Dwight Smith Young
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Dwight Smith Young (22 October, 1892 - 24 December, 1975) was an American "carpenter, photographer, archaeologist, cook, meteorologist, poet and self-made physicist"[1] who took part in the Manhattan Project. He was given the nickname The Hermit of Pajarito Canyon after making his home in an old log cabin in a remote canyon on the Los Alamos testing site[2][3].
Early Life
He was born in Elgin, Illinois[4], raised in Oswego, Illinois, and attended East Aurora High School in Aurora, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1910[5], Young worked as a photographer and carpenter for his father, Lou C. Young, providing a photographic record of such things as barn-building techniques of the early 20th century[6]. In 1916 Young traveled to Texas to photograph the aftermath of the 1916 Texas Hurricane. Upon returning home, he opened his own photography studio in Wilmington, Illinois.
During America's involvement in World War I, Young enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Service, a forerunner of the United States Air Force, and was in Texas undergoing pilot training when the war ended[5]. After his military service, Young returned to Illinois and continued working as a carpenter and photographer. During the Great Depression of the 1930s and into the early 1940s, Young worked as a maintenance man at a box factory[7]. Not happy with that work, he recalled to an interviewer that he "decided to see what was going on at the University of Chicago." Despite having no college education, in 1942 he took an on-the-spot PhD oral exam and was given a job as a technician at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University.[1]
Work on the Manhattan Project
The Metallurgical Laboratory being a cover name for the research into the production and weaponization of plutonium during World War II, Young worked under group leader Edward Creutz for nine months in Chicago before transferring with Creutz's group to Project Y in Los Alamos, New Mexico[2]. From 1943 until 1953, Young worked officially as a technician with "principal effort on photographic processes, general mechanical work and some electronics"[8]; however, as his Group Leader H.C. Paxton explained to Division Leader R.E. Schreiber in a letter requesting Young's promotion from graded technician to full staff member in 1952:
By the time I reached Group W-2, Mr. Young's interest in the group's program was most general and surprisingly fundamental. The empirical point of view, normally associated with technicians, was nicely supplemented by attention to basic processes, e.g. chemical reactions in photography, ionic processes in particle counters and neutron behaviour in critical assemblies. He was designing and carrying through experimental investigations to supplement the principal group activities. Illustrative is a file of informal reports by him on self-initiated work [...] that includes the following items: the influence of ambient temperature on the reactivity level of Topsy; a study of the self-heating of topsy; pulse shapes characteristic of a boron-lined neutron detector; studies of the stability and linearity of long-geometry neutron counting systems; a description of the "Fission Fragment Catcher-Photographic Emulsion Method of Studying Neutron Distributions," and its application to the Oy-polythene assembly and to Topsy with various perturbations.[8]
References
- ^ a b Frederick, Lemoyne (6 February, 1966). "Dramatic Story of Early Los Alamos Lies Behind 'Little Old Log Cabin'". The Santa Fe New Mexican. Retrieved 8 May, 2019.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|access-date=and|date=(help) - ^ a b "Hermit of Pajarito Canyon Forsakes The Hill for Bayous". Community Affairs News. Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. March 1959.
- ^ "Dwight Young Dies in Illinois Dec. 24". Los Alamos Monitor. 2 January, 1976.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Dwight Smith Young". Atomic Heritage Foundation. 8 May, 2019. Retrieved 8 May, 2019.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|access-date=and|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|dead-url=(help) - ^ a b Matile, Roger (April 3, 2013). "Oswego Carpenter-Physicist Worked on the Manhattan Project" (PDF). Ledger-Sentinel. Retrieved 8 May, 2019.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|access-date=(help) - ^ Matile, Roger (2008). Oswego Township. Arcadia Publishing. pp. 30–32. ISBN 9780738552088.
- ^ Johnson, Kenneth (August, 1968). ""The Hermit of Pajarito" Came Back" (PDF). The Atom. Volume 3, Number 8: 15–16.
{{cite journal}}:|volume=has extra text (help); Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ a b Paxton, H.C. (13 June 1952). "Status of Mr. Dwight S. Young". Letter to R.E. Schreiber. Little White School Museum, Oswego, Illinois.