Alvarez, Luis Walter
The American Luis Walter Alvarez (1911 - 1988), son to a physician, was an experimental physicist and inventor.
He devised a set of experiments to observe K-electron capture in radioactive nuclei, predicted by the beta decay theory but never before observed.
He contributed to a number of World War II radar projects.
After the war he was involved in the design of a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber that allowed his team to take millions of photographs of particle interactions, develop complex computer systems to measure and analyze these interactions, and discover entire families of new particles.
See also
Last modified:10 January 2026 2.23 p.m.