David Henry Frisch (March 12, 1918 – May 23, 1991) was an American
physicist who helped develop the
atom bomb in
World War II and later became active in the
disarmament movement. He was also the husband of
Rose Epstein Frisch.
Biography
Born in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, Frisch grew up in
San Antonio and graduated from
Princeton in 1940. He was a
graduate assistant at the
University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1940 to 1942, and then worked at
Los Alamos from 1943 to 1945. After the war he moved to
MIT, beginning as a research associate in 1946, obtained his PhD in 1947 and was appointed an assistant professor in 1948, associate professor in 1952 and full professor in 1958. He retired in 1988.
Frisch was a fellow of the
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
and of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the recipient of
Fulbright
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
,
Guggenheim,
Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. ( ; May 23, 1875February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. Sloan, first as a senior executive and lat ...
and National Science Foundation research fellowships.
Frisch served on the Physics Advisory Committee of the
National Science Foundation, on the
Brookhaven High Energy Advisory Committee, and was chairman of the Long-Range Planning committee of the
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Frisch was active in the field of nuclear disarmament, participating in the
Moscow Pugwash Conference in 1960, editing the book ''Arms Reduction'' in 1961, and participating in the 1962 Woods Hole Summer Study on Inspection.
Among his scientific publications was a 1963 paper in which he and
James H. Smith succeeded in showing objective
time dilation in the decay of cosmic
muons. A thirty-five-minute movie describing this experiment performed both on the top of
Mount Washington
Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River.
The mountain is notorious for its erratic weather. On the afternoon of April 12, 1934, ...
in
New Hampshire as well as at
MIT is available online.
He was married to biologist
Rose Frisch.
Selected publications
*D.H. Frisch and J.H. Smith, Am. J. Phys., 31, 342-355 (1963).
References
External links
2015 Video Interview with Henry Frisch, son of David FrischVoices of the Manhattan Project
20th-century American physicists
1918 births
1991 deaths
Manhattan Project people
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