WHO WAS LUIS ALVAREZ

WHO WAS LUIS ALVAREZ

Luis walter Alvarez was born on july 13,1911 at san Franciso ,California U.S. He was professor ,physicist and researcher. He completed M.S  Physics at University of  Chicago. He worked as Professor  from 1945 at University of California. He invented a landing system for aircraft and RADAR for locating planes during the time of world war II. Alvarez’s son was a geologist. One day in 1977 he and son was discussing about the problem called K-T boundary , a grey colored clay on rocks. It was found all over the world at same age everywhere (65 million years) and then found that dinosaurs fossils only found below the layer of the grey clay. After further experiments on this they published their proof in 1980 that the mass extinction of dinosaurs has caused by massive meteorite impact.

THE HYDROGEN BUBBLE CHAMBER.

               One day in 1953 Alvarez was talking with a Physicist. He was Donald Glaser. Glaser told about his new invention “THE BUBBLE CHAMBER”. This experiment is about tracking subatomic particles. Glaser Explained that he used ether to fill the chamber. Glaser also won Nobel Prize for this Experiment.But alvarez thought that bubble chamber filled with liquid hydrgen would be perfect way of tracking those particles coming out of an particle accelerator. He found this idea by knowing that liquid hydrogen will boil when a high enegry particle is passed through it .which will leave a trail whose path would allow the particle’s properties to calculated.

At 1956 he started to work on this experiment with a large chamber along with his team. At 1968 he and his crew won Nobel prize for Physics

                                

                                   Image of tracks left by sub atomic particles passing through the bubble chamber

Awards:

·        Fellow of the American Physical Society (1939) and President (1969) 

·        Collier Trophy of the National Aeronautics Association (1946)

·        Member of the National Academy of Science

·        Fellow of the American Philosophical Society (1953)

·        California Scientist of the Year (1960)

·        Albert Einstein Award (1961)

·        National Medal of Science (1963)

·        Michelson Award (1965)

·        Nobel Prize in Physics (1968)

·        University of Chicago Alumni Medal (1978)

·        National Inventors Hall of Fame (1978)

·        Enrico Fermi award of the US Department of Energy (1987)

·        IEEE Honorary Membership (1988)

·        The Boy Scouts of America named their Cub Scout SUPERNOVA award for Alvarez (2012)

 

Death:

               Alvarez died on September 1, 1988, due to complications from a succession of recent operations for esophageal cancer. The American Journal of Physics Referred his as "Luis Alvarez was one of the most brilliant and productive experimental physicists of the twentieth century.