Kenneth W. Ford of Gwynedd, Pennsylvania died on December 5, 2025, at the age of 99.

He was a well-known theoretical physicist, executive, teacher, and award-winning writer. He served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) from 1987 to 1993. He earlier served as President of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (New Mexico Tech) from 1975 to 1982. He worked on Project Matterhorn from 1950 to 1952 to build the Hydrogen Bomb and was likely the last living scientist on the core team of that project.

Ford is the author of 11 books. The World of Elementary Particles (1963) won a science writing prize in Italy. Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics (1998), written with John Archibald Wheeler, won the 1999 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Prize.
He also wrote the textbooks Basic Physics (1968) and the three-volume Classical and Modern Physics (1972–74). His other books include The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone (2004), In Love With Flying (2007), 101 Quantum Questions: What You Need to Know About the World You Can’t See (2011), Building the H Bomb: A Personal History (2015), and The First 95 Years (2021).

Ford received the Oersted Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) in 2006. The Oersted Medal is the most distinguished award given by AAPT and is awarded for notable contribution to the teaching of physics. Ford earlier received a Distinguished Service Citation from AAPT in 1976.

Ford’s principal research was in the theory of nuclear structure, with some work in particle and mathematical physics. He exploited the nuclear shell model and the collective, or unified, model, and also worked extensively on muonic atoms. His most cited paper is “Semiclasslcal Description of Scattering,” which he co-wrote with noted physicist John Wheeler. This paper has been cited in 586 other publications.

His first paper, co-authored with David Bohm in 1950, used data from low-energy neutron scattering to give evidence for the transparency of nuclei to neutrons. A 1953 paper showed how regularities in the energies of the first excited states of even-even nuclei can be interpreted in terms of the deformations of these nuclei. Later papers analyzed muonic-atom data to give evidence on the distribution of electric charge within nuclei.

Ford played a key role in the development of the hydrogen bomb with his work on the first calculations that showed the bomb could be successful. This work convinced Robert Oppenheimer that a hydrogen bomb could be developed.

In the summer of 1968, influenced by his opposition to the Vietnam War, Ford announced that he would no longer do weapons work or other secret work.

As the CEO of AIP from 1987 to 1993, Ford conducted successful negotiations to retain the Russian translation program during a time of upheaval in the Soviet Union. He also shepherded AIP’s move from New York City to College Park, Maryland.

As President of New Mexico Tech from 1975 to 1982, Ford oversaw tremendous growth in enrollment, budget, and new construction. His crowning achievement was the construction of the Macey Center, which has become the leading site for performing arts in the community of Socorro, New Mexico.

Ford was born on May 1, 1926 in West Palm Beach, Florida to parents Paul Hammond Ford (1892-1960) and Edith Timblin Ford (1892-1992) and was the second of their three children. Ford spent most of his childhood in Kentucky, living one year in Georgia when he was eight and nine. He graduated as valedictorian from Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1944. He then served in the United States Navy for two years while taking college classes. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1948 and received his Ph.D. in Physics from Princeton in 1953.

Ford took a post-doctoral research appointment at Indiana University in 1953. In 1958, Ford became a professor at Brandeis University. In 1964 he was recruited by the soon-to-open new campus of the University of California at Irvine (UCI) as its first physics chair. One of his achievements at UCI was recruiting Fred Reines to work in the physics department. Reines later won a Nobel Prize.

From 1970 to 1975, Ford worked as a professor at University of Massachusetts in Boston. He then served as President of New Mexico Tech until 1982, and then as Executive Vice President of the University of Maryland until 1983. He worked as President of the startup biotech company Molecular Biophysics Technology from 1983 to 1986 and was CEO of AIP from 1987 until his retirement in 1993.

He later taught high-school physics at Germantown Academy (1995 to 98) and at Germantown Friends School (2000 to 2001). In addition, he did consulting work for the Packard Foundation.
While in the final stages of writing his book Building the H Bomb: A Personal History in 2014, Ford was asked by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to excise approximately ten percent of his manuscript because of concern that it had the potential to reveal decades-old government classified information. Ford made minimal edits to the book because the information DOE wanted excised was already publicly available. He went ahead with publishing it in 2015, putting himself at risk of prosecution, but no action was taken by the DOE.

Ford married Karin Stehnike in 1953. They divorced in 1961. Ford was married to Joanne Baumunk Ford from 1962 until her death in 2022. Ken is survived by his sister Nancy Ford Bunzli of Minneapolis and by his seven children: Paul Ford (Wendy White) of Chicago; Sarah Ford (Nick Monroe) of Sonoma, CA; Nina Tannenwald of Providence, RI; Caroline Richards (Keith) of New Holstein, WI; Adam Ford of Wallingford, VT; Jason Ford (Abby) of Rockville, MD; and Star Ford (Crystal) of Las Vegas, NM; 13 grandchildren: Charlie, Thomas, Nate, Jasper, Colin, Hannah, Sky, Daniel, Casey, Toby, Isaiah, Nikolai, and Steven; and one great-grandson, Louis.

Ford had over fifty years of experience piloting small planes and gliders. He received a Diamond Badge for his achievements in gliding. Ford also enjoyed Scrabble, Wordle, folk dancing, playing recorder, and spending time with family.

The Memorial Service will be January 24th from 2 to 4 pm, at the Foulkeways retirement community at 1120 Meetinghouse Road in Gwynedd Pennsylvania.