PSU Manhattan Project Physicist Dies After Fall: Worked All of his Life

PSU Track Alumni Golf Official Physicist Brian Boyer brings us this sad news. A great man who loved teaching and Penn State.

Los Alamos scientist Louis Rosen dies at 91

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- Louis Rosen, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project and later created an influential neutron center at the facility, has died at age 91.

Rosen was sent to an Albuquerque hospital after an apparent fall at his home Aug. 15. A granddaughter, Ambyr Hardy, said he was transferred to a Los Alamos rehabilitation center shortly before he died Thursday, surrounded by his family.

Family members say he had gone to work as usual Aug. 13.

"This is a great loss of a great man," said lab Director Michael Anastasio. "He was the father of our LANSCE Facility and an inspiration to us all. Louie embodied the passion for innovation and the commitment to succeeding generations of scientists."

The head of the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center at LANSCE, Alan Hurd, called Rosen "one of our last personal touch points with the Manhattan Project."

The lab credits Rosen with leading the way in developing the world's most powerful linear accelerator, culminating in construction of the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, known today as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, or LANSCE.

Rosen directed the center until 1986.

Rosen went to work at Los Alamos in 1944 as a member of the Manhattan Engineering District's Project Y that led to the world's first atomic bomb in World War II. He worked during the war in neutron cross-section measurements and nuclear test diagnostics.

Hurd recalled Rosen "confidently striding to work every day into the last week of his life. He loved to interact with students. In my favorite image, he is surrounded by a flock of graduate students lucky enough to hear about the time he and his colleagues set the forest on fire during the war."

Rosen was born in New York City on June 10, 1918. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Alabama and his Ph.D. from Penn State University. He taught at both universities.

Rosen in 2002 received the prestigious Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, the lab's highest award.