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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Ernest C. Anderson

Research Assistant/ChemistChicago, IL

Los Alamos, NM
Manhattan Project VeteranProject Worker/Staff
Ernest Anderson

Ernest Anderson (1920-2013) was an American physical chemist. Anderson was born on August 23, 1920 in Rock Island, Illinois. He worked on the Manhattan Project as a research assistant at the University of Chicago and Los Alamos.

After the war, Anderson worked as a graduate student assistant to Willard Libby. He played an integral role in Libby’s experiment on radioactive decay in Carbon-14. Through these experiments, they established the principles of radiocarbon dating. The development of radiocarbon dating allowed archaeologists to estimate the dates of artifacts that were impossible to date previously. 

Anderson died on May 20, 2013 in San Diego, California. 

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