Stanisław Ulam

Badge of Ulam's identity of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Stanisław Marcin Ulam (April 13, 1909 – May 13, 1984) was a Polish mathematician who took part in the Manhattan Project and proposed the design used for most thermonuclear weapons.

He also proposed using nuclear explosions to propel rockets, and he developed several mathematical tools in number theory, set theory, ergodic theory and algebraic topology. Above all, he is known by being a coauthor (with Nicholas Metropolis) of the Monte Carlo algorithm.

Ulam was of Jewish descent.

Stanisław Ulam Media

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  The Scottish Café's building in Lviv, Ukraine now houses the Szkocka Restaurant & Bar (named for the original Scottish Café).

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  Ulam's ID badge photo from Los Alamos National Laboratory

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  Stan Ulam holding the FERMIAC

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  Ivy Mike, the first full test of the Teller–Ulam design (a staged fusion bomb), with a yield of 10.4 megatons on 1 November 1952

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  The Sausage device of Mike nuclear test (yield 10.4 Mt) on Enewetak Atoll. The test was part of the Operation Ivy. The Sausage was the first true H-Bomb ever tested, meaning the first thermonuclear device built upon the Teller-Ulam principles of staged radiation implosion.

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  An artist's conception of the NASA reference design for the Project Orion spacecraft powered by nuclear propulsion

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  When the positive integers are arrayed along the Ulam spiral, prime numbers, represented by dots, tend to collect along diagonal lines.

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  An animation demonstrating the lucky number sieve. The numbers in red are lucky numbers