Julius Tabin was a physicist and a member of Enrico Fermi’s team at Los Alamos that developed the world’s first atomic bomb during World War II.
Tabin, working alongside fellow physicists Herbert Anderson and Darragh Nagle, carried out experiments under Fermi at Los Alamos. In July 1945, Tabin witnessed the Trinity Test and afterwards went into into the crater left by the blast, riding in a specially modified lead-lined tank to collect surface samples at ground zero.
After the war, Tabin moved to Massachusetts, where he taught physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] and began studying law at Harvard Law School. In 1950, Tabin returned to Chicago and began practicing law for what is now Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery.