Fritz Zwicky 1898-1972 was a
Swiss astronomer and
physicist who is most often
cited for the work he did on
super novae, although he also worked on solid state
physics,
gaseous ionisation,
thermodynamics, and
cosmic rays.
His work on extra-
galactic supernovae also led him to work on the phenomena of
gravitional lensing; he showed that some of the mass of the galaxies he looked at must be
invisible, so called
dark matter.
He was an
eccentric character and in the 1930's and 40's some of his colleagues regarded him as an 'irritating buffoon' Zwicky himself used to call people '
spherical bastards'; they were bastards every way he looked at them.
He was also
director of research at the Aerojet Engineering Corporation, Azusa,
California during the later half of
WWII and worked on some of the earliest
jet engines and
JATO engines.