Leo James Rainwater (December 9, 1917 – May 31, 1986) was an American physicist who won a share of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei.[1]
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Birth and education
Rainwater was born in December 9, 1917 in Council, Idaho but later moved to Hanford, California after the death of his father to the great influenza epidemic of 1918. He received his bachelor’s degree from California Institute of Technology in 1939 as a physics major, then went on to earn a PhD at Columbia University in 1946.
Academic Career
During World War II, he worked on the atomic bomb project. In 1949, he began developing his theory that, contrary to what was then believed, not all atomic nuclei are spherical. His ideas were later tested and confirmed by Bohr’s and Mottelson’s experiments. Rainwater also contributed to the scientific understanding of x-rays and participated in Atomic Energy Commission and naval research projects. He joined the physics faculty at Columbia in 1946, where he reached the rank of full professor in 1952. He was named Pupin Professor of Physics in 1982. Rainwater also received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for Physics in 1963.
