Thorfin R. Hogness

Thorfin Rusten Hogness (December 9, 1894, Minneapolis – February 14, 1976, San Jose, California) was a physical chemist, director of plutonium research for the Manhattan Project, and, after WW II, an advocate of "international control of nuclear energy".

Biography Hogness graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. in 1918 in chemistry and a Ch.E. degree in 1919 in chemical engineering. He received in 1921 a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). His Ph.D. thesis is entitled The surface tensions and densities of liquid mercury, cadmium, zinc, lead, tin and bismuth. From 1921 to 1930 he was a faculty member at UC Berkeley, In 1948 Hogness was one of a group of eight American nuclear energy experts who publicly protested the tactics of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1949 following the September detection of the first Soviet atomic bomb test, he joined Harold C. Urey and other scientists in "stressing that atomic disarmament held the only hope for an international agreement." and in 1941 a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

His wife was Phoebe Swenson Hogness (1895–1972). They married in 1920 and David S. Hogness (1925–2019), professor of biochemistry at Stanford University.

Selected publications Articles

Books (5th edition, 1966)

(3rd edition, 1954)