Olivia instead helps her focus her powers on Harris, who is quickly incinerated. William Bell William Bell (portrayed by Leonard Nimoy) is the founder of Massive Dynamic and the former lab partner and friend of Walter. William is mentioned throughout season one, showing several ties with Walter's past and the study of the parallel dimension, including participating in the Cortexiphan trials. Sometime after Walter brought Peter from the parallel universe, William convinced Walter to allow him to remove pieces of Walter's brain and implant them in other patients to keep the knowledge of dimensional travel safe; this process led to Walter's mental instability and institutionalization. The two parted ways, William going on to form Massive Dynamic. Sometime after founding Massive Dynamic, William finds a means to travel to the parallel dimension, and sets up an office in the still-standing World Trade Center. Though he travels back and forth several times, William finds his body has become unstable and remains in the parallel dimension, still communicating with Nina whom he left in charge of Massive Dynamic. During the first season, Walter discovers that William wrote the ZFT manifesto, which is the base for the ZFT members' actions (to prepare for war against the parallel dimension, by doing experiments of all sorts of weapons – chemical, biological, or even human). In his first screen appearance, William brings Olivia across in the season 1 finale to warn her about the oncoming storm between universes and the identity of the shapeshifter Newton. In the second-season finale, he helps Walter and Olivia to evade capture in the parallel universe, and then assists Walter in preparing equipment for them to return to the prime universe; William and Walter reestablish their friendship when William reminds Walter why he had removed the brain pieces. When Olivia returns with Peter, Bell is unable to cross over again, as his atoms would split apart and no trace of him would remain in either universe. Because of this, he sacrifices himself to provide the means for Walter, Peter, and Olivia (in actuality, the alternate Olivia) to return to the prime universe. With William now dead in both universes, Walter discovers at the start of Season 3 that William left the whole of Massive Dynamic to him in his will. As explained by William at the end of Season 2, the alternate version of William was killed as a young man in