Walter Henry Zinn

1906 - 2000  (93 years)

• Name	Walter Henry Zinn
  Born	10 Dec 1906	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1, 2]
  Gender	Male
  Interesting	life story, inventor
  Name	Wally Zinn
  Residence	1911	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1]
  	Lutheran
  Residence	1921	176 Victoria St. N., Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  Residence	1921	Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	Lutheran
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-185938
  Died	14 Feb 2000	Safety Harbor, Pinellas, Florida, United States
  Person ID	I185938	Generations
  Last Modified	6 Apr 2024

  
  

  Father	John Zinn,   b. Nov 1859, Wellesley Twp., Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada ,   d. 28 Feb 1940, Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age ~ 80 years)
  Mother	Maria Anna "Mary" Stoskopf,   b. Oct 1870, Ellice Township, Perth Co., Ontario, Canada ,   d. 1950  (Age ~ 79 years)
  Married	27 Sep 1894	Ellice Township, Perth Co., Ontario, Canada   [3]
  Family ID	F184523	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos

  Walter Henry Zinn image from https://www.nap.edu/readingroom.php?book=biomems&page=wzinn.html

  
  

• 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

  
  

• Sources

  [S340] Census - ON, Waterloo, Berlin - 1911, Div 35 Page 12. [S2264] Census - ON, Waterloo, Kitchener - 1921, Sub Dist. 25 Page 1. [S4] Vit - ON - Marriage Registration. Name: John Zinn Age: 34 Birth Date: abt 1860 Birth Place: Waterloo County, Ontario Marriage Date: 27 Sep 1894 Marriage County or District: Perth Father: Henry Zinn Mother: Catherine Doerbecker Spouse: Mary Ann Stoskopf Spouse's Age: 23 Spouse Birth Date: abt 1871 Spouse Birth Place: Ellice Spouse Father: Theobald Stoskopf Spouse Mother: Christine Barth

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 10 Dec 1906 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Lutheran - 1911 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Lutheran - 1921 - Kitchener, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - 14 Feb 2000 - Safety Harbor, Pinellas, Florida, United States  = Link to Google Earth