Science & invention
Seth Neddermeyer
1907–1988 · physicist
Co-discoverer of the muon and champion of the implosion design for the atomic bomb, born in Richmond, Michigan, in northern Macomb County.
- Born
Richmond, Michigan- Died
Seattle, Washington
aged 80- Birth name
- Seth Henry Neddermeyer
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Neddermeyer was born in 1907 in Richmond, a small town in northern Macomb County at the edge of the Detroit area. He spent two years at Olivet College in Michigan, which his mother, sister and uncle had attended, before his family moved to California, and he finished his studies at Stanford and Caltech. Working with Carl Anderson at Caltech, he discovered the muon in cosmic rays in 1936, the first of many particles that did not fit the physics of the day. At Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project he pressed the idea of compressing a plutonium core with an inward-directed explosion; the implosion design was adopted for the Trinity test and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. After the war he taught at the University of Washington in Seattle for the rest of his career.
Highlights
- Discovered the muon with Carl Anderson, 1936
- Early advocate of the implosion method at Los Alamos
- Enrico Fermi Award, 1982
- Born in Richmond, Macomb County, Michigan, 1907