Henry Winston Newson (November 26, 1909,
Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...
– May 14, 1978,
Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...
)
was an American physical chemist and nuclear physicist, known for his research on
nuclear resonances and as one of the co-inventors of the control system used in
nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
s.
[
]
Biography
His parents were the mathematics professors Henry Byron Newson and Mary Frances Winston Newson
Mary Frances Winston Newson (August 7, 1869 December 5, 1959) was an American mathematician. She became the first female American to receive a PhD in mathematics from a European university, namely the University of Göttingen in Germany.Grinstein ...
. Henry Winston Newson graduated in 1931 with a B.Sc. in chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
and in 1934 with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. His thesis advisor was William Draper Harkins
William Draper Harkins (December 28, 1873 – March 7, 1951) was an American physical chemist, noted for his contributions to surface chemistry and nuclear chemistry. Harkins researched the structure of the atomic nucleus and was the first to p ...
. Henry Newson married Meta F. Thode in 1934. The couple spent two years from 1934 to 1936 at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory
Lawrence may refer to:
Education Colleges and universities
* Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States
* Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States
Preparator ...
. There he worked as a research fellow assisting Ernest O. Lawrence
Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation f ...
in constructing the laboratory's cyclotron. At the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1941 Newson was an instructor, first in chemistry and subsequently in physics.[ The Newson's first daughter, Meta Mary,][ was born in Chicago in August 1941. From 1941 to 1943 Henry Newson was a senior physicist in the University of Chicago's ]Metallurgical Laboratory
The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...
(Met Lab), where in December 1942 the first controlled nuclear chain reaction
In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nu ...
was produced. From 1943 to 1944 he was a section chief at Clinton Laboratories (later renamed Oak Ridge National Laboratory). He was from 1944 to 1945 a technical expert at Hanford Engineering Works and from 1945 to 1946 a group leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...
, during the development of the atomic bomb. From 1946 to 1948 he was a chief physicist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 1948 the Newsons' second daughter, Caroline, was born, and he became a full professor in the physics department of Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
.
Newson chaired Duke University's physics department from 1973 to 1975. He was a professor of physics at Duke University and TUNL's director until his death in 1978. His successor as TUNL's director was his former doctoral student, Edward Bilpuch[ (1927–2012). Newson's doctoral students include John H. Gibbons and Myron L. Good.][
Newson was elected in 1960 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 ...
. Upon his death the Newson family established the Henry W. Newson Lecture Series Fund at Duke University.[ The university established a Henry Newson Professorship of Physics (currently held by Haiyan Gao).] Henry Newson was survived by his widow, two daughters, and six grandchildren.[
]
Selected publications
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newson, Henry Winston
1909 births
1978 deaths
20th-century American physicists
American nuclear physicists
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
University of Chicago alumni
Duke University faculty
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Hanford Site people
Los Alamos National Laboratory personnel
Manhattan Project people
Oak Ridge National Laboratory people
People from Lawrence, Kansas