Memorial Tributes Volume 14 (2011) / Chapter Skim
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JOSEPH E. BURKE
JOSEPH E. BURKE
Pages 12-19
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From page 13... ...
He lived his early years in Canada and was a 1938 graduate of McMaster University. He received his doctorate in ceramic science from Cornell University and worked for the International Nickel Company and the Norton Company until being handpicked in 1943 to join the world-famous Oppenheimer-led Manhattan Project team at Los Alamos.
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From page 14... ...
Hans Bethe in securing a prized Los Alamos apartment just in time for an addition to the Burke family. This was while Joe's reputation for expertise in the development and processing of uranium-based ceramic materials was growing rapidly and steadily among members of the Los Alamos Manhattan Project's technical community.)
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From page 15... ...
At KAPL Joe was responsible for directing a remarkably successful group of metallurgical and ceramic scientists, but subsequently -- after the arrival of a new KAPL director, famous for his insistence on "real engineering" as opposed to "non-pertinent" science -- Joe and several other new and longtime associates at KAPL were convinced in 1954 to "move up the hill" to Niskayuna, New York, to what by then was the General Electric Research and Development Laboratory -- and is now GE's Global Research Center. Joe soon formed a new group to develop "advanced ceramics." His research teams made many fundamental contributions to the understanding of this new class of materials; observed and interpreted the microstructure of ceramics on polished surfaces; and invented "Lucalox," a porefree alumina, making possible the high-pressure sodium lamps that now dominate much of the world's lighting products.
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From page 16... ...
Dr. Schmitt promptly demonstrated the sense of humor that proved so useful in his subsequent position as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
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From page 17... ...
And if you did that, then maybe -- just maybe -- you would have the material the GE Lamp Division needed for a whole new line of remarkable electric lamps.'" Also heard during the evening: "We can't guarantee that Joe used those exact words -- but within three years, that's exactly what happened. A young scientist Joe hired from MIT, Bob Coble, went to work and discovered procedures that, for the first time, resulted in optical-grade polycrystalline alumina.
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From page 18... ...
Burke, by his gentle, likeable, and modest nature, would never have approved of any efforts by friends to describe themselves as members of "the greatest generation." But his co-workers, cognizant of his truly remarkable career -- from key contributions at Los Alamos leading to the end of World War II, to his return to teaching at the University of
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From page 19... ...
Joe's survivors include his second wife, Marjorie Ridgway Burke, of Eskaton Village in Carmichael, California; his son Charles Robert Burke of Concord, Massachusetts; his daughter Margaret ("Molly") Burke VanDecar of Guilderland, New York; and four grandchildren.
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