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

Paul A. Henry

Paul A. Henry was a scientist who worked on pigmentation and paints during World War II. Born in June 13, 1912 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, he attended the Pratt Institute and the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.

Virginia Meschke

Chicago, IL

Virginia Meschke was a chemist and technician at the University of Chicago Met Lab. She specialized in plutonium chemistry.

John R. Farmakes

X-10 Graphite Reactor

Attended the University of Wisconsin.

Joan E. Curran

University of California, Berkeley

Joan Elizabeth Curran (1916-1999) was a Welsh physicist. Curran was born in Swansea, Wales. During World War II, she worked on Operation Windows, where she invented the “chaff,” a technique which could disrupt enemy radar.