Victor Francis Hess was an Austrian-American physicist who won the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of cosmic radiation. Born in late nineteenth century Austria, he graduated from the University of Graz and started his career at Institute of Radium Research of the Viennese Academy of Sciences. While working there in 1913, he discovered that atmospheric ionization was caused, not by the earth as was believed at that time, but by a highly penetrating ray that originated in the outer space. Unfortunately, at that time, there were few takers of the theory outside the University of Vienna and it was not until 1925 that his theory was corroborated and the ray was named as ‘cosmic ray’. He received Nobel Prize in Physics for this invention even later. Nonetheless, he kept on teaching at different Austrian universities and once Austria was occupied by Germany, Hess fled to USA. There too he kept on his research work and contributed significantly in the field of radioactivity. He was strongly opposed to nuclear test because he believed that very little was known about radioactivity to say for sure such tests, even if carried underground, would have no impact on the surface.