Rudolf Peierls; Nuclear Scientist

Sir Rudolph Peierls, 88, whose work on nuclear fission contributed to the development of the first atomic bomb. In 1940, the German-born Peierls and Austrian-born Otto Frisch were working at the University of Birmingham in central England. The prevailing scientific view was that uranium was the most likely element for an atomic bomb, but that making one was impossible because the amount of fissionable material needed was so enormous. But Peierls and Frisch calculated that a bomb was possible if the isotope uranium-235 could be separated from dominant uranium-238. The “Frisch-Peierls Memorandum” set out their reasoning for the critical size of the bomb and how to obtain pure uranium-235. The first practical blueprint for the atomic bomb, the paper said it was vital to beat wartime Nazi Germany to its development. In 1944, Peierls went as senior resident British scientist to Los Alamos, N.M. to work in the laboratories set up to design and manufacture the bombs dropped on Japan. Hailed as one of the founding fathers of the Nuclear Age, Peierls after World War II became president of the Atomic Scientists’ Assn. that campaigned for international control of nuclear weapons. On Sept. 19 in the university city of Oxford, England.