George S. Monk

He was an expert in optics for different types of electromagnetic radiation who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first nuclear weapon.

He married Ardis Thomas, a mathematician from the University of Chicago, who later worked for the USAEC and under Eugene Wigner during his project to construct a nuclear reactor.

During his early career at the university, from 1924 to 1929 he co-wrote papers with the dean of the physics department, Henry Gale, on the atomic spectra of chlorine and hydrogen, and also with future Nobel Prize-winner Robert S. Mulliken on fine structure of bands in atomic spectra and the Zeeman effect.

While he was working on the Manhattan Project (he was chief of the Technical Section 6 (Optics)), he was one of the signatories to the Szilárd petition addressed to president Truman in 1945, which requested that terms of surrender be provided to the Empire of Japan before the usage of a nuclear weapon.

After the end of World War II, he continued to work for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the same role as the chief of the optical department.