May 30, 1964 – Death of Leó Szilárd, the man of great ideas in nuclear physics, engineering and molecular biology

He studied engineering, physics and molecular biology between Hungary, Germany and the United States and met great scientists such as Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Walther Nernst, James Franck and Max von Laue.

He carried out numerous investigations, many of which were not highly valued but which served as the basis for others to win the Nobel Prize, such as Ernest Lawrence for the cyclotron in 1939 and Ernst Ruska for the electron microscope in 1986.

On September 12, 1933, he conceived the idea of a nuclear chain reaction, using newly discovered neutrons.

In early 1934, Szilard began working at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London alongside a hospital staff physicist, Thomas A. Chalmers, where he studied radioactive isotopes for medical purposes.

He participated in the Manhattan Project, contributed great ideas, researched with Enrico Fermio and many other scientists and was present on December 2, 1942, when the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was achieved in the first nuclear reactor under the Stagg viewpoints. Field, the Chicago Pile-1.

In 1943, he became a naturalized US citizen, but the war continued and his resentment towards the US government increased due to its failed attempt to prevent the use of the atomic bomb in war. This led him to return to research in biology and the social sciences that he had left in 1933. In 1946, he obtained a research professorship at the University of Chicago and partnered with Aaron Novick, a chemist who had worked in the Metallurgical Laboratory for war. Both patented various gadgets and made great discoveries.

If you want more information about this scientist, click on the following link: Leó Szilárd