Alvarez, Luis Walter 1911-1988.
US physicist who led the research team that
discovered the Xi-zero atomic particle 1959.
He had worked on the US atom bomb project for
two years, at Chicago and Los Alamos, New
Mexico, during World War II. He was awarded a
Nobel prize 1968. Alvarez was professor of
physics at the University of California from
1945 and an associate director of the
Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory
1954-59. In 1980 he was responsible for the
theory (not generally accepted) that
dinosaurs disappeared because a meteorite
crashed into Earth 70 million years ago,
producing a dust cloud that blocked out the
sun for several years, and causing dinosaurs
and plants to die.