Arthur Jeffrey Dempster

Dempster's 180 degree magnetic sector mass analyzer.

Dempster was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Toronto in 1909 and 1910, respectively. He travelled to study in Germany, and then left at the outset of World War I for the United States; there he received his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago.

Dempster joined the physics faculty at the University of Chicago in 1916 and remained there until his death in 1950.

During World War II he worked on the secret Manhattan Project to develop the world's first nuclear weapons.

Dempster was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1932 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1937.[2][3]

From 1943 to 1946, Dempster was chief physicist of the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory or "Met Lab" which integrally related to the Manhattan Project and founded to study the materials necessary for the manufacture of atomic bombs.

In 1946, he took a position as a division director at the Argonne National Laboratory.

Dempster died on March 11, 1950, in Stuart, Florida, at the age of 63.

In 1918, Dempster developed the first modern mass spectrometer, a scientific apparatus allowing physicists to identify compounds by the mass of elements in a sample, and determine the isotopic composition of elements in a sample.[4] Dempster's mass spectrometer was over 100 times more accurate than previous versions, and established the basic theory and design of mass spectrometers that is still used to this day. Dempster's research over his career centered on the mass spectrometer and its applications, leading in 1935 to his discovery of the uranium isotope ²³⁵U.[5][6] This isotope's ability to cause a rapidly expanding fission nuclear chain reaction allowed the development of the atom bomb and nuclear power. Dempster was also well known as an authority on positive rays.