Obituary of George Cowan (1920-2012)

Cowan died after a fall in his Los Alamos home. A distinguished scientist, businessman, and philanthropist, Cowan worked more than 40 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Although known as one of the world’s experts on nuclear weapons diagnostics, Cowan in later years turned his attention to other endeavors. For example, he helped found Los Alamos National Bank, serving as its chair for 30 years. In 1983, he created the Santa Fe Institute, where his chief interest has been the physiology of the human brain.

Cowan’s career began shortly after obtaining a BS from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1941. The young man then attended Princeton, where he worked with future Nobel Prize Laureate Eugene Wigner to design the first uranium chain reactor. In 1942, Wigner, Cowan, and several others transferred to the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, to work on the first atomic pile.

On the afternoon of December 2, the CP-1 generated the first controlled nuclear reaction. The ability to release controlled energy from the nucleus of an atom paved the way for Oak Ridge and Hanford to develop a method to obtain nuclear fuel for the world’s first atomic weapons.

After World War II, Cowan came at Los Alamos, where he conducted chemical analyses designed to measure nuclear energy fields. In 1946, Cowan participated in Operation Crossroads, which took place in the South Pacific. He then left Los Alamos for the Carnegie Institute of Technology, from which he obtained a PhD in 1950.

Upon his return to Los Alamos, Cowan worked on identifying products from the first Russian atomic-bomb test. By 1956 he was considered one of the world’s experts on nuclear weapons forensics. He was named associate head of the Laboratory’s Test Division and later served as associate director for research and senior laboratory fellow. In 1988, Cowan became a senior fellow emeritus.

In addition to awards such as the New Mexico Academy of Science Distinguished Scientist Award, the Robert H. Goddard Award, and the E.O. Lawrence Award, Cowan received the Enrico Fermi Prize for “a lifetime of exceptional achievement in the development and use of energy.” And in 2002, he was given the Los Alamos National Laboratory Medal, the highest honor the Laboratory can bestow on an individual or small group. The medal honored Cowan’s pioneering work in radiochemical techniques and his measurements of fundamental physical properties of neutrons from nuclear explosions.

Businessman and Philanthropist

Cowan’s interests were not just in science. In addition to serving on advisory groups for the US Air Force Technical Applications Center, the US Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Regents of New Mexico Institute of Technology, he served on boards for the Los Alamos Hospital, the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Opera Foundation, and the National Center for Genome Resources. Cowan also served as chair of the Los Alamos Concert Association and the Los Alamos Public Utilities Board.

As a businessman, Cowan helped found Los Alamos National Bank, serving as chairman for 30 years. He was also chairman of the Trinity Capital Corporation and a member of the board of Universal Properties, Inc.

In 1983, Cowan assembled a group of senior scientists interested in researching complex, adaptive systems. One year later, this assembly became the Santa Fe Institute, with Cowan as its president, a position he held until his retirement in 1991.

A think tank, the Santa Fe Institute fosters interdisciplinary research. Thus, physicists and mathematicians work hand in hand with economists and computer scientists from all over the world. The underlying theory behind many projects is that natural systems operate in chaotic environments, but that chaos is in fact self-organized. Based upon this theory, scientists hope to explain the mysteries of how life began and predict global economic trends.

As a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute, Cowan used neuroscience to study the relationship between physiological changes in children’s brains and their behavioral development.

He and his wife, the chemist Helen “Satch” Dunham Cowan (1920-2011) had no children.

Obituary based on text acquired from Los Alamos National Laboratory .