He was born in
Buffalo, New York, and attended the
University of Chicago. After completing his graduate studies at the university he joined the Manhattan Project and became the assistant director of the metallurgical laboratory. He then accepted a position with the War Department General Staff as a scientific advisor on atomic energy. When the research and development board was formed, Doctor Lapp became executive director of its committee on atomic energy. After this he acted as head of the Nuclear Physics branch of the
Office of Naval Research. He wrote
Nuclear Radiation Biology,
A Nuclear Reference Manual,
Must We Hide?, and assisted Doctor H.L. Andrews from the
National Institute of Health in writing
Nuclear Radiation Physics. He became an activist later in life and wrote a book,
Victims of the Super Bomb (1957). In his book
The New Priesthood: The Scientific Elite and the Uses of Power, Lapp describes the increase in funding for science and the growing influence of scientists in American politics after the invention of the atomic bomb. Lapp was interviewed by
Mike Wallace in 1957. In December 1971, he wrote a syndicated newspaper article titled "Problems in nuclear plumbing", discussing the threat of the "
China Syndrome". He died on September 7, 2004. ==Works==