PHYSICIST

Klaus Fuchs

1911 - 1988

Photo of Klaus Fuchs

Icon of person Klaus Fuchs

Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly after World War II. While at the Los Alamos Laboratory, Fuchs was responsible for many significant theoretical calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons and, later, early models of the hydrogen bomb. After his conviction in 1950, he served nine years in prison in the United Kingdom, then migrated to East Germany where he resumed his career as a physicist and scientific leader. The son of a Lutheran pastor, Fuchs attended the University of Leipzig, where his father was a professor of theology, and became involved in student politics, joining the student branch of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, an SPD-allied paramilitary organisation. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Klaus Fuchs has received more than 3,501,929 page views. His biography is available in 39 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 37 in 2019). Klaus Fuchs is the 160th most popular physicist (up from 255th in 2019), the 536th most popular biography from Germany (up from 1,031st in 2019) and the 27th most popular German Physicist.

Klaus Fuchs was a German physicist who was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union in the 1940s. He was a member of the British team that worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. He was arrested in 1950 and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.5M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 65.87

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 39

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 4.66

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.88

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Klaus Fuchs ranks 160 out of 851. Before him are Maurice Wilkins, Arthur Compton, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Hugh Everett III, Henry Moseley, and Nicolaas Bloembergen. After him are Benoît Paul Émile Clapeyron, Louis Néel, Yang Chen-Ning, Kai Siegbahn, Zhores Alferov, and Igor Kurchatov.

Most Popular Physicists in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1911, Klaus Fuchs ranks 23. Before him are Jack Ruby, Melvin Calvin, Lê Đức Thọ, Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld, Robert Johnson, and Tennessee Williams. After him are Maurice Allais, Wilhelm Mohnke, Polykarp Kusch, Joseph Barbera, Jean Harlow, and Jules Dassin. Among people deceased in 1988, Klaus Fuchs ranks 13. Before him are Isidor Isaac Rabi, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Robert A. Heinlein, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chet Baker, and Roy Orbison. After him are Nikolaas Tinbergen, Trevor Howard, André Frédéric Cournand, Juan Pujol García, Abdul Basit 'Abd us-Samad, and Raymond Carver.

Others Born in 1911

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Others Deceased in 1988

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

In Germany

Among people born in Germany, Klaus Fuchs ranks 536 out of 7,253. Before him are Dieter Bohlen (1954), Friedrich Olbricht (1888), Gerhard Richter (1932), Wilhelm Burgdorf (1895), Maria Sophie of Bavaria (1841), and Theodor Morell (1886). After him are Hugh of Saint Victor (1096), Jochen Rindt (1942), Adolf Galland (1912), Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774), Rudi Völler (1960), and Philipp Scheidemann (1865).

Others born in Germany

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Among PHYSICISTS In Germany

Among physicists born in Germany, Klaus Fuchs ranks 27. Before him are Walther Bothe (1891), Rudolf Mössbauer (1929), George Paget Thomson (1892), Karl Schwarzschild (1873), Hans Geiger (1882), and Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742). After him are Gerd Binnig (1947), Hans Georg Dehmelt (1922), Polykarp Kusch (1911), Gustav Ludwig Hertz (1887), Wolfgang Paul (1913), and Herbert Kroemer (1928).

German born Physicists

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous