Ferdinand Brickwedde

Ferdinand G. Brickwedde with his wife, physicist Marion Langhorne Howard Brickwedde (1909–1997). Between them is the apparatus for making heavy water.

Ferdinand Graft Brickwedde (26 March 1903 – 29 March 1989), a physicist at the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology), in 1931 produced the first sample of hydrogen in which the spectrum of its heavy isotope, deuterium, could be observed. This was a critical step in the discovery of deuterium, for which Brickwedde's collaborator, Harold Urey, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934.[1]

  1. ^ Hammel, Edward F. Jr.; Reed, Robert W. (July 1990). "Ferdinand Brickwedde". Physics Today. 43 (7): 85. Bibcode:1990PhT....43g..85H. doi:10.1063/1.2810641. Archived from the original on 2013-10-05. Retrieved 2013-10-02.