Donald Edwin Hudson

A longtime member of the American Physical Society, Donald E. Hudson was born in Montana on July 17, 1921. He grew up in Minnesota where his father was a teacher and vegetable farmer during the Great Depression. From an early age, he was used to much manual work and he exhibited ingenuity with tools and a love of experimentation. His imaginative mind and experimental talent proved valuable in the development of the first atomic bomb and America’s first satellites. He passed away peacefully with his wife and daughter by his side on October 14, 2014 at Saint Paul’s Towers in Oakland, CA.

Don earned his Bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. In 1944 he was pulled out of graduate school to serve his country on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Hurriedly, he married the love of his life, Hazel, and honeymooned on the way to Los Alamos. As part of the Special Engineering Team at Los Alamos and Alamogordo, Don worked with some of the world’s brightest minds to prepare and test the first atomic bomb. He played a key role in designing methods for measuring the outcome of uncontrolled atomic chain reactions.

After the war, Don did research on cosmic rays and received his doctorate from Cornell University in 1950 with a specialty in high energy physics, solid state, and physical electronics. He then moved to Princeton to teach and do postdoctoral research for a couple years before joining the Ames Laboratory and the faculty at Iowa State University.

While at Ames, Don did pioneering work on particle physics and published a number of reports for the Ames Laboratory and the Atomic Energy Commission, and in the American Physical Review and the Journal of Chemical Physics. In addition, he joined with Dr. James van Allen to provide important input on America’s fledgling satellite program. Many of the early satellites incorporated Don’s personal and published suggestion that tracking satellites via flashing lights, which used low battery power (at a time when satellites were tiny and batteries too big to make other tracking methods feasible). The blinking lights on our satellites could be seen in the night sky as late as the 1970s.

At the same time, he proved a dedicated teacher (fondly remembered by students). He sponsored a team of undergraduate physics students in constructing America’s first successful student-built [working] cyclotron in 1958. That success won them a National Science Foundation award.

In 1964, Don made a decisive decision to devote himself to teaching. He was offered a job as Chair of the Physics Department at California State University, Los Angeles, with the mission of expanding the department the 15 year old department. While there, he helped acquire Cal State’s first cyclotron. He continued to teach until his retirement in 1983, specializing in experimental and condensed matter physics.

Don was a man of many interests. He was an avid camper and would take his family on long camping trips every summer. In the 1970s, Don began to cut and polish opals in part due to his interest in the optical properties of this fiery gemstone. At various times Don also collected stamps, antique handguns, and Asian artworks. When slide rules were replaced by calculators in the late 70s, Don then collected slide rules, joking that they would be worth a lot of money as antiques some day. In retirement, Don became a skillful amateur sculptor and an active member of the Golden State Sculptor’s Association. Working in stone and bronze, he won local awards for his craftsmanship and elegant designs.

In 2001, Don and Hazel moved to the St. Paul’s Towers retirement facility in Oakland to be closer to their children and grand daughter. Here he lived at a relaxed pace among many new and interesting friends who remember him fondly for his wit and charm. He is survived by his wife, Hazel, and his 3 children, Sharon, Darrel and Toren, and one grandchild, Erin. Don’s first son, Howard, passed away many years ago.