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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Chaim Richman (1918-2017) was a Polish-American physicist.

Richman was born in Tomasov-Rebelski, Poland. In 1927, his family immigrated to the United States, but Richman was denied at Ellis Island because he was thought to have trachoma, an eye disease. Richman returned to Europe to live in Belgium, where he lived with and worked for Jewish diamond cutters, delivering diamonds that he carried in his socks.

Three years later, he finally managed to come to the United States with the help of Ezra, a Jewish refugee organization. Richman joined the rest of his family in Texas. He went on to earn a B.S. from Southern Methodist University and an M.S. from Oklahoma State University, both in mathematics. He earned a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley. It was there that he first met J. Robert Oppenheimer, who recruited him to work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.

After the war, Richman went back to Berkeley where he taught and researched at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His research was focused on the use of radiation to treat cancer, which he also worked on at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Richman later went on to teach at San Jose State University and at Cabrillo Community College.

Chaim Richman died on March 23, 2017, in Santa Cruz, California.

 
Chaim Richman’s Timeline
1918 Jan 18th Born in Tomasov-Rebelski, Poland.

1930 Immigrated to the United States.

19431945 Worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos.

2017 Mar 23rd Died in Santa Cruz, California.

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