Kenneth Ross MacKenzie (1912–2002) was an American nuclear physicist who, along with Dale R. Corson and Emilio Segrè, synthesized the element astatine in 1940. He earned his PhD under Ernest Lawrence at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where they developed the first cyclotron. As a professor at UCLA, MacKenzie and Reg Richardson built the university’s first cyclotron and a bevatron. He invented MacKenzie buckets, plasma sources that use alternating polarity magnets to reduce plasma electron loss, still widely used today. Later, he traveled globally assisting with cyclotron issues and researched plasma physics and dark matter.
Early life and career
Mackenzie’s family moved to Victoria, British Columbia when he was age 10. He received his Bachelor's degree and Master's degree from the University of British Columbia, and began further study at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1937.1 As a graduate student, Kenneth Ross Mackenzie was involved in the Manhattan Project to help solve how to separate the rare uranium-235 isotope from the identical dominant uranium-238 isotope at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.2 While working on the Manhattan project, MacKenzie and colleagues borrowed 14,700 tons of silver from the US Treasury and melted it into strands to replace old copper in their magnetic coils. After the war, the silver was melted and returned to the treasury.3
Other roles
As an actor, he played minor roles with Yvonne De Carlo in Ride the Pink Horse (1947), River Lady (1948) and Black Bart (1948).4
He died in Los Angeles on 4 July 2002 at aged 90.56
External links
References
Hawthorn, Tom. "Physicist helped find elusive element" (PDF). The Globe and Mail. Victoria. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-09-21. Retrieved 12 November 2018 – via UCLA Physics & Astronomy. https://web.archive.org/web/20060921143355/https://home.physics.ucla.edu/news/in_memory/kenneth_mackenzie/mackenzie.pdf ↩
Oliver, Myrna (11 July 2002). "Kenneth MacKenzie, 90; Helped Discover Astatine, Built UCLA's Atom Smasher". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jul-11-me-mackenzie11-story.html ↩
"In Memoriam" (PDF). UCLA Today. 22 (5). October 23, 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 15, 2011. Retrieved December 3, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20110615191023/http://home.physics.ucla.edu/news/in_memory/kenneth_mackenzie/mackenzie.pdf ↩
Foster, Charles (1 October 2003). Once Upon a Time in Paradise: Canadians in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Dundurn Group. p. 125. ISBN 9781459712676. 9781459712676 ↩
Hawthorn, Tom. "Physicist helped find elusive element" (PDF). The Globe and Mail. Victoria. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-09-21. Retrieved 12 November 2018 – via UCLA Physics & Astronomy. https://web.archive.org/web/20060921143355/https://home.physics.ucla.edu/news/in_memory/kenneth_mackenzie/mackenzie.pdf ↩
Saxon, David S.; Wong, Alfred Y.; Wright, Byron T.; Wuerker, Ralph F. (2002). "In Memoriam Kenneth Ross MacKenzie". University of California. Archived from the original on 29 September 2005. Retrieved 12 November 2018. /wiki/David_S._Saxon ↩