George Kistiakowsky

George Kistiakowsky
George Kistiakowsky
Born	December 1 [O.S. November 18] 1900 Boiarka, Russian Empire (now Ukraine)
Died	December 7, 1982(1982-12-07) (aged 82) Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Nationality	Ukrainian-American
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	University of Berlin
Known for	Explosive forming Manhattan Project
Awards	Department of the Air Force Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service Medal for Merit Medal of Freedom National Medal of Science Priestley Medal (1972) Franklin Medal Willard Gibbs Award (1960)
Scientific career
Fields	Physical chemistry
Institutions	Princeton University Harvard University Los Alamos Laboratory
Doctoral advisor	Max Bodenstein
Doctoral students	Herbert S. Gutowsky Bruce H. Mahan
Signature

George Bogdanovich Kistiakowsky (Russian: Георгий Богданович Кистяковский, Ukrainian: Георгій Богданович Кістяківський, romanized: Heorhii Bohdanovych Kistiakivskyi; December 1 [O.S. November 18] 1900 – December 7, 1982) was a Ukrainian-American physical chemistry professor at Harvard who participated in the Manhattan Project and later served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Science Advisor.

Born in Boyarka^[1] in the old Russian Empire, into "an old Ukrainian Cossack family which was part of the intellectual elite in pre-revolutionary Russia",^[2] Kistiakowsky fled his homeland during the Russian Civil War. He made his way to Germany, where he earned his PhD in physical chemistry under the supervision of Max Bodenstein at the University of Berlin. He emigrated to the United States in 1926, where he joined the faculty of Harvard University in 1930, and became a citizen in 1933.

During World War II, Kistiakowsky was the head of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) section responsible for the development of explosives, and the technical director of the Explosives Research Laboratory (ERL), where he oversaw the development of new explosives, including RDX and HMX. He was involved in research into the hydrodynamic theory of explosions, and the development of shaped charges. In October 1943, he was brought into the Manhattan Project as a consultant. He was soon placed in charge of X Division, which was responsible for the development of the explosive lenses necessary for an implosion-type nuclear weapon. In July 1945, he watched the first atomic explosion in the Trinity test. A few weeks later, another implosion-type weapon (Fat Man) was dropped on Nagasaki.

From 1962 to 1965, Kistiakowsky chaired the National Academy of Sciences's Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP), and was its vice president from 1965 to 1973. He severed his connections with the government in protest against the war in Vietnam, and became active in an antiwar organization, the Council for a Livable World, becoming its chairman in 1977.