Nuclear Files: Library: Biographies: Lawrence Johnston

Lawrence Johnston

Lawrence Johnston earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkley in 1940.

From 1940 to 1943, Johnston worked at the MIT Radiation Laboratory where he and Luis Alvarez invented the Ground-Controlled-Approach radar landing system which made it possible for people on the ground to talk pilots in for a safe landing. This radar system helped pilots during World War II, and made possible the Berlin Airlift.

During his two years working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, Johnston led a team responsible for the ultra-fast detonators needed for implosion bombs. For the bombs

Printer Friendly

dropped over Japan, he was part of the team tasked with measuring bomb energy yields. Johnston is the only person to have witnessed the Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions.

After the war, Johnston completed his doctoral work at Berkeley in 1950. He subsequently helped build a linear accelerator at the University of Minnesota, and worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. In 1967, Johnston joined the faculty of the Department of Physics at the University of Idaho, where he remained until 1988.