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William Elmore

PhysicistLos Alamos, NM

Trinity Site
Manhattan Project VeteranScientistTrinity Test Eyewitness
Bill Elmore's Los Alamos ID badge photo

William C. “Bill” Elmore was an American experimental physicist who served as the chairman of the Physics department at Swarthmore College from 1948 to 1968.

After finishing his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1935, Elmore was one of many young physicists recruited to work at Los Alamos. There, he helped design electronic bomb triggers, working alongside future Nobel Prize winner Val Fitch.

While working on the Manhattan Project, Elmore became friends with another experimental physicist, Matthew Sands. The two would collaborate after the war to write the foundational physics textbook Electronics: Experimental Techniques in 1949. 

William Elmore’s Timeline
1910 Born in Montour Falls, New York.

1935 Received Ph.D. from Yale University.

1948 Became Chairman of the Physics department at Swarthmore College.

1949 Published “Electronics: Experimental Techniques” with fellow Manhattan Project Physicist Matthew Sands.

2003 Jan 23rd Died of congestive heart failure in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

Bill Elmore with Elizabeth Sands, photo courtesy of the Robert JS Brown Collection

Bill Elmore, Matt Sands, Tony Martinez, and Bob Brown, photo courtesy of the Robert JS Brown Collection

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