L. Worth Seagondollar
Professor Emeritus
North Carolina State University
Raleigh NC

Talk Title: The First Man-Made Nuclear Explosion

Abstract
This talk is part Nuclear Physics, part description of the greatest war-time experience possible for a young nuclear graduate student, and part eye-witness description of the 1945 plutonium fission device explosion in the New Mexico desert.

Living and working in the secret Manhattan District laboratory was truly unique. Hearing talks by Nobel Laureates (past & future), participating in nuclear experiments that determined the critical masses for U-235 and Pu-239, having near-catastrophic accidents, working with an armed guard watching you, having Enrico Fermi ask you to come to his office--these are unforgettable memories.

There will be a description of 3 days in the New Mexico desert and a description of the early morning nuclear explosion at the Trinity Site and a description of that Site 30 days later.

Biographical Sketch
Lewis Worth Seagondollar earned an AB degree from KSTC in 1941, and a PhM (1943) and PhD (1948) in physics from the University of Wisconsin.

Between 1944 and 1946 Seagondollar worked with the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory complex. At Los Alamos he "worked on critical mass experiments and was nine miles from the first man-made nuclear explosion." Seagondollar's career included academic appointments at the University of Kansas (1947-65) and North Carolina State University (1965-91) where he was chair of physics from 1965-75.

Selected also as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, he was an active member of numerous professional organizations and served for six years as the national president of Sigma Pi Sigma (1962-68), a national physics honor society. Now a professor emeritus at NC State, he continues also as a Radiation Safety Officer with the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory in North Carolina.

The Seagondollars reside in Raleigh, North Carolina.