Rubby Sherr
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.6042
Rubby Sherr, my former Princeton dissertation adviser, died on July 8, 2013, a bit over two months shy of his 100th birthday, which would have been on September 14. I last visited him during the fall of 2012 at the retirement community where he lived in Haverford, Pennsylvania. He remained sharp and boasted a full mane of white hair that put me to shame.
Rubby received his bachelor’s degree from NYU in 1934 and his PhD from Princeton in 1937, where he spent an additional postdoctoral year, and later spent a year at Harvard. In 1942 he joined the MIT Radiation Laboratory where he helped to develop a new airborne radar system. He joined the Manhattan project in Los Alamos in 1944. Together with Klaus Fuchs, Rubby developed a key component of the plutonium bomb’s triggering mechanism, known as the Fuchs –Sherr modulated neutron initiator.
Rubby returned to Princeton as an assistant professor in 1946. He became an associate professor in 1955. Between 1955 and 1971, he headed an Atomic Energy Commission-contracted nuclear research project, and oversaw the development of the university’s AVF cyclotron in 1970. He retired from Princeton in 1982, but remained active in the research community for the rest of his life, often collaborating in theoretical physics projects. He drove up to Princeton to continue research for faculty meetings well into his 90s. Rubby was an avid fly fisherman, birder, and folksong enthusiast.
Rubby married Rita (Pat) Ornitz in September 1936. Following her death in 1997, he moved into the retirement community in Haverford where he remained for the rest of his life.
He is survived by two daughters: Elizabeth Sklar who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with her husband Lawrence, Frances Sherr (Robert Hess) who lives in Wynnwood, Pennsylvania, a ten minute drive from the retirement community where her father lived, and one granddaughter, Jessica Sklar, who lives in Seattle, Washington.
Bill Blanpied
Pittsboro, NC
Rubby Sherr, tireless Princeton professor and an architect of the Atomic Age, dies at 99
News at Princeton
Dr. Rubby Sherr, 99; helped develop atomic bomb
Philly.com
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