Walter Massey, ein Physiker mit einer höheren Berufung

Hi everyone! We wanted to share this story that published today on Dr. Walter Massey.

The day before Walter Massey turned 30, in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on a hotel balcony in Memphis. Dr. Massey, then a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, watched the funeral on television, in tears, from his apartment in Chicago. Outside, the west side of the city was burning. 

At the time, Dr. Massey was a rising star in the study of theoretical condensed matter, how liquids and solids behave. He wrangled equations to make sense of helium at low temperatures, adding to a bank of knowledge that has led to a better understanding of neutron stars, new strategies for detecting dark matter and the development of quantum technologies. In his most noteworthy calculation, he corrected a longstanding theory of superfluid helium established by Lev Landau, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics.

Dr. Massey established a formidable track record while simultaneously breaking barriers as the first Black physicist in nearly every role he assumed. He navigated Argonne — the first national laboratory in the U.S., birthed from the development of the atomic bomb — through political doubts about nuclear power. At the National Science Foundation, he secured millions of dollars from Congress to fund what some had believed was a long-shot attempt at finding ripples in the fabric of space-time. Three researchers who announced that discovery in 2016 were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics the next year.

He broke barriers as the first Black physicist in nearly every role. But his identity made him reach for dreams beyond his career as a scientist. Read his story [here](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/science/physics-massey-black.html?unlocked_article_code=1.d00.lVyh.S-N_Fr2gbdyd), for free, without a subscription to The New York Times.