Robert Bigham Brode (June 12, 1900 – February 19, 1986) was an American physicist, who during World War II led the group at the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory that developed the fuses used in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1950 he was one of a dozen prominent scientists who petitioned President Harry S. Truman to declare that the United States would never be the first to use the hydrogen bomb.

He was the second of a set of quadruplets, being born between his brothers Wallace and Malcolm; the fourth child died within weeks of birth.

[3][5] He was impressed by Blackett's cloud chambers, and set his graduate students to work on projects using them, starting with Dale R.

[7] In 1941, after the start of World War II, Brode went to work at Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, where he helped develop the proximity fuse.

Brode's E-3 group were tasked to develop a fusing mechanism that would have less than one chance in 10,000 of failing to detonate within 200 feet (61 m) of the required height.

Testing was carried out at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren, Virginia in August 1943 and Muroc Army Air Field in March 1944 using dummy drops from barrage balloons.

In the end, a modified APS-13 Monica tail warning radar known as "Archie" was employed, and the fuses performed flawlessly in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1950 he was one of a dozen prominent scientists who petitioned President Harry S. Truman to declare that the United States would never be the first to use the hydrogen bomb.

He served on the selection panels for Rhodes, Fulbright and Kennedy scholarships, and for awards from the State Department, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Institute of International Education.

[13][3] At various times Brode was vice president of the International Union for Pure and Applied Physics and the American Association of University Professors, a member of the Council of the American Physical Society, president of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, chairman of the Physics Division of the National Research Council, associate director for research of the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. delegate to the International Council of Scientific Unions.