José Antonio Balseiro

Who was José Antonio Balseiro?

José Antonio Balseiro was an Argentine physicist.

Balseiro studied at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in his home city, before moving to La Plata to study and research, obtaining a doctorate in physics at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. His doctoral dissertation was directed by Dr. Guido Beck, an Austrian physicist who arrived as a refugee in 1943. In 1950 he received a scholarship granted by the British Council. Due to the limited funds provided by the scholarship, his wife and daughter remained in Argentina. Balseiro did his post-doctoral research at the University of Manchester, in the group directed by Léon Rosenfeld.

The Argentine government requested that he return to Argentina in 1952, a few months before the expiration of his scholarship, to serve in the scientific review panel of the Huemul Project, a study on nuclear fusion conducted by Ronald Richter. Balseiro's report and those of other members of the panel finally convinced the government that the Huemul Project had no scientific merit. Based on this, and reports from a second review panel, the Huemul Project was abandoned.