1. Robert Serber was an American physicist who participated in the Manhattan Project.
21 Facts About Robert Serber
1. 2.
Robert Serber was born in Philadelphia, the eldest son of Rose and David Serber.
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Robert Serber's mother died in 1922 and his father married her cousin Frances Leof in 1928.
4.
Robert Serber married Charlotte Leof, the daughter of his stepmother's uncle, in 1933.
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Shortly before receiving his doctorate, Robert Serber was selected for a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship and planned on conducting research at Princeton University with Eugene Wigner.
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Robert Serber was recruited for the Manhattan Project in 1941, and was in Project Alberta on the dropping of the bomb.
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Consequently, Robert Serber was tasked with delivering a series of lectures to explain the basic principles and objectives of the project.
8.
Robert Serber developed the first good theory of bomb assembly hydrodynamics.
9.
Since Robert Serber was the only crew member who knew how to operate the high-speed camera, Hopkins had to be instructed by radio from Tinian on its use.
10.
Robert Serber was with the first American team to enter Hiroshima and Nagasaki to assess the results of the atomic bombing of the two cities.
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In 1948, Robert Serber had to defend himself against anonymous accusations of disloyalty, mostly because his wife Charlotte's family were Jewish intellectuals with socialist leanings, and because he tried to remove politics from discussions of the feasibility of the fusion bomb, leading to arguments with Edward Teller.
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Robert Serber served as chair of the department from 1975 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1978.
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At Columbia, Robert Serber served as doctoral advisor to future Nobelist Leon Cooper.
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Robert Serber collaborated with Abraham Pais on meson studies and developed the Serber-Dancoff method, a refined technique for analyzing strong coupling.
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Robert Serber then entered a relationship with Kitty Oppenheimer, who had been widowed in February 1967.
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Robert Serber talked him into buying a 52-foot yawl, which they sailed from New York to Grenada.
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Robert Serber adopted her son Zachariah, and they had another son, William, in November 1980.
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Robert Serber served as president of the American Physical Society in 1971.
19.
Robert Serber appears in the Oscar-nominated documentary The Day After Trinity.
20.
Robert Serber died June 1,1997, at his home in Manhattan from complications of surgery for brain cancer.
21.
Robert Serber was portrayed by Michael Angarano in Christopher Nolan's 2023 film Oppenheimer.