William Penney, Baron Penney, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

William Penney, Baron Penney

English mathematician and physicist

Date of Birth: 24-Jun-1909

Place of Birth: Gibraltar, United Kingdom

Date of Death: 03-Mar-1991

Profession: politician, physicist, mathematician, nuclear physicist

Nationality: United Kingdom

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About William Penney, Baron Penney

  • William George Penney, Baron Penney, (24 June 1909 - 3 March 1991) was an English mathematician and professor of mathematical physics at the Imperial College London and later the rector of Imperial College.
  • He is acknowledged as having had a leading role in the development of Britain's nuclear programme, a clandestine programme started in 1942 during World War II which produced the first British atomic bomb in 1952.As the head of the British delegation working in the Manhattan Project, Penney initially carried out calculations to predict the damage effects generated by the blast wave of an atomic bomb.
  • Upon returning home, Penney directed Britain's own nuclear weapons directorate, codename Tube Alloys, and directed scientific research at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment which resulted in the first detonation of a British nuclear bomb, (codename Operation Hurricane) in 1952.
  • After the test, Penney became chief adviser to the newly created British government's United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
  • He was later chairman of the authority, which he used in international negotiations to control nuclear testing with the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Penney's notable scientific contributions included the mathematics for complex wave dynamics, both in shock and gravity waves, proposing optimization problems and solutions in hydrodynamics (which plays a major role in materials science and metallurgy.) During his later years, Penney lectured in mathematics and physics, and was tenured as the Rector of the Imperial College London until his death.

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