Ernest Lawrence
Ernest Orlando Lawrence (
August 8,
1901 â€"
August 27,
1958) was an
American physicist and Nobel Laureate best known for his invention, utilization, and improvement of the
cyclotron beginning in 1929, and his later work in uranium-isotope separation in the
Manhattan Project. He had a long-term association with the
University of California as a physics professor. In 1939, Lawrence was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the cyclotron and its applications. Chemical element number 103 is named "
lawrencium" in his honor.
Born in
Canton, South Dakota, Lawrence attended
St. Olaf College in
Minnesota, but transferred to the
University of South Dakota after his first year. He earned his bachelor's degree in
1922. He received his Ph.D. in physics at
Yale University in
1925. He remained at Yale as a researcher on the
photoelectric effect, becoming an assistant professor in
1927.
In
1928 he was appointed Associate Professor of Physics at the
University of California, Berkeley, and two years later he became Professor, being the youngest at Berkeley. There, he became called the "Atom Smasher," and the man who "held the key" to atomic energy. "He wanted to do 'big physics,' the kind of work that could only be done on a large scale with a lot of people involved," said
Herbert York, the first director of the Lawrence Livermore laboratory, as quoted on the lab's official Web site.
The invention that brought Lawrence to international fame started out as a sketch on a scrap of paper. While sitting in the library one evening, Lawrence glanced over a journal article and was intrigued by one of the diagrams. The idea was to produce very high energy particles required for atomic disintegration by means of a succession of very small "pushes." Lawrence told his colleagues that he had found a method for obtaining particles of very high energy without the use of any high voltage.
|
Diagram of cyclotron operation from Lawrence's 1934 patent. |
The first model of Lawrence's
cyclotron was made out of wire and sealing wax and probably cost $25 in all. And it worked: When Lawrence applied 2,000 volts of electricity to his makeshift cyclotron, he got 80,000-volt projectiles spinning around. Through his increasingly larger machines, Lawrence was able to provide the crucial equipment needed for experiments in high energy physics. Around this device, Lawrence built up his
Radiation Laboratory, which would become one of the foremost laboratories for physics research. He received a
patent for the cyclotron in 1934, which he assigned to the
Research Corporation. In
1936 he became Director of the University's Radiation Laboratory and served until his death.
In November
1939, Lawrence was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the cyclotron and its applications. The award ceremony was held in
Berkeley, California due to the
war, with Lawrence receiving his medal from the
Sweden's
Consul General in
San Francisco.
 |
Giant calutron plants developed at Lawrence's laboratory were used at Site X during World War II to purify uranium for use in the first atomic bomb. |
During
World War II, Lawrence eagerly helped to ramp up the American investigation of the possibility of weapon by atomic
fission. His Rad Lab became one of the major centers for wartime atomic research, and it was Lawrence who first introduced
J. Robert Oppenheimer into what would become the
Manhattan Project. An early champion of the electromagnetic separation method to enrich
uranium, Lawrence manufactured his
calutrons — specialized forms of
mass spectrometers — for the massive separation plants at
Oak Ridge,
Tennessee.
After the war, Lawrence campaigned extensively for government sponsorship of large scientific programs. Lawrence was a forceful advocate of "
Big Science" with its requirements for big machines and big money.
In July
1958,
President Eisenhower sent Lawrence to
Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate the suspension of nuclear weapons testing with the
Soviet Union. Lawrence became ill while in Geneva and was forced to return to Berkeley. He died a month later in
Palo Alto, California.
Just 23 days after his death, the
Regents of the University of California voted to rename the
Lawrence Livermore and
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories after him. Chemical element number 103, discovered at LBNL in
1961, is named "
lawrencium" in his honor.
*
The American Institute of Physics History Center website on Ernest Lawrence* Lawrence Livermore Lab:
Biography*
Ernest Lawrence*
Lawrence and His Laboratory: A Historian's View of the Lawrence Years by the respected
historians of science J. L. Heilbron, Robert W. Seidel, and Bruce R. Wheaton.
*
Annotated bibliography of Ernest Lawrence from the Alsos Digital Library
