| Rudolf Peierls  AKA Rudolf Ernst Peierls
Born: 5-Jun-1907
Birthplace: Berlin, Germany
Died: 19-Sep-1995
Location of death: Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist Nationality: Germany
Executive summary: Frisch-Peierls Memorandum Author, with Otto Robert Frisch, of the so-called "Frisch-Peierls Memorandum" of March 1940, proposing a "super-bomb which utilizes the energy stored in atomic nuclei as a source of energy." This document inspired both the British "Maud Committee" to investigate the practicability of such a bomb, and the successful American effort to build the bomb, the Manhattan Project. In 1957 the US Government asked (for reasons perhaps related to the fact that his wife was Russian, and that he knew Klaus Fuchs -- who was actually a spy) that Peierls' security clearance be withdrawn, though it is unlikely that Peierls was a spy for anyone. Peierls returned to academia, with professorships at Oxford and the University of Washington until his retirement in 1977.
Father: Heinrich Peierls
Mother: Elizabeth Weigert
Wife: Eugenia Kannegisser ("Genia", m. 15-Mar-1931, three daughters, one son)
University: University of Berlin
University: University of Munich
University: PhD, University of Leipzig (1929)
University: DS, University of Manchester (1935)
University: MA, Cambridge University (1937)
Professor: University of Birmingham (1937-63)
Professor: Oxford University (1963-74)
Professor: University of Washington (1974-77)
Manhattan Project (1943-45)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Physical Society
Royal Society 1945
Royal Medal 1959
Lorentz Medal 1962
Max Planck Medal 1963
Enrico Fermi Award 1980
Matteucci Medal 1982
Copley Medal 1986
Commander of the British Empire 1946
Knighthood 1968
Naturalized UK Citizen 1940
Author of books:
The Laws of Nature (1955)
Quantum Theory of Solids (1956)
Surprises in Theoretical Physics (1979)
Bird of Passage (1985, memoir)
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