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Physicist
Henry Boorse – Scientist for Manhattan Project and Barnard
Professor Dies – at Age 98
 New
York, N.Y.— Henry A. Boorse, a leading authority on low
temperature physics, part of the original group of scientists
for the Manhattan Project, and a faculty member at Barnard
College for over 30 years, died in Houston, Texas, on July
28, at the age of 98.
A respected research scientist, Boorse had a long and accomplished
teaching career at Barnard and was the Dean of Faculty for
over 20 years and Acting President before his retirement as
Professor Emeritus in 1970. Boorse was also a consultant for
the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission during 1948-56.
Boorse was one of the founding members, along with Nobel Laureates
Harold Urey and Enrico Fermi of SAM (Substitute Alloy Materials)
Laboratory at Columbia University, which investigated the
separation of uranium isotopes 235 and 238 for making an atomic
bomb, and was part of the Manhattan Project. His research
on liquefaction of hydrogen and helium and the properties
of superconductors was supported by the Office of Naval Research
and the National Science Foundation.
Boorse published The World of the Atom, 2 volumes (1966),
co-authored with Lloyd Motz; The Atomic Scientists
(1989), as well as numerous scholarly articles in professional
journals such as Physical Review, Review of Scientific
Instruments, Proceedings of the Royal Society (London),
Science, and Nature.
Born on September 18, 1904, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Boorse
graduated with distinction from the United States Naval Academy
in 1926. Boorse received an M.A. in 1933 and Ph.D. in physics
in 1934, both from Columbia University. He conducted post-doctoral
research at Cambridge University in 1934-35 where he studied
with Nobel Laureate Sir John Cock Croft at the Royal Society
Mond Research Laboratories.
While studying at Columbia, Boorse met his wife Margaret Hazelton,
who studied piano at Juilliard under pianist James Friskin.
They were married in 1931 and lived in Leonia, N.J., until
her death in 1996. Boorse then moved to Houston to live with
his son, Ronald H. Boorse.
Boorse started his teaching career at Columbia University
in 1931 and moved to City College of New York in 1935. He
came to Barnard in 1937 as an Assistant Professor and taught
until 1942, when he took a leave of absence to work for the
government, and became District Director of the Manhattan
Project to work on fusion separation research. After the war,
Boorse returned to Barnard and was named professor in 1948.
He was Dean of Faculty for over 20 years, and Acting President
in 1962, and 1967, and Assistant to the President from 1970
to 1974.
Boorse received several honors and fellowships, including
Barnard Fellow (1933); Lydig Fellow (1934-35); E.K. Adams
Fellow (1938-40), Columbia University; Fellow, American Physical
Society; Sigma Xi; and Phi Beta Kappa.
Boorse was a member of the American Physical Society; American
Association of Physics Teachers; Ad Hoc Committee on the Absolute
Temperature Scale, National Research Council; and a trustee
of the Public Library of Leonia, New Jersey. Boorse was a
collector of coins and antique prints and served as a treasurer
and president of the American Historical Print Collectors
Society.
No services will be held. Boorse’s body will be cremated
and his ashes will be placed next to his wife Margaret in
George Washington Cemetery in Paramus, New Jersey. Besides
his son, he is survived by a daughter, Suzanne Remond of Kerrville,
Texas.
Contact:
Petra Tuomi, Barnard Office of Public Affairs, 212-854-7907,
Ptuomi@barnard.edu
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