high energy physics Robert Bacher had the full support not just of DuBridge, but of Anderson and Lauritsen as well.
44.
The physicist that Robert Bacher decided he wanted most, though, was Richard Feynman.
45.
In 1955 Robert Bacher hired Murray Gell-Mann, who would win the Nobel Prize in 1969.
46.
Robert Bacher served two terms as a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee under President Dwight D Eisenhower, from November 18,1953, to June 30,1955, and from December 9,1957, to December 31,1959.
47.
Robert Bacher remained chair of the division of physics, mathematics and astronomy at Caltech until 1962, when he was appointed as vice president and provost.
48.
Robert Bacher stepped down from the post of provost in 1970 at the age of 65, and became a professor emeritus in 1976.
49.
Robert Bacher still did some research at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and visited Caltech from time to time.
50.
Robert Bacher died on November 18,2004, at a retirement home in Montecito, California.
51.
Robert Bacher was survived by his daughter, Martha Bacher Eaton, and son, Andrew Dow Bacher, a nuclear physicist working at Indiana University, his wife Jean having died on May 28,1994.
52.
Robert Bacher's papers are in the California Institute of Technology Archives.