September 1, 1988 – Death of Luis Walter Álvarez, director of the construction of the first proton linear particle accelerator

Experimento de Luis Walter Alvarez
Experiment by Luis Walter Alvarez

Luis Walter Álvarez (1911-1988) was an American physicist of Spanish origin who served as a professor at the University of Berkeley, worked for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and in the metallurgy laboratory within the Manhattan Project at Los Álamos National Laboratory.

He invented a radar system for aircraft landing without visibility, directed the construction of the first proton linear particle accelerator, and invented the liquid hydrogen bubble chamber, with which he identified many resonance states of already known particles. It is for the latter that he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.

Throughout his professional career, he was interested in various physical topics such as cosmic rays, nuclear physics, and others not so closely related to his profession, such as paleontology.

If you want to know more about this scientist, click on the following link: Luis Walter Álvarez

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