| Mark Oliphant AKA Marcus Laurence Elwin Oliphant Born: 8-Oct-1901
Birthplace: Kent Town, Australia
Died: 14-Jul-2000
Location of death: Canberra, Australia
Cause of death: Illness
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist, Politician Nationality: Australia
Executive summary: Deuterium reactions Australian physicist Mark Oliphant worked with Ernest Rutherford, in their co-discovery of new forms of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) and helium (helion, the stable helium-3 nucleus). He oversaw the development of the cavity magnetron, worked on the team that developed microwave radar, then was assigned to the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. He later became an outspoken activist against militarization of the atom, spoke out against the Vietnam war, and publicly supported American nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer when he was savaged by McCarthyism. Oliphant was on the founding faculty of Australian National University, the first President of the Australian Academy of Science, and served five years as the Governor of the state of South Australia. His nephew is the cartoonist Pat Oliphant. Father: (gov't worker)
Mother: (artist)
Wife: Rosa Wilbraham Oliphant
University: BS, University of Adelaide (1926)
University: PhD Physics, Cambridge University (1929)
Teacher: Physics, Cambridge University (1934-37)
Professor: Physics, University of Birmingham (1937-50)
Administrator: Director of Research School of Physical Sciences, Australian National University (1950-54)
Professor: Physical Sciences, Australian National University (1954-63)
Professor: Physics, Australian National University (1963-67)
Hughes Medal 1943
Order of Australia
Knight of the British Empire
Australian Official Governor of South Australia (1971-76)
UN Official International Atomic Energy Commission:1946-47
Royal Society 1937
Australian Academy of Science President (1954-57)
Manhattan Project (1943-45)
Risk Factors: Vegetarian
Author of books:
Science and the Future (1970)
Rutherford: Recollections of the Cambridge Days (1972)
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