Eugene Wigner
Topic under construction by Courtney Branson 12/1/15
Eugene Wigner was a Hungarian American born in Austria-Hungary in 1902. He recieved part of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics due to his work with the theory of the atomic nucleus. He worked with such greats as Albert EInstein, Leo Szilard, and Franklin D. Roosevelt to prepare the United States for the Manhattan Project, a project to build an atomic bomb during World War II.
Personal Life
Early Life
Born in 1902, Wigner had two sisters, Bertha and Margit. He was the son of Elisabeth and Anthony Wigner. He was 9 years old when he became interested in mathematics, which only grew from then. He studied chemical engineering at Technische Hochschule in Berlin, where he met physicist Leo Szilard who then became friends. From then, he accepted jobs working on a variety of projects involving x-ray crystallography and quantum mechanics which started his most notable works.
Family Life
Eugene Wigner married twice. His first wife, Amelia Frank, died unexpectedly in 1937. He later remarried to Mary Annette Wheeler, a physics professor at Vassar College in 1941. They had two children, David and Martha, before she died in 1977. He married again two years later to Eileen Clare-Patton Hamilton and they had one daughter, Erika. Eugene died of pneumonia in 1995.
Scientific Significance
Wigner's work with quantum mechanics lead to the formation of group theory in quantum mechanics. In Group Theory and Its Application to the Quantum Mechanics of Atomic Spectra Wigner described his own theory of symmetry in quantum mechanics, which helped to form the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. He then extended his research to apply it to atomic nuclei. He began to work with Princeton in the United States. In 1939, Eugene Wigner participated in a meeting with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein to write a letter, later called the Einstein-Szilard letter, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wigner, scared of Germany creating the first atomic bomb, helped form this letter that convinced the president to begin a project to start the Manhattan Project. In his later years, he turned away from laboratory research and turned philosophical, causing him to write The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences in 1960 which inspired people from a wide range of backgrounds such as computer science, molecular biology, data mining, physics, mathematics, and economics. In 1963, Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles" (1).
Manhattan Project
Wigner led a team on this project tasked with designing the production nuclear reactors. These reactors had to convert uranium into plutonium. This would be the first reactor ever actually created. He used a graphite neutron moderator with water cooling. Ultimately, his idea was altered by DuPont, who added more load tubes for the uranium, which ultimately saved the project as neutron poisoning became a problem. Wigner's main contribution to the Manhattan Project became known as the Wigner effect. This is when there is a swelling of the graphite moderator and is caused by a displacement of atoms by neutron radiation. This caused major problems for the Manhattan Project, but was later controlled by annealing and controlling the heating of the reactor. Another important contribution from Wigner that came out of this project was the Wigner-Eisenbud R-matrix theory. This theory, published in 1947, described the appropriate general approach to nuclear reactions that could be used in years to come.
Awards
- Nobel Prize in Physics (1963)
- Franklin Medal (1950)
- Enrico Fermi Award (1958)
- Atoms for Peace Award (1959)
- Max Planck Medal (1961)
- National Medal of Science (1969)
- Albert Einstein Award (1972)
- Wigner medal (1978)
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History
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See also
- The Manhattan Project
- Atomic Bomb
- Einstein-Szilard letter
- The Wigner Effect
- The Wigner Medal
- The Wigner-Eisenbud R-matrix theory
- Group theory of quantum mechanics
Further reading
- The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences by Eugene Wigner
- Group Theory and Its Application to the Quantum Mechanics of Atomic Spectra by Eugene Wigner
- The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner by Eugene Wigner and Andrew Szanton
- Symmetries and Reflections - Scientific Essays by Eugene Wigner
External links
Internet resources on this topic
References
1. "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1963". Nobel Foundation. Retrieved December 1, 2015.