He was a political activist, who lectured and wrote on the issues of arms limitation, natural resources and world hunger.
The techniques he helped develop were used at the Hanford Site to produce the plutonium used in the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Between 1951 and 1977, he worked at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) where he contributed to advances in telescopic instrumentation, jet propulsion, and infrared astronomy.
The techniques discovered by the team proved to be the groundwork for those used at the Hanford Site which provided the plutonium for the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
Patterson's studies of lead eventually led to the first close approximation of the age of the Earth and the solar system of 4.5 billion years.
Together they made advancements in telescopic instrumentation, jet propulsion (contributing to NASA's early planetary exploration missions), and infrared astronomy.
"[4] In the early 1970s, he began focusing more on the issues he had developed in his books, including working with a post-doctorate fellow, John P. Holdren, who later became President Barack Obama's Science Advisor (2009-2017).
Located adjacent to the University of Hawaii campus in Manoa, the EWC was a research and educational institution focused on problems in the Asia-Pacific Region.
He put together a team of scientists from across the US to follow through even more directly on the ideas he developed in his books, i.e. to explore the sustainability of energy, minerals, and food systems and how they interacted with population and environment.
In 1983, in failing health, Brown retired and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico with his third wife, Theresa Tellez, his second marriage having also ended in divorce.