Ellen G Zweibel nasonline.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nasonline.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Peter Oliver Vandervoort, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago who kept alive the memory of the Manhattan Project and a generation of famous scientists, died on Dec. 11 at the age of 85.Â
Vandervoort was born in Detroit on April 25, 1935. His father joined the military shortly after he was born, and he grew up an Army brat, having attended 15 different schools by the time he was 15 years old, including a two-year spell in post-war Germany.Â
After his fatherâs failed stint as a car salesman in Minerva, Ohio, the family moved to Chicago. Vandervoort was set to attend South Shore High School, but an old math teacher from Minerva encouraged him to apply to the U. of C.âs early admissions program under then-President Robert Maynard Hutchins, which allowed students to attend the university at the age of 16.Â