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Hungarian-born American physicist who was prominent in efforts to launch the first
American satellite. Kaplan came to the United States from his native Tapolcza
in 1910, trained as a physicist at The Johns Hopkins University, and worked on
the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1928 until his retirement
in 1970. He directed the university’s Institute of Geophysics—later renamed
the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics—from the time of its creation
in 1944. From 1953 to 1963, Kaplan served as the chair of the United States National
Committee for the International Geophysical Year.
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