In this 2005 file photo, Scientist George Cowan addresses a Los Alamos National Laboratory colloquium, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Cowan worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory for nearly 40 years. He started in 1949 as a scientist and went on to serve as a director of chemistry and as associate lab director of research. Cowan was a chemist whose influence touched everything from the Manhattan Project and the hunt for evidence of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear tests to the Santa Fe Institute and the iconic Santa Fe Opera. Cowan died Friday, April 20, 2012 at his home in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He was 92. AP Photo/Los Alamos National Laboratory, File |
ALBUQUERQUE,
N.M. (AP) — Devoted to finding a way for science to help society, not
much escaped the influence of chemist George Cowan. From the Manhattan
Project and the hunt for evidence of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear
tests, to the Santa Fe Institute and the iconic Santa Fe Opera, friends
recalled the fruits of his visionary ways.
Cowan died Friday at his home in Los Alamos. He was 92.
Friends
confirmed his death to The Associated Press, saying it was the result
of a fall at his home. Cowan was in good health and was planning to
travel and continue working with the nonprofit science institute that he
helped found in 1984.
“It’s
very sudden, very unexpected. An enormous loss,” said close friend and
institute co-founder David Pines. “The world is diminished for all of us
who knew him.”
Cowan
worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory for nearly 40 years. He
started in 1949 as a scientist and went on to serve as a director of
chemistry and as associate lab director of research.
After
doing graduate studies at Princeton, Cowan continued his nuclear
research as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project that developed the
atomic bomb. According to the Santa Fe Institute, Cowan was a
troubleshooter for the effort at various research sites around the
country and was among the few people who had knowledge of the bomb’s
separate components.
Cowan
arrived at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1949 and within weeks
began directing efforts to turn up radioactive fallout in samples that
were collected near the Soviet border. What Cowan and his team detected
indicated the Soviets were in possession of a nuclear bomb.
Cowan was considered one of the world’s experts on nuclear weapons diagnostics by 1956, according to a biography from the lab.
“We
can truly say that our country lost a true hero today,” former U.S.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said in a statement. “He cannot be replaced,
but let’s hope he left footprints for us to follow.”
Cowan was appointed to the White House Science Council during the Reagan administration.
It
was during one of his meetings with the council that he looked around
the room and thought about the need to educate the next generation of
scientists to ensure the government would continue to have a valuable
cadre of advisers.
Conversations
about the formation of the Santa Fe Institute followed, some of them
being held in the director’s conference room on the fourth floor at Los
Alamos Lab.
“He
was a superb judge of people,” said Pines. “He had a real instinct for
who was a promising scientist and who was not and this was invaluable to
him as he became a manager at Los Alamos.”
Bill
Enloe, chief executive of Los Alamos National Bank, which was founded
by Cowan, said the chemist had a unique ability to lead people.
“It
was not by intimidation or by position. It was because what he said
made so much sense,” Enloe said. “He accomplished a great deal because
people were anxious to help and work with him.”
Enloe
ticked off a list of Cowan’s accomplishments that ranged from his
scientific accolades and the start of the scientific think tank to the
early childhood development programs in New Mexico that he helped
influence.
Then
there was Cowan’s love of travel, food, wine and music. He sat on the
board of the Santa Fe Opera and was the first treasurer of the opera’s
foundation.
Pines
recalled the story Cowan had told him about his role in helping
preserve the opera, a venue that today draws thousands of visitors from
around the world to its unique outdoor stage.
“He
managed to get a loan for them from the bank that tied them over,”
Pines said. “Otherwise the Santa Fe Opera would have gone under many,
many years ago.”
Officials
at the Santa Fe Opera downplayed the suggestion that the organization
was ever on the financial ropes, but they said Cowan was a terrific
asset to the opera while he served on the board.
Friends
used words such as intelligent and practical to describe Cowan, who
lived in the same modest home on Los Alamos’ 42nd Street since first
moving there with his wife decades ago. His wife, Helen “Satch” Dunham,
was also a chemist. She died last year and the couple had no children.
Cowan was a philanthropist, having given most of his wealth to charitable causes that he was passionate about, Enloe said.
“He had a large impact on a lot of people,” he said.
Source: The Associated Press