38 min listen
Emma Unson Rotor: The Filipina Physicist Who Helped Develop a Top Secret Weapon
Emma Unson Rotor: The Filipina Physicist Who Helped Develop a Top Secret Weapon
ratings:
Length:
20 minutes
Released:
Dec 14, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Emma Unson Rotor took leave from her job as a math teacher in the Philippines to study physics at Johns Hopkins University in 1941. Her plans were disrupted when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded and occupied the Philippines. Unable to access her Philippine government scholarship to attend Johns Hopkins, she joined the Ordnance Development Division at the National Bureau of Standards. It was here that she did groundbreaking research on the proximity fuze, the “world’s first ‘smart’ weapon,” in the words of physicist Frank Belknap Baldwin, who also helped develop the technology.
Released:
Dec 14, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (74)
E3: The Experimental Rabbit: The ENIAC, an early electronic computer, gets a makeover. by Lost Women of Science