Turkevich studied at Dartmouth College and obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1937. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University on the structure of small molecules in 1940.

He investigated the separation of uranium isotopes by gaseous diffusion of uranium hexafluoride and the radiochemistry of reactor products, such as plutonium, that are generated by neutron capture in uranium. In 1945, he transferred to Los Alamos, and was involved with the Trinity test, the first detonation of a nuclear device, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. Turkevich was one of several scientists who estimated the amount of energy released in the explosion. He then transferred to Edward Teller’s theory group to study nuclear fusion and establish whether producing a thermonuclear weapon was feasible, one of many challenges faced by scientists at Los Alamos that led to the development and use of the Monte Carlo method. He worked with Nicholas Metropolis and Stanley Frankel using the ENIAC computer.

In July 1946, Turkevich and Seymour Katcoff suggested that nuclear explosions could be monitored by measuring the atmospheric concentration of the radioactive isotope krypton-85, a fission product. Turkevich wrote a letter to Philip Morrison proposing that atmospheric sampling could be used to estimate the number of fissions that had occurred in nuclear reactors and atmospheric atom bomb tests. The history of this aspect of Turkevich’s work didn’t become public until it was declassified in 1997.

Turkevich was the first to determine the composition of the Moon’s surface using an alpha scattering spectrometer on the Surveyor 5 mission in 1967.

Awards

1972 Seaborg Award: Anthony Turkevich