Katharine "Kay" Way - nuclear scientist

Katharine "Kay" Way (February 20, 1902 – December 9, 1995) was one of the leading female physicists on the Manhattan Project, she did much of her work at the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) in Chicago analyzing neutron flux data as they attempted to create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. She is best known for the development of the Way-Wigner formula which calculates the beta decay rates of fission products. As a physicist, she spent much of her career working on the Nuclear Data Project, created to standardize the organization and sharing of nuclear data, and which grew out of her work in Chicago where she was collecting and analyzing enormous amounts of data. It was a suggestion she made that sparked the creation of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee in 1943.

Her childhood was interrupted by the death of her mother when she was 12. When her father remarried, her new step-mother was an otolaryngologist (an ear, nose and throat doctor), and you can imagine how this career woman influenced Kay's ideas of the possibilities for her own future. In 1920 she began studying at Vassar College, but she had to leave after two years because of illness (likely tuberculosis). After a lengthy recovery, she enrolled in Barnard College, but had to go slowly. She eventually began taking classes at Columbia University where she met Edward Kasner, a renown mathematician. Her fascination with mathematics led her to the study of physics, and she eventually graduated with her bachelor's in 1932.

She earned her Ph.D. in physics at the University of North Carolina, where she focused her attention on nuclear physics -- the field she would dedicate her life to. Thinking she'd find a career as a professor teaching classes and working in the lab, she accepted a position at the University of Tennessee in 1939. But once it became clear the US was headed to war, she looked for ways to become involved. When she heard about the work being done with the Manhattan Project out of Chicago (the same project Leona Woods was involved in), she called her old UNC professor and convinced him to hire her. She performed critical analysis of the deluge of data coming in from early nuclear reactor designs, to help determine whether it would be possible to create a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Her calculations were used to build Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor ever built. It set the foundation for the work of other scientists at Los Alamos building the first atomic bomb.

When many of the nuclear scientists involved in the Met Lab project realized the implications of their work being used to build atomic weapons, they took an important, but ultimately unsuccessful stand by signing the Szilard Petition of July 17, 1945, which was sent to President Truman and the Secretary of War, calling for them to reconsider the use of the atomic bomb against the people of Japan. As a response to the bombings, in 1946 many of these same scientists wrote important essays highlighting their concerns about nuclear weapons, which were gathered in a book she co-edited, One World or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb.

Her activism wasn't limited to anti-nuclear writings. She was a strong advocate for bringing the work of these important scientists to universities in the Southeast, likely influenced by her time teaching at the University of Tennessee before the war. In 1943, as a direct response to a comment she made about ensuring students and faculty at these institutions had access to the researching being done at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Because of her suggestion, the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies (ORINS), now known as Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), opened up research opportunities and has been a major influence on the development of science and technology in the Southeast.

After the war, she took a position at the National Bureau of Standards (where Chien-Shiung Wu and Charlotte Moore Sitterly, two other important women in physics were also working in their respective fields). By 1953, there was a massive amount of data about nuclear physics being recorded, but it was nearly impossible for scientists to tap into what they needed. During her years of analyzing large amounts of raw information while working in Chicago, she had come up with methods for collating and sorting incoming data in order to find what she needed. From this, she created the Nuclear Data Project (NDP) in 1953 as a way to organize and share this information in sheets and tables making it easy to cross reference, setting the standard for how data is gathered, evaluated and presented in the field of nuclear physics.

For more reading:

"Historically Speaking: Katherine Way and her influence on Oak Ridge"

Atomic Heritage Foundation biography: "Katharine Way"

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