Tuxedo Park: a Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II.Alfred Lee Loomis Alfred Lee Loomis (November 4, 1887-August 11, 1975) was an American lawyer, investment banker, physicist, philanthropist, and patron of scientific research. He established the Loomis Laboratory in Tuxedo Park, New York, and his role in the development of radar is considered made his fortune on Wall Street. He predicted the stock market crash of 1929, and during the first years of the Depression, he increased his net worth to $50 million. Loomis was a savvy businessman, but his passion was science. He set up a lab at his estate outside New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. in the tony area known as Tuxedo Park. There, he would entertain and provide the services of his lab to some of the day's most distinguished scientists--Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and Ernest Lawrence. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, Loomis realized the importance that radar would have. He met with a British delegation and members of Franklin Roosevelt's administration to discuss how to develop this new technology. Loomis facilitated the creation and implementation of the Allies' radar system and eventually the atomic bomb atomic bomb or A-bomb, weapon deriving its explosive force from the release of atomic energy through the fission (splitting) of heavy nuclei (see nuclear energy). The first atomic bomb was produced at the Los Alamos, N.Mex. by moving his lab to the Massachusetts institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, , where he opened what would be known as the Rad Lab. This hotbed of scientific talent helped staff the Manhattan Project. However, political and personal scandal got him in the end. His desire for privacy kept his story from public view until now. Conant is the granddaughter of James B. Conant, who was president of Harvard University The President is the chief administrator of Harvard University. Ex officio the chairman of the Harvard Corporation, she is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to her the day-to-day running of the university. and administrator of the Manhattan Project. She draws on private and unpublished papers from both Loomis and her own family to spin this riveting story. S&S, 2002, 330 p., b&w plates, hardcover, $26.00. |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion