Awards & Winners

Arthur Compton

Date of Birth 10-September-1892
Place of Birth Wooster
(Wayne County, Ohio)
Nationality United States of America
Also know as Arthur Holly Compton, Dr. Arthur H. Compton, Arthur H. Compton
Profession Physicist
Arthur Holly Compton was an American physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927 for his discovery of the Compton effect. He is also known for his leadership of the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory. He served as Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis from 1945 to 1953. In 1919, Compton was awarded one of the first two National Research Council Fellowships that allowed students to study abroad. He chose to go to Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory in England, where he studied the scattering and absorption of gamma rays. Further research along these lines led to the discovery of the Compton effect, which demonstrated the particle nature of electromagnetic radiation. It was a sensational discovery at the time, for the wave nature of light had been well-demonstrated, but the idea that light could have a dual nature was not easily accepted. During World War II, Compton was a key figure in the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear weapons. His reports were important in launching the project. In 1942 he became head of the Metallurgical Laboratory, with responsibility for producing nuclear reactors to convert uranium into plutonium, finding ways to separate the plutonium from the uranium and to design an atomic bomb. Compton oversaw Enrico Fermi's creation of Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor, which went critical on December 2, 1942. The Metallurgical Laboratory was also responsible for the design and operation of the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Plutonium began being produced in the Hanford Site reactors in 1945.

Awards by Arthur Compton

Check all the awards nominated and won by Arthur Compton.

1957


Nominations 1957 »

Award Nominated Nominated Work
National Book Award for Nonfiction The Atomic Quest

1940


Hughes Medal
(For his discovery of the Compton Effect; and for his work on cosmic rays.)

1927


Nobel Prize in Physics
(for his discovery of the effect named after him)

1926


Rumford Prize
(For his research in Roentgen rays.)
Guggenheim Fellowship for Natural Sciences, US & Canada
(Physics)