By Martin Weil
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Hugh Bradner, 92, a physicist and oceanographer who was known for blending his research with a sense of fun and adventure and was widely credited with inventing the protective wet suit worn by divers, surfers and cold-water swimmers, died of pneumonia May 5 at his home in San Diego.
Dr. Bradner contributed to the development of nuclear weapons and was part of a small group of scientists selected by J. Robert Oppenheimer to set up the Los Alamos atom bomb laboratory in New Mexico.
He had a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology and studied not only the constituents of the atom but also the floor of the ocean, doing both with a characteristic zest and adventurousness.
"He had more dimensions than just a scientist," said his daughter, Bari Cornet. "He was truly a teacher," a man driven by intellectual curiosity, who found joy in getting friends, family and students to turn scientific inquiry into fun.
Competing claims as to who invented the wet suit have been entered on behalf of several people. A variety of published accounts make strong claims for Dr. Bradner, although his assertions on his own behalf appear modest and self-effacing.
One account, published last year on the Surfpulse Web site, addresses itself to the task of finding the father of the suit. Written by veteran surfer Mike Wallace, the online account describes a major chapter in the quest as "a tale of one unsung hero, a patriotic and humble university physicist, Hugh Bradner."
It was Bradner, according to the account, who "first solved the riddle of keeping mankind both wet and warm in the ocean."
Others followed, Wallace wrote, and commercialized the suit, and he described them also as pioneers who nurtured the market.
As its name implies, the neoprene wet suit, which Dr. Bradner developed to aid U.S. Navy frogmen, permits its wearer to get wet. Water seeps beneath the wetsuit and absorbs some heat from the wearer's body. But the insulating properties of the suit, which stem from gas bubbles trapped in the neoprene, prevent that small amount of lost heat from escaping. Thus any loss of body heat is held to a minimum.
The wet suit, which is traced to Dr. Bradner's early efforts in 1951, offered great advantages over its predecessor, the so-called dry suit. That garment involved woolen underwear beneath a rubberized layer. The inevitable seepage of water into the wool destroyed the insulating properties of the underwear. Heat would flow steadily out of the body, into and through the wet wool, on through the rubber and out into the water.
A letter from Dr. Bradner, published online, provides strong evidence of an interest in making a contribution rather than seeking patents or fiscal reward.
"I specifically wish to avoid any profit to myself," he wrote in 1952 to a Navy officer about wet suit development. "I don't want to compromise my position of unbiased consultation on swimmers' problems."
He was a "very outdoors person," his daughter said, and, living in California, "the ocean is there and always beckoning," she said. The University of California at San Diego described him as a sailor and diver who was one of the first Americans to make a deep-water scuba dive.
Dr. Bradner was born Nov. 5, 1915, in Tonopah, Nev., where his father was a chemist who worked for mining interests. The family later moved east, and he graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Earlier, however, a pivotal event occurred in his life, according to the Surfpulse account, which credits Bradner family lore. At the age of 3, Dr. Bradner was dropped from a pier to sink or swim. He swam, and as time went on became sufficiently at home in water to coach swimming and water polo at Caltech.
After his Manhattan Project days, Dr. Bradner taught physics and did research at the University of California at Berkeley, leaving in 1961 for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.
He met his future wife, Marjorie Hall Bradner, when she was Oppenheimer's secretary at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer gave her away at their wedding. She died 25 days before he did. She was 89, their daughter said, and the two of them had "a very good marriage" and shared a life of many adventures.
In addition to their daughter, survivors include three grandchildren.
Dr. Bradner's "neoprene wet suit was a tremendous contribution to scientific diving," said James Stewart, professor emeritus at Scripps, according to UCSD's report of his death. "He was a great guy and a lot of fun to work with."
