Outstanding Latino you need to know, but may not have heard about

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Luis Walter Alvarez is the first U.S. Latino to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. He was awarded the distinction “for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis.”

I don’t have a clue what that means, but he is also responsible for a number of very cool ideas and inventions: He devised the aviation radar that was used during the WWII Berlin airlift; he invented a system that was used to look for hidden chambers in the pyramid of Khafre, in Giza (they found none); and he analyzed the Kennedy assassination Zapruder film and determined that Kennedy’s head back-snap was consistent with being shot from behind. He held 9 patents, among them a golf training device.

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He was born in San Francisco in 1911 and died in 1988.