Rudolf Peierls
German-born British physicist · United Kingdom · On the map · Scientists · Lived 1907 to 1995 · aged 88
Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allied nuclear bomb programme.
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A typical day, 30 days to 6 November 2026
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Photos 5
The Poynting Physics building at the University of Birmingham. Its mode of construction helped give rise to the phrase "redbrick university".
Peierls in 1937
Plaque commemorating the Frisch-Peierls memorandum at the University of Birmingham's Poynting Physics Building
Paul Dirac, Wolfgang Pauli and Rudolf Peierls, c 1953.Awards
About this person
His 1996 obituary in Physics Today described him as "a major player in the drama of the eruption of nuclear physics into world affairs".
