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Hugh Bradner
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Bradner was born in Tonopah, Nevada, on November 5, 1915, but he was raised in Findlay, Ohio. His father, Donal Byal Bradner, was briefly director of the Chemical Warfare Service at Maryland's Edgewood Arsenal. Bradner graduated from Ohio's Miami University in 1936 and later received his doctorate from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, in 1941.
owing his doctorate from California Institute of Technology, Bradner worked at the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory where he researched naval mines from 1941 until 1943.
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Early life
Hugh Bradner was born in Tonopah, Nevada, on November 5, 1915, but he was raised in Findlay, Ohio. His father, Donal Byal Bradner, was briefly director of the Chemical Warfare Service at Maryland's Edgewood Arsenal. Bradner graduated from Ohio's Miami University in 1936 and later received his doctorate from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, in 1941.
Manhattan Project
Following his doctorate from California Institute of Technology, Bradner worked at the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory where he researched naval mines from 1941 until 1943. He was recruited by J. Robert Oppenheimer to join the Manhattan Project in 1943 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which helped to develop the first atomic bomb. Bradner helped to develop a wide range of technology needed for the bomb, including research on the high explosives needed to implode the atomic bomb, developed the bomb's triggering mechanism, and even helped design the new town around the laboratory. He worked closely with some of the most important American, British and Canadian scientists and mathematicians of the era including Luis Alvarez, John Von Neumann and George Kistiakowsky. Bradner witnessed the Trinity test, the first nuclear weapons test, at Los Alamos on July 16, 1945.
Bradner met his future wife, Marjorie Hall Bradner, who was also working as a secretary on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The couple were married at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1943. Security at the top secret facility was so tight that neither Bradner's nor Hall's parents were allowed to attend the ceremony, though Oppenheimer was among the wedding guests. The couple remained together for over 65 years until Marjorie Hall Bradner died on April 10, 2008 at the age of 89.
Wetsuit
Bradner took a position studying high-energy physics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1946 under Luis Alvarez, whom he had worked with at the Manhattan Project. He remained at the University until 1961. He worked on the 1951 atomic bombing test on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, which was part of the Operation Greenhouse nuclear test series.
Bradner's job at UC Berkeley required him to do a number of underwater dives. He had previously talked to United States Navy frogmen during World War II concerning the problems of staying in cold water for long periods of time, which causes the diver to lose large amounts of body heat quickly. He began experimenting with neoprene, a rubbery substance which he found "would trap the water between the body and the neoprene, and the water would heat up to body temperature and keep you warm," according to an interview with his daughter, Bari Cornet, a UC - Berkeley faculty member with the San Francisco Chronicle.
He worked on developing the new suit in the basement of his family's home on Scenic Avenue in Berkeley, California. He further researched the new wetsuit for Naval swimmers at a conference in Coronado, California, in December 1951.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the wetsuit was invented in 1952. Bradner and other engineers founded the Engineering Development Company (EDCO) in order to develop the wetsuit. He and his colleagues tested several versions and prototypes of the wetsuit at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. Scripps scientist and engineer Willard Bascom advised Bradner to use neoprene for the suit material, which proved successful.
Bradner applied for a U.S. patent for the wetsuit, but his patent application was turned down due to its similar design with the flight suit. The United States Navy also did not adopt the new wetsuits because of worries that the neoprene in the wetsuits might make its swimmers easier to spot by underwater sonar and, thus, could not exclusively profit from his invention.
Bradner and his company, EDCO, tried to sell his wetsuits in the consumer market. However, he failed to successfully penetrate the wetsuit market the way others have done - including Bob Meistrell and Bill Meistrell, the founders of Body Glove, and Jack O’Neill. Various claims have been made over the years that it was the O'Neill or the Meistrell brothers who actually invented the wetsuit instead of Bradner. However, recent research into over 50 years of paperwork have proven that it was Bradner who created the original wetsuit, not his close competitors. In 2005, the Los Angeles Times research confirmed Bradner to be the "father of the wetsuit." A research paper published by Carolyn Rainey in 1998 at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography also provided corroborating evidence that it was Bradner who created the first wetsuit.
Later career and life
Bradner joined the Scripps Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics as a geophysicist in 1961.
He became a full professor in 1963 and retired in 1980. He remained interested in oceanography, scuba diving, seashell collecting and the outdoors throughout his later years, and continued to work both on oceanographic research, as well as on the DUMAND deep ocean neutrino astronomy project, which combined his two careers in physics and oceanography.
Hugh Bradner died at the age of 92 at his home in San Diego, California, on May 5, 2008, from complications of pneumonia. He was survived by his daughter, three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
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