Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Freeman Dyson

Mathematician & PhysicistPrinceton, NJ

Britain
Scientist
Freeman Dyson Listen to Freeman Dyson’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Freeman Dyson is an esteemed mathematician and theoretical physicist at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. He has made significant contributions to quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy, and nuclear engineering.

During World War II, Dyson worked at England’s Bomber Command, tracking the position of bomber forces. He later worked with Manhattan Project veterans Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, and Robert R. Wilson at Cornell University.

Freeman Dyson’s Timeline
1923 Dec 15th Born in Berkshire, England.

1943 Jul 25th1945 Worked for the Operational Research Section of Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command in England.

19461949 Served as a Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.

19471948 Served as a Fellow at Cornell University.

1951 Became a physics professor at Cornell University.

1953 Received a permanent position at the Institute for Advanced Study.

1993 Received the Fermi Award.

Related Profiles

Pierre Auger

France

Pierre Victor Auger was born in Paris on May 14, 1899. He was a French physicist, whose work focused on atomic, cosmic ray, and nuclear physicists.

George de Hevesy

Sweden

George de Hevesy was a Hungarian radiochemist and winner of the 1943 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. De Hevesy was born in Hungary to a wealthy noble family.

Edward Melkonian

Columbia University

Edward Melkonian was an American physicist. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt on June 29, 1920, to parents of Armenian heritage who had fled persecution in Turkey.

Samuel Goudsmit

Alsos Mission

Samuel Goudsmit (1902-1978) was a Dutch-American physicist. In May 1944, Goudsmit became scientific director of the Manhattan Project’s Alsos Mission, a top-secret operation responsible for gathering intelligence on Germany’s atomic program.