George L. Weil Papers

George L. Weil (1907-1995) was born in NYC to Leon (1868-1936) and Elsie Rose Weil (1882-1952) alongside his sister Helen (1905-1996). He attended the Ethical Culture School in New York (1921-1925) before receiving a BA from Harvard University (1929) and an MA (1931) and PhD (1942) from Columbia University. He was teaching assistant (1938-1939) and research associate (under Enrico Fermi, 1940-1942) at Columbia; and research assistant under Enrico Fermi at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago (1942-1944). Under Fermi's supervision. Weil withdrew the final cadmium control rod from the Chicago Pile-1, the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, initiating the first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear reaction (December 2, 1942). Weil was next a physicist for E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (Hanford Works, Richland, Washington, 1944-1945); group leader under Enrico Fermi at the University of California's Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (1945); US scientific representative to the joint Canadian-UK atomic energy project (Chalk River, Ontario, 1945-1946); research associate for General Electric in the AEC's Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (Schenectady, NY, 1947); assistant director for the Atomic Energy Commission's Division of Reactor Development (Washington, DC, 1947-1952); and an independent consultant in Washington, DC (1952-~1982). By the 1960s, Weil was a critic of civilian nuclear energy and fast breeder reactors.

His first wife was Virginia M. Harlow (1911-2000), whom he married in 1935, although the couple divorced by 1940. In 1950 Weil married his second wife, Veniette F. Caswell (1925–1978), with whom he had one son Stephen G. (b. 1952). They were divorced by 1962.