M. Rosenbluth; 76, physicist worked on hydrogen bomb

By Associated Press, 10/2/2003

SAN DIEGO -- Marshall Rosenbluth, a physicist whose research led to advances in nuclear fusion technology and who also worked on the hydrogen bomb, died of pancreatic cancer Sunday. He was 76.

Dr. Rosenbluth was a 1997 recipient of the National Medal of Science, the country's highest scientific honor.

"Marshall was a scientist of towering stature who was affectionately known as the `Pope of Plasma Physics,' " said Marvin Goldberger, a physics professor at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Rosenbluth worked at the university in the 1960s and again from 1987 until his retirement in 1993.

Dr. Rosenbluth was born in Albany, N.Y. He attended Harvard University, and received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1949, at age 22.

He was an instructor at Stanford University for a year, and his research led to the discovery of the "Rosenbluth formula," a complex equation dealing with the actions of subatomic particles.

In 1950, he was recruited by Edward Teller, who had been his thesis adviser, to work on the top-secret hydrogen bomb project at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico.

Beyond his help with the bomb, Dr. Rosenbluth's research at the lab led to a statistical method that is used in many fields of science.

Dr. Rosenbluth served as a key adviser to the Energy Department and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.