Luis Walter Alvarez

In 1936, the year he got his job at Radiation Laboratory, Alvarez was engaged to Geraldine Smithwick. They had one son Walter and a daughter Jean.

In 1957, the duo got divorced, and the next year on 28th December, this scientist got married to Janet L. Landis. From his second marriage, he had one more son, Donald and a daughter named as Helen.

This pioneering physicist breathed his last after a prolonged battle with cancer on September 1, 1988. After his cremation, his ashes were scattered in the Monterey Bay.

Luis Alvarez, named after his grandfather, was born on 13th June in 1911, in San Francisco, California. His father and grandfather were both physicians, and his grandfather lived a large portion of his life in Spain, Cuba, and in United States.

Alvarez was the second among his siblings and the oldest son of Walter C. Alvarez and Harriet. He had an elder sister named Gladys, a younger sister Bernice and a younger brother Bob.

From a very young age, Luis showed his knack for machines, tools and technology in general. At the age of 11, Luis built his own radio with the help of his father after seeing a magazine article about the process of making a radio.

From 1918 to 24, Luis studied in ‘Madison School’ in San Francisco and ‘San Francisco Polytechnic School’ respectively.

In 1926, his father moved to Rochester, Minnesota as a researcher in ‘Mayo Clinic’ and Luis was admitted to ‘Rochester High School’.

In 1936, Alvarez joined ‘Radiation Laboratory’ in ‘University of California’. It was his sister Gladys who worked as a part-time secretary for Ernest Lawrence, one of the topmost nuclear physicists in the laboratory, who introduced her brother to Lawrence.

Alvarez was supposed to look after the machine, cyclotron which helps in the study of atoms. An enthusiastic Luis himself made quite a few new discoveries about atoms.

In 1938, Alvarez discovered that radioactive elements decay by orbital-electron capture. The next year, he collaborated with Felix Bloch and measured the magnetic moment of the neutron.

During the years 1940-43, Alvarez worked in MIT on microwave radar research. This radar system was built to guide airplanes through darkness or fog, a technique much needed in the onset of World War II.

During the years 1945-46, he participated in one of the top secret projects of the government; the development of atom bomb in ‘Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory’.

The accomplished scientist has played a significant role in the advancement of physics but his contribution in the development of an atom bomb, and the liquid hydrogen bubble chamber which enabled discovery of new resonance states as seen in particle physics, was the most profound. He was even awarded the Nobel Prize for his studies on particle physics.