Reader in Thermodynamics and a Student of Christ Church. Because he was naturalised, until 1940 he was prevented from working on radar. Because he was also on the list of people targeted for retribution by the Nazis his wife and children took up an offer to spend the war in Canada. Simon remained behind in Oxford. In 1940 in collaboration with Nicholas Kurti and Heinrich Gerhard Kuhn, he was commissioned by the MAUD Committee to investigate the feasibility of separating uranium-235 by gaseous diffusion. He initially adapted his wife's wire kitchen strainer to assist in this work before commissioning a membrane from ICI containing 160,000 holes to the square inch. His resulting conclusions on the separation of uranium isotopes was transferred to the Manhattan Project and was the basis of the process that produced sufficient U235 to make the atomic bomb. He spent the latter part of the Second World War at Los Alamos, returning in 1945 to Oxford to continue his low temperature research. He became a professor at the University of Oxford and a Student of Christ Church, Oxford in 1945. Upon the retirement of Lord Cherwell he became Dr Lee's Professor of Experimental Philosophy and head of the Clarendon Laboratory in 1956, one month before his death from coronary disease. Personal life He married Charlotte Münchhausen in 1922. They had two daughters, Kathrin and Dorothee. Honours Fellow of the Royal Society, 1941 CBE, 1946 Rumford Medal of the Royal Society, 1948 Knighted, 1954 References Bibliography External links Annotated bibliography for Francis Simon from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues Blue plaque to Samuelson at his north Oxford home Weintraub, B. Francis Simon. The Israel Chemist and Chemical Engineer, August 2018. 1893 births 1956 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of Christ Church, Oxford Jewish scientists Knights Bachelor Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 20th-century British physicists 20th-century German physicists Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914), 1st class Dr Lee's Professors of Experimental Philosophy Jewish physicists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Fellows of the American Physical Society