José Antonio Balseiro (March 29, 1919 in Córdoba – March 26, 1962 in

Bariloche San Carlos de Bariloche, usually known as Bariloche (), is a city in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, situated in the foothills of the Andes on the southern shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake. It is located within the Nahuel Huapi National Park ...

) was an Argentine physicist. Balseiro studied at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in his home city, before moving to La Plata to study and research, obtaining a doctorate in physics at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. His doctoral dissertation was directed by Dr. Guido Beck, an Austrian physicist who arrived as a refugee in 1943. In 1950 he received a scholarship granted by the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

. Due to the limited funds provided by the scholarship, his wife and daughter remained in Argentina. Balseiro did his post-doctoral research at the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univ ...

, in the group directed by

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and Marxist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at least five of the ...

. His father was Galician and his mother was French. The Argentine government requested that he return to Argentina in 1952, a few months before the expiration of his scholarship, to serve in the scientific review panel of the

Huemul Project The Huemul Project ( es, Proyecto Huemul) was an early 1950s Argentine effort to develop a fusion power device known as the Thermotron. The concept was invented by Austrian scientist Ronald Richter, who claimed to have a design that would produc ...

, a study on nuclear fusion conducted by

Ronald Richter Ronald Richter (1909–1991) was an Austrian-born German, later Argentine citizen, scientist who became infamous in connection with the Argentine Huemul Project and the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). The project was intended to generat ...

. Balseiro's report and those of other members of the panel finally convinced the government that the Huemul Project had no scientific merit. Based on this, and reports from a second review panel (composed of physicists

Richard Gans Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...

and Antonio Rodríguez), the Huemul Project was abandoned. Afterwards, Balseiro remained in Argentina where he was appointed director of the physics department of the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales of the

Universidad de Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires ( es, Universidad de Buenos Aires, UBA) is a public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Established in 1821, it is the premier institution of higher learning in the country and one of the most prestigi ...

in 1952. In 1955, using part of the old installations of the Huemul Project, the

National Atomic Energy Commission The National Atomic Energy Commission ( es, Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica, CNEA) is the Argentine government agency in charge of nuclear energy research and development. The agency was created on May 31, 1950, with the mission of dev ...

created the ''Instituto de Física de Bariloche''. Balseiro played an important role in this decision and served as the first director of the new institution. Upon his untimely death from

leukemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ...

in 1962, the institute was renamed Instituto Balseiro. In 2005 the Instituto Balseiro celebrated 50 years of existence, having grown to become one of the country's leading centers for research in new technology, physics, and nuclear engineering.

References

External links

Biography
(Spanish)

at the Instituto Balseiro (Spanish)
Physics in Latin America
1919 births 1962 deaths People from Córdoba, Argentina Argentine people of Galician descent Argentine people of French descent 20th-century Argentine physicists Argentine nuclear physicists National University of Córdoba alumni Deaths from cancer in Argentina Deaths from leukemia Argentine expatriates in the United Kingdom {{physicist-stub