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unusual facts about Luis Walter Alvarez



Asturian American

Luis Walter Alvarez (June 13, 1911 - September 1, 1988), experimental physicist and inventor, who spent nearly all of his long professional career on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley.

Luis F. Alvarez

His grandson and great-grandson have also become well known: Luis Walter Alvarez, a physicist and Nobel Prize winner; and Walter Alvarez, Professor of Geology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Timeline of paleontology

1980 — Luis Alvarez, Walter Alvarez, Frank Asaro, and Helen Michel propose the Alvarez hypothesis, that a comet or asteroid struck the Earth 66 million years ago causing the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, including the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, and enriching the iridium in the K–T boundary.

Walter C. Alvarez

Alvarez was married to the former Harriet Skidmore Smythe and the couple had four children: Gladys, Luis, Robert and Bernice.


see also