Joseph Laws McKibben (1912 – 2001) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer as a group leader on the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

. He personally witnessed the Trinity test and flipped the switch that set off the atomic bomb at Trinity. McKibben, motivated by his daughter Karan's paralysed hands due to

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

, also invented the

Air Muscle Pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) are contractile or extensional devices operated by pressurized air filling a pneumatic bladder. In an approximation of human muscles, PAMs are usually grouped in pairs: one agonist and one antagonist. PAMs were ...

in 1957. He was born in 1912 in

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. He died in 2001 in Los Alamos, aged 89.

References

External links

* http://cyberneticzoo.com/bionics/1957-artificial-muscle-joseph-laws-mckibben-american/ * * * https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/06/29/the-sweet-sin-of-the-atomic-city/9c9752cb-324a-45cf-a948-2ab5528f8fee/ * https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/03/us/for-45-scientists-a-revisiting-of-site-of-first-atomic-blast.html * https://www.abqjournal.com/trinity/trinity1.htm * https://naturalphilosophy.org/home/member/?memberid=256&subpage=about * https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/photos/mckibben-joseph-d1 * https://billiongraves.com/grave/Joseph-Laws-McKibben/9720563?referrer=myheritage * https://peoplelegacy.com/joseph_laws_mckibben-271p2. 1912 births 2001 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni 20th-century American physicists American nuclear physicists Manhattan Project people People from Los Alamos, New Mexico University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Particle physicists Scientists from Missouri Fellows of the American Physical Society {{US-physicist-stub