Walter Henry Zinn

Other Events:

• Interesting: life story, inventor
• Name: Wally Zinn
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-185938
• Residence: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Residence: 1921, 176 Victoria St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1921, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Notes:

WALTER ("WALLY") HENRY ZINN was Enrico Fermi's close associate during the Manhattan Project. After World War II he became the leading U.S. figure in the earliest development of nuclear energy. So pervasive was his stamp on nuclear development that a proper obituary to Walter Zinn must be nothing short of an account of the origins of nuclear energy and how Zinn profoundly affected its development.

Fission was discovered in 1938. By then Zinn had already received his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia (in 1934) and had been on the faculty of City College of New York. He also had a laboratory at Columbia, where he collaborated with Leo Szilard and Enrico Fermi in elucidating the nature of fission. In those exciting days nuclear physicists were asking how many neutrons were emitted by a uranium nucleus undergoing fission induced by a neutron. If the answer were greater than one, a nuclear chain reaction was possible; if less than one, a divergent chain reaction was impossible. Zinn and Szilard found that about two neutrons were emitted by a fissioning uranium nucleus; in this they confirmed the results of Fermi, Anderson, and Hahnstein. Thus was born experimental verification of the Manhattan Project's purpose: to make an atomic bomb.

After the number of neutrons released from fission was shown to be around two, Fermi lost no time in demonstrating the chain reaction. Zinn joined Fermi's experimental team, and he soon became Fermi's "executive officer." In this capacity Zinn organized the heavy experimental work that was needed to carry out Fermi's plan to build a divergent chain reaction.....

Fermi was in overall charge, but Zinn saw to it that Fermi's directions were carried out. At the instant of criticality Zinn was responsible for the so-called "zip" rod, a simple bar of cadmium held by a spring and tied outside the pile by a 100-pound counterweight. Zinn held an axe with which he was ready to cut the rope that held the zip rod if the chain reaction were to get out of hand. Fortunately the "landing in the new world" (words used by Arthur Compton in a phone call to James Conant) was uneventful. Zinn did not have to cut the rope that kept the zip rod from entering the pile.....


Zinn's role as leader of the postwar development of reactors was symbolized at the First Geneva Conference on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1955. This U.N.-sponsored conference involved over a thousand nuclear energy experts from both sides of the Iron Curtain. The opening session was like a thirteenth-century jousting tournament with the Soviet Union and United States each putting forward its champion. D. I. Blokhinsev described the Obninsk 5000-kW graphite-moderated, water-cooled pilot plant. He was followed by Zinn, who gave the first public account of successful experiments with the boiling-water reactor. The Russian pilot plant was the forerunner of their plutonium-producing reactors. Zinn's boiling-water experiments led to the 90 large commercial boiling-water reactors (BWR) now operating....

Zinn, as director of Argonne, was in no position to design and build large power reactors. He therefore left Argonne to establish the General Nuclear Engineering Company (GNEC) with headquarters in Dunedin, Florida. The company flourished and was much involved in large-scale pressurized-water reactors. Eventually GNEC was acquired by Combustion Engineering Company, and Zinn became head of its fast-growing Nuclear Division. He retired from Combustion in the early 1970s but remained on the company's board of directors until the early 1980s....

Many of the most important decisions of the American nuclear effort during the post-1940s were attributable to Zinn. Among those were:

The establishment of the Reactor Test Station in Arco, Idaho, where the prototypes of the first naval reactor as well as MTR, EBR-1, and EBR-2 were built and operated.

The founding of the American Nuclear Society (ANS), which was strongly influenced by Zinn, its first president. Today ANS has about 10,000 members and is the main technical society in the field of nuclear science and engineering....


https://www.nap.edu/readingroom.php?book=biomems&page=wzinn.html 2013

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-185935
• Residence: 1861, Wellesley Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Occupation: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Tanner, Fannery
• Residence: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Occupation: 1921, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Buffer, Tannery
• Residence: 1921, 176 Victoria St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1921, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Notes:

John Zinn

A native of Wellesley, John Zinn, age 80. died early Wednesday at his home, 176 Victoria street north. He was a member of St. Mark's Lutheran church. Mr. Zinn was employed at Lang Tanning Company for 36 years. Surviving are his wife two sons, Albert J. at home and Dr. Walter of New York, N.Y. Funeral services will be held from the residence today (Friday) at 2 o'clock to St. Mark's Lutheran interment in Woodland cemetery.

Waterloo Chronicle 1 Mar 1940 pg 3

John married Maria Anna "Mary" Stoskopf 27 Sep 1894, Ellice Township, Perth Co., Ontario, Canada. Maria was born Oct 1870, Ellice Township, Perth Co., Ontario, Canada; died 1950; was buried , Woodland Cem., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Maria Anna "Mary" Zinn
• Name: Mary Ann Stoskopf
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-185936
• Residence: 1911, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Residence: 1921, 176 Victoria St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1921, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Other Events:

• Name: George Zinn
• Name: Henry Zinn
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-64300
• Occupation: 1848, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; labourer
• Occupation: 1848, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; labourer
• Residence: 1849, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Occupation: 1852, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Laborer
• Occupation: 1861, Wellesley Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Farmer
• Residence: 1861, Wellesley Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lot 13 Con 3
• Residence: 1861, Wellesley Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Heinrich married Catharine Doerbecker 14 Nov 1848, Greenbush (Kitchener), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. Catharine was born 1823, , Hessen, Germany; died 9 Mar 1896, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: Catharine Hammer
• Name: Catharine Zinn
• Name: Catherine Dürrbecker
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-85601
• Residence: 1848, Waterloo Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
• Residence: 1852, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran
• Residence: 1861, Wellesley Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Notes:

Obituary - On Monday Mrs. Hammer, relict of the late George Zinn, and who stayed with her son-in-law, Mr. Henry Lantz, died at the age of 71 years. She had been suffering from a brain disease and caused considerable trouble of late. She was buried on Thursday in the Lutheran cemetery

New Hamburg Independent 13 Mar 1896

Other Events:

• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-239874
• Residence: 1852, Wilmot Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada; Lutheran

Henry — ?. ? was born Abt 1790; died Bef 1852. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Name: ? Zinn
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-239875