Gernot Zippe (November 1917 – 7 May 2008) was an Austrian mechanical engineer and a nuclear physicist of German origin who is widely credited with leading the team which developed the Zippe-type centrifuge– a centrifuge machine for the enrichment and collection of uranium-235, during his time in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.

Biography

Zippe was born in Warnsdorf which was then part of the Austria-Hungary in November 1917. The Zippe family later moved to Vienna which allowed him to attend the University of Vienna and earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1939. Zippe who had never worked on a centrifuge before took over the project but he worked with Max Steenbeck on the feasibility of the machine with the provided Russian intelligence on the works of American Jesse Beams from the Manhattan Project. In spite of his notes confiscated by the Soviet government, Zippe was able to re-create the centrifuge machine and published a research thesis on the development and efficiency of the gas centrifuge at the University of Virginia in the United States.

Impressed by his work, the United States government tried to recruit him for an on-going centrifuge program but he was restricted from gaining the classified information on the United States' nuclear weapons program; he refused and returned to work with German firms.

From 2006–08, Zippe was a subject of interests in European political media which noted that his invention made it cheaper to produce fuel for nuclear reactors but also to build nuclear weapons, which increased the risk of nuclear proliferation.

Although, the United States and the European media credited Gernot Zippe of being the innovator of the machine, the Russian sources, however, disputed the account of Soviet centrifuge development given by Gernot Zippe. The Russians credited Max Steenbeck, as the German scientist in charge of the German part of the Soviet centrifuge effort, Isaac Kikoin and Evgeni Kamenev with originating different valuable aspects of the design.

Other

In Hebrew, the name "Gernot Zippe" (גרנוט ציפה) is an anagram of the word "Centrifuge" (צנטריפוגה).

References

  • The Zippe Type – The Poor Man's Bomb, BBC Radio 4, 19 May 2004
  • Tracking the technology, Nuclear Engineering International, 31 August 2004
  • Slender and Elegant, It Fuels the Bomb, New York Times, March 23, 2004
  • Gernot Zippe