Wetsuit inventor Hugh Bradner, 92
Posted: Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 8:14 amNovember 5, 1915 - May 5, 2008
Physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and invented the neoprene wetsuit
Neither time nor tide has eroded the debate around who invented the wetsuit — since the mid-1950s, when the neoprene outfits became common among divers, argument has raged over who was the originator. However, Hugh Bradner, a physicist who worked on atomic bomb testing in the Pacific, has the strongest claim to the title.
Hugh Bradner was born in 1915, in Tonopah, Nevada. His father, Donal Byal Bradner, was briefly director of the Chemical Warfare Service at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland and in 1918 taught his son to swim by throwing him into the Gunpowder River. Bradner graduated from Miami University in 1936 and received a PhD in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1941. … Read full obituary
