Bertrand Goldschmidt (2 November 1912 – 11 June 2002) was a French chemist. He is considered one of the fathers of the
French atomic bomb, which was tested for the first time in 1960 in the nuclear test
Gerboise Bleue
''Gerboise Bleue'' (; ) was the codename of the first French nuclear test. It was conducted by the Nuclear Experiments Operational Group (GOEN), a unit of the Joint Special Weapons Command on 13 February 1960, at the Saharan Military Experimen ...
.
Biography
Bertrand Goldschmidt was born in Paris on 2 November 1912 to a French mother and a Belgian father of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
origin.
He entered the
Paris school of Industrial Physics and Chemistry in 1932 and was recruited to the
Radium Institute in 1933 by
Marie Curie
Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...
. He obtained his doctorate in 1940.
During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, he served in a military laboratory in
Poitiers
Poitiers (, , , ; Poitevin: ''Poetàe'') is a city on the River Clain in west-central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and the historical centre of Poitou. In 2017 it had a population of 88,291. Its agglomerat ...
and was taken prisoner by the invading Germans. They later released him and he moved into the
unoccupied zone. He taught for a short time in
Montpellier
Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...
, until the post-surrender
Vichy
Vichy (, ; ; oc, Vichèi, link=no, ) is a city in the Allier Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of central France, in the historic province of Bourbonnais.
It is a Spa town, spa and resort town and in World ...
French government changed the status of Jews under pressure from the Germans. He then emigrated to the United States and arrived in New York in May 1941, where he joined the Free French Forces.
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...
later asked Goldschmidt to join him at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
as one of the group of scientists working on the project which would later initiate the world's first man-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in the
Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...
experimental reactor. Despite the decision of the U.S. government to refuse the participation of French scientists, Goldschmidt was permitted to join the group in July 1942. He would be the only French citizen to participate in the Manhattan Project on U.S. soil. He worked in the group of
Glenn Seaborg
Glenn Theodore Seaborg (; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work in ...
, on the development of the
PUREX
PUREX (plutonium uranium reduction extraction) is a chemical method used to purify fuel for nuclear reactors or nuclear weapons. PUREX is the ''de facto'' standard aqueous nuclear reprocessing method for the recovery of uranium and plutonium fr ...
process for separation of plutonium and uranium and was involved in the extraction of the first gram of plutonium produced in Chicago Pile-1.
He later joined the Anglo-Canadian nuclear program (group of Montreal) in Canada where he joined other Frenchmen such as
Hans von Halban
Hans Heinrich von Halban (24 January 1908 – 28 November 1964) was a French physicist, of Austrian-Jewish descent.
Family
He was descended on his father's side from Polish Jews, who left Kraków for Vienna in the 1850s. His grandfather, Heinr ...
,
Jules Gueron
Jules is the French form of the Latin "Julius" (e.g. Jules César, the French name for Julius Caesar). It is the given name of:
People with the name
*Jules Aarons (1921–2008), American space physicist and photographer
*Jules Abadie (1876–195 ...
,
Pierre Auger, and
Lew Kowarski
Lew Kowarski (10 February 1907, Saint Petersburg – 30 July 1979, Geneva) was a naturalized French physicist. He was a lesser-known but important contributor to nuclear science.
Early life
Lew Kowarski was born in Saint Petersburg to Nicholas K ...
who would join the project in 1944. They contributed to the development of Canada's first nuclear reactor, ZEEP diverges in September 1945. He returned to France in 1946 .
Bertrand Goldschmidt is one of the creators of the French
Atomic Energy Commission in 1945. In November 1949, he and his collaborators Pierre Regnault, Jean, and André Sauteron Chesne extracted the first few milligrams of plutonium from the spent fuel from the
Zoé nuclear reactor at Bouchet plant in
Ballancourt-sur-Essonne
Ballancourt-sur-Essonne (, literally ''Ballancourt on Essonne'') is a commune in the Essonne department in Île-de-France in northern France.
Geography
The Essonne forms the commune western border.
Ballancourt-sur-Essonne is 37 kilometers south ...
, an essential step for the production of the French atomic bomb. He would also play a critical role in the establishment of the Israeli nuclear program. Goldschmidt traveled to Israel in 1954 to meet with
Ben Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of ...
about nuclear issues and would serve, between 1956 and 1957, as one of the CEA officials in the negotiations leading to the establishment of the
Dimona
Dimona ( he, דִּימוֹנָה, ar, ديمونا) is an Israeli city in the Negev desert, to the south-east of Beersheba and west of the Dead Sea above the Arava valley in the Southern District of Israel. In its population was . The Shi ...
nuclear facility.
Goldschmidt headed the department of chemistry of the French Atomic Energy Commission until 1960. He is the author of numerous books on the history of the development of nuclear energy. He was the French representative in the Board of Governors of the
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 ...
from 1958 to 1980.
He died on 11 June 2002 in Paris.
See also
*
Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan, (; ur, ; 1 April 1936 – 10 October 2021), known as A. Q. Khan, was a Pakistani nuclear physicist and metallurgical engineer. He was a key figure in Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and is colloquially known as the ...
*
Deng Jiaxian
Deng Jiaxian (; June 25, 1924 – July 29, 1986) was a Chinese nuclear physicist and academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He was a leading organizer and key contributor to the Chinese nuclear weapon programs.
Biography
Deng was b ...
*
Homi J. Bhabha
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist, founding director, and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Colloquially known as "Father of Indian nuclear pro ...
*
Igor Kurchatov
Igor Vasil'evich Kurchatov (russian: Игорь Васильевич Курчатов; 12 January 1903 – 7 February 1960), was a Soviet physicist who played a central role in organizing and directing the former Soviet program of nuclear weapo ...
*
J. Robert Oppenheimer
J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...
*
William Penney, Baron Penney
William George Penney, Baron Penney, (24 June 19093 March 1991) was an English mathematician and professor of mathematical physics at the Imperial College London and later the rector of Imperial College London. He had a leading role in the de ...
Bibliography
*Notices d'autorité : Système universitaire de documentation • Bibliothèque nationale de France • Fichier d'autorité international virtuel • Bibliothèque du *Congrès • Gemeinsame Normdatei • WorldCat
*Conclusion sur bikini, Atomes n o 9, December 1946
*La purification de l'uranium, Atomes n o 15, February 1949
*L'aventure atomique, Fayard, 1962
*Le cycle de l'uranium, Atomes n o 85, April 1953 (Spécial Le centre atomique de Saclay)
*Les rivalités atomiques 1939-1966, Fayard, 1967
*Le Complexe atomique : Histoire politique de l'énergie nucléaire, Fayard, 1980
*Les premiers milligrammes de plutonium, La Recherche no 131, March 1982
*Pionniers de l'atome, Stock, 1987
*Goldschmidt, Bertrand (1990). ''Atomic Rivals''. Rutgers University Press. .
*Cohen, Avner. "The Avner Cohen Collection." Bertrand Goldschmidt. Wilson Center, 3 Oct 2013. Web. 5 Nov 2013. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/bertrand-goldschmidt
References
External links
Interview with Bertrand Goldschmidt by Avner Cohen at The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldschmidt, Bertrand
1912 births
2002 deaths
20th-century French chemists
Nuclear history of France
Scientists from Paris