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Paul Harteck (1902-1985)

A physical chemist educated at Vienna and Berlin, Harteck worked on processes for extracting U-235 and was interested in developing techniques for more efficiently making heavy water, a substance he considered as important as uranium to Germany's war efforts. He seems to have had a strong intuitive grasp, according to David Irving, of how an nuclear reactor should work, but he concluded that separating U-235 was too expensive to be practical. He was among the German scientists detained at Farm Hall, Huntingdonshire, and taught at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute from 1951-68.

Karen Rae Keck

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