LUIS WALTER ÁLVAREZ: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS, AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Luis Walter Álvarez (1911-1988) was an American experimental physicist of Spanish origin who developed his knowledge in various fields of science. He participated in the Manhattan Project, responsible for the creation of the 1945 bombs dropped on Japan that marked the end of World War II.

His most important professional recognition was when he won the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contribution to the bubble chamber for the detection of subatomic particles. He was also members of various internationally renowned scientific academies.

Walter Alvarez. Via Wikimedia Commons

He worked on projects as diverse as the investigation into the assassination of the president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, the analysis of the secret chambers of the pyramids of Egypt and the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Biography

Luis Walter Álvarez was born on June 13, 1911 in San Francisco, United States. His parents were Walter Clement and Harriet Smyth.

He belonged to a family of prominent scientists and researchers. His paternal grandfather Luis F. Álvarez came to the United States from Asturias, Spain and was known for his method for diagnosing macular leprosy.

Along with his father, Walter Clement developed a very good reputation as a physician, book writer, and experimental scientist. In fact, a psychogenic syndrome of a neurotic nature was named after him.

Studies and early research

Contrary to what could be expected, Luis Walter Álvarez did not choose medicine like his father and grandfather. In 1928 he began studying Physics at the University of Chicago, from which he graduated in 1932.

At that time he worked in the laboratory of the Nobel Prize in Physics Arthur Compton (1892-1962) helping him in his studies on cosmic rays, without knowing that this knowledge would be of great help to him forty years later in another important investigation.

Luis Walter Álvarez and Arthur Compton Via Wikimedia Commons

After studying for a master's degree in 1934 and a doctorate in 1936, he moved to the radiation laboratory at the University of California where he continued to carry out his experiments.

From the beginning of his career Álvarez produced innovations. In 1937 he created a device to directly observe the process of capturing K electrons, linked to nuclear physics. In 1939, together with his colleague Félix Bloch (1905-1983), he made the first measurement of the magnetic state of the neutron.

The following year he began working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he designed a radar system so that civilian and military pilots could land in conditions of little or no visibility.

In 1943 he worked in the Metallurgy Laboratory of the University of Chicago and, that same year, he was called to be part of the team responsible for the nuclear bombs that ended World War II.

The Manhattan Project

In 1943 he was invited to secretly participate in the Manhattan Project, contributing to the elaboration of the detonation mechanisms for the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima and the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

Álvarez was present during the launch of both devices, aboard a plane that was traveling a few kilometers behind the bombers.

At that time, Álvarez's work consisted of scientific observation, measuring the force of the shock wave to calculate the energy released.

Repentance

On the day of the launch of one of the bombs, it is not known with certainty which of them, Álvarez wrote a letter to his four-year-old son, Walter Álvarez, in which he expressed his regret for the deaths caused by the detonations:

Contributions and projects

Times of peace

At the end of World War II, he began teaching full-time classes in experimental physics at the University of California, where later in 1978 he would be appointed Professor Emeritus.

From 1946 to 1947 he worked on the creation of the first proton linear particle accelerator and would no longer use his knowledge for the development of weapons of war.

The bubble chamber

In 1953 he met the scientist Donald Glasser (1926-2013) who by then had invented a bubble chamber that used ether at a very low temperature in order to track invisible subatomic particles.

In 1956 Álvarez made an important contribution to the bubble chamber by substituting liquid hydrogen for ether, which brought an even lower temperature to the experiment.

Alvarez's modification allowed the discovery of a new collection of subatomic particles that revealed fundamental information about the composition of the atom.

The bubble chamber earned Glasser the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960, and eight years later Álvarez's contribution was also recognized by winning his own Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968.

Investigating Kennedy

One of Luis Walter Álvarez's curious contributions to the world was his participation in the investigation of the assassination of United States President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, which occurred in 1963.

The scientist analyzed the images of the attack and contributed his point of view on the exact moment in which the shots were fired, among other aspects of the case.

Knowing the inside of the pyramids

In 1967, Álvarez became interested in discovering the possible existence of secret chambers in the pyramid of Khafre in Egypt. Until then, only the one found in the pyramids of Seneferu and Cheops were known.

The scientist ruled out the use of X-rays due to the thickness of the walls and instead used cosmic rays, a technique he had studied decades earlier with scientist Arthur Compton.

Although he did not find the secret chambers he was looking for, his research allowed archaeologists to know much more about the volume of these ancient works.

The Álvarez Hypothesis

His last research was carried out in 1981 in the company of his son the geologist Walter Álvarez and the chemists Frank Asaro and Helen Michel. This team proposed that the fall of an asteroid or meteorite was the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Usually this event was described as an event that occurred gradually attributed to climatic changes, but the "Alvarez Hypothesis" as the proposal was baptized, came to question any other theory.

The scientists took samples of the Earth dating back 65 million years and in which iridium was present 160 times more than normal. The concentrations of this element are usually higher in meteorites and not in the planet's soil, hence the consideration that an alien object killed the dinosaurs.

However, at the time of the investigation they had not discovered a crater that corresponded to the cataclysmic event described by Álvarez and his team, which according to their calculations must have been at least 100 kilometers long and several deep.

In 1986, a team of scientists managed to determine that the Chicxulub crater located in the Yucatan peninsula, Mexico, was 180 kilometers long and 20 kilometers deep. One type of crater would support the Alvarez Hypothesis.

Luis Walter Álvarez and his son Walter Álvarez. Source: britannica.com

Death

Luis Walter Álvarez passed away on September 1, 1988 in Berkeley, California, after a long life of outstanding inventions and scientific contributions that changed the way we see the world in many ways.

References

1. The Nobel Foundation. (1968). Luis Alvarez. Taken from nobelprize.org
2. Peter Trower. (2009). Lus Walter Álvarez: 1911-1988. Taken from nasonline.org
3. Guillermo García. (2013). Los Álvarez, a scientific saga with Asturian roots. Taken from Agenciainc.es
4. National Inventors Hall of Fame. Luis Walter Álvarez. (2019). Taken from invent.org
5. David Warmflash. (2016). Luis Walter Álvarez: Discovering secrets of the atom and life on earth.