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Ronald Richter

Ronald Richter (1909-1991) was an Austrian, later Argentinian, scientist who became famous in connection with the Huemul Project and the National Atomic Energy Commission. This was intended to generate energy from nuclear fusion in the 1950s in Argentina, during the regime of Juan Perón. Richter's project would deliver — according to Perón's 1951 announcements — cheap energy in containers of two sizes: half liter and one liter, not unlike the milk bottles then in use.[1]

Nationality

Of German origin, Richter was born in Falkenau an der Eger during the Austrian rule of the Czech Sudetenland (now the Czech Republic). In Czech, the locality was known until 1948 as Falknov nad Ohří; it was then renamed Sokolov.

Different sources attribute to Richter either Austrian or German nationality. Eventually he was naturalized Argentine. This last nationality was acquired when President Juan Perón overrode Argentine law (Gambini, 1999, v.1, p.397).

Studies

Richter attended the German University of Prague. Different sources provide variant narratives about his studies as a doctoral candidate.

According to Gambini (1999, v.1, p.396), Richter was awarded a doctorate in natural sciences in 1955. [However, another source claims that he was not awarded a doctoral degree because he had misinterpreted his research results. He had concluded that he had discovered delta rays being emitted by the earth, but in fact he had been detecting X-rays scattered by the ground.

According to his recollection, Mayo (2004) had personally heard Richard Gans say:

Richter proposed a thesis, at the German University of Prague, to detect "delta rays" emitted from Earth. Professor Heinrich Rausch von Traubenberg did not agree with the project. The "young genius" went to work somewhere else and graduated in a different field.

Kurt Sitte's recollections of Richter's research under Prof. Furth differed. He recalls (Mariscotti, 1985, p.277-8):

...when I was Prof. Furth's assistant in the Department of Experimental Physics [of Prague University], [Richter] came to interest us in a fantastic project. He had read (not in a scientific journal, of course) about the discovery of a mysterious radiation, the "earth rays", that radiated from the interior of the Earth and caused a huge type of fabulous effects. These were what he wanted to research. He was very excited with the idea, and it was very difficult ot convince him (if we really did) that the "evidence" cited was spurious. His thesis was not published (Mariscotti, 1985, p.208, quoting Alemann, 1955)

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