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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Philip Cooperman

Special Engineer DetachmentLos Alamos, NM

Manhattan Project VeteranMilitary VeteranSpecial Engineer Detachment

Philip Cooperman was a member of the Special Engineer Detachment on the Manhattan Project from 1944-1946. During his time at Los Alamos, Cooperman worked on a device to initiate detonation of an atomic weapon when it reached a certain altitude.

After the war, Cooperman was employed as a senior mathematician at Gulf Oil Corporation. He left Gulf Oil in 1958 to teach at the University of Pittsburgh and later taught calculus at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

For more on Dr. Cooperman’s life, see this article by Lou Blazquez, one of his students.

Thanks to Lou Blazquez for contributing information for this profile.

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