Lew Kowarski (10 February 1907 – 30 July 1979) was a Russian-French

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 cau ...

. He was a lesser-known but important contributor to

nuclear science Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

. He participated in the British

Tube Alloys Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the Bri ...

on early nuclear weapon research. After the war he worked at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

Early life

Lew Kowarski was born in 1907 in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

to Nicholas Kowarski, a businessman and the Ukrainian singer Olga Vlassenko. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, when Lew was 12 years old, his family fled west under adventurous circumstances and settled in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

(then in Poland). During his youth, Lew was a talented musician and considered a music career; however, his fingers grew too large for the keyboard.

Education

He received a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Lyon and an Sc.B. and Ph.D. from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

. His thesis on

crystal growth Crystal growth is a major stage of a crystallization, crystallization process, and consists of the addition of new atoms, ions, or polymer strings into the characteristic arrangement of the crystalline lattice. The growth typically follows an ini ...

was carried out in Jean Perrin's team, where he met Francis Perrin,

Marie Curie Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie (; ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), known simply as Marie Curie ( ; ), was a Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was List of female ...

and Irène Joliot-Curie.

Research career

During World War II

He joined

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...

's group in 1934, where Hans von Halban came in 1937. They established in 1939 the possibility of nuclear chain reactions and nuclear energy production. While doing their research, the events of World War II forced them to eventually move to England, bringing with them the world's entire stock of

heavy water Heavy water (deuterium oxide, , ) is a form of water (molecule), water in which hydrogen atoms are all deuterium ( or D, also known as ''heavy hydrogen'') rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope (, also called ''protium'') that makes up most o ...

, given on loan by Norway to France so that it would not fall into German hands. They continued their research at the Cavendish Laboratory in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

for the MAUD Committee, part of the wartime

project. Just before the invasions, the records and papers of Frédéric Joliot, Hans von Halban and Lew Kowarski were smuggled out of France, and eventually to England. Included in this operation were 26 drums of

, the world’s entire stock at the time. Some of the papers written by Halban and Kowarski were deposited at the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

in the UK, where they were sealed with a note from

James Chadwick Sir James Chadwick (20 October 1891 – 24 July 1974) was an English nuclear physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935 for his discovery of the neutron. In 1941, he wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspired t ...

, dated December 18, 1941, that said, “The paper is such that it would be inadvisable to publish it at the present time.” The papers described the outline of a design for a nuclear fission reactor. Kowarski then worked in the Montreal Laboratory in Canada, but only after Halban had been replaced as Director by John Cockcroft, as he did not want to work under Halban. He supervised the construction of Canada's first nuclear reactor ( ZEEP) at the Chalk River Laboratories in 1945.

Post war

He came back to France to supervise the first two French reactors in 1948 and 1952. A staff member of

(Geneva) since participating in its formation in 1953, he was a Decorated Officer Legion of Honor, Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, and a recipient of citation and prize from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. After his retirement in 1972, he was a University Professor at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

, focusing on the interaction between Science and Mankind.

Recently discovered documents

In 1940,

forwarded the work of two French scientists, Hans von Halban and Kowarski, who worked in Cambridge, to the

. He asked that the papers be held, as they were not appropriate for publication during the war. In 2007, the Society discovered the documents during an audit of their archives.BBC Article about discovered documents
/ref> The documents describe how to control the chain reaction, describe the components of a

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a Nuclear fission, fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for Nuclear power, commercial electricity, nuclear marine propulsion, marine propulsion, Weapons-grade plutonium, weapons ...

, and describe how to produce

plutonium Plutonium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is a silvery-gray actinide metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four ...

References

External links

Annotated Bibliography for Lew Kowarski from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

Oral histories

Archival collections

Lew Kowarski papers, 1907-1981 (bulk 1930-1981), Niels Bohr Library & ArchivesLew Kowarski paper, CERN
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kowarski, Lew 1907 births 1979 deaths Scientists from Vilnius Polish emigrants to France French people of Russian-Jewish descent People associated with CERN Manhattan Project people Jewish Russian physicists French physicists People associated with the nuclear weapons programme of the United Kingdom Officers of the Legion of Honour