Robert R. Wilson
Robert R. Wilson | |
---|---|
Born | Frontier, Wyoming, U.S. | March 4, 1914
Died | January 16, 2000 Ithaca, New York, U.S. | (aged 85)
Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA, MS, PhD) |
Awards |
|
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions | |
Thesis | Theory of the Cyclotron (1940) |
Doctoral advisor | Ernest Lawrence |
Signature | |
Robert Rathbun Wilson (March 4, 1914 – January 16, 2000) was an American
A graduate of the
After the war, Wilson briefly joined the faculty of
Early life
Robert Rathbun Wilson was born in Frontier, Wyoming, in 1914,[1] the son of Platt Elvin and Edith Elizabeth (Rathbun) Wilson. He had an older sister, Mary Jane.[2] His parents separated when he was eight years old,[3] and custody was awarded to his father, although he lived with his mother from time to time.[4] Much of his early life was spent on cattle ranches. He changed schools frequently, and attended a number of schools, including the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois,[3] where his grandmother worked.[4]
Wilson entered the
Wilson ran into trouble with Lawrence's harsh frugality while working on his cyclotron and was fired twice from the Radiation Laboratory. The first time was for losing a rubber seal in the 37-inch cyclotron which prevented its use in a demonstration to a potential donor. He was later rehired at Luis Alvarez's urging, but melted an expensive pair of pliers while welding, and was fired again. Though offered his job back, he decided instead to go to Princeton University to work with Henry DeWolf Smyth.[8][4]
Manhattan Project
At Princeton, Wilson eventually took over Smyth's project of the development of an alternative approach to
The work at Princeton was terminated during
Wilson moved there with some of his Princeton staff and Harvard University's cyclotron, and was appointed as head of the Cyclotron Group (R-1) by Oppenheimer. Only in his late twenties, he was the youngest group leader in the experimental division.[10][7] The cyclotron would be used for measurements of the neutron cross section of plutonium.[11]
When Oppenheimer reorganized the laboratory in August 1944 to focus on the development of an
In May 1945, when Nazi Germany surrendered, and the initial motivation for the crash atomic bomb project dissipated as it was discovered that the
After the
Post-World War II
After the war, Wilson also helped form the Federation of American Scientists and served as its chairman in 1946. He accepted an appointment as an associate professor at Harvard, but spent the first eight months of 1946 at Berkeley designing a new 150 MeV cyclotron for Harvard to replace the one taken to Los Alamos.[7] At Harvard, Wilson published a seminal paper, "Radiological Use of Fast Protons", which founded the field of proton therapy.[17][18]
Cornell
In 1947 Wilson went to
Wilson initiated the construction of a 1.4 GeV synchrotron in 1952. As he had foreseen in 1948, it produced artificial
Wilson was one of the first physicists to use Monte Carlo methods, which he used to model electron and proton initiated particle showers. He invented the quantometer so that he could measure the intensity of high-energy X-ray beams.[21]
Fermilab
In 1967 he took a leave of absence from Cornell to assume directorship of the nascent National Accelerator Laboratory at Batavia, Illinois, which was to be the largest particle accelerator constructed until then (it was to remain so until the beginning of operation of the Large Electron-Positron Collider at CERN in 1989). In 1969, Wilson was called to justify the multimillion-dollar machine to the Congressional
It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture... It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.[22]
Thanks to Wilson's talented leadership, a management style very much adopted from Lawrence, the facility was completed on time and under budget. According to Wilson, he gave
Wilson had studied sculpture at the
The site also had ponds, and a main building purposely reminiscent of the Beauvais Cathedral.[23] Fermilab also celebrates his role as a sculptor, featuring several of his works, including "The Mobius Strip", "The Hyperbolic Obelisk", "Tractricious", and "Broken Symmetry". Another metal sculpture "Topological III" sits in the lobby of the Harvard Science Center.[26] Fermilab's Central Laboratory building was named Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall in his honor in 1980.[27]
Wilson served as the director of Fermilab until 1978, when he resigned in protest against what he considered was inadequate funding by the
Awards and honors
Wilson received many awards and honors, including the
Death
Wilson suffered a stroke in 1999, from which he never recovered. He died on January 16, 2000, at the age of 85, at a nursing home in Ithaca, New York,[31] and was buried at the 19th-century Pioneer Cemetery (established 1839)[32] on the Fermilab site on Batavia Road near Fermilab Site 39.[33][34] He was survived by his wife, Jane; his three sons, Daniel, Jonathan and Rand; and his sister, Mary Jane Greenhill.[34] His papers are in the Cornell University Library.[21]
Notes
- doi:10.1063/1.883056.
- ^ "Dowling Family Genealogy". Ancestry.com. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
- ^ a b c McDaniel & Silverman 2001, p. 4.
- ^ a b c "Oral History Transcript — Dr. Robert R. Wilson". American Institute of Physics. Archived from the original on January 26, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
- ^ Herken 2002, pp. 11–15.
- OCLC 29834068.
- ^ a b c d e f McDaniel & Silverman 2001, p. 5.
- ^ a b Herken 2002, pp. 47–48.
- ^ Hoddeson et al. 1993, p. 59.
- ^ a b "A Reluctant Division Leader". Los Alamos National Laboratory. Archived from the original on February 19, 2005. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ a b Hoddeson et al. 1993, pp. 78–79.
- ^ Segelken, Roger (January 20, 2000). "Robert R. Wilson, physicist and particle accelerator designer, dies at 85". Cornell Chronicle. Archived from the original on September 19, 2012. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ The Day After Trinity. 1980.
- ^ "Richard Feynman at Los Alamos". Caltech Library. California Institute of Technology. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
- ^ Hunner 2004, pp. 112–115.
- ^ Bird & Sherwin 2005, pp. 324–325.
- ^ "Robert R. Wilson: Remembered as "Father of Proton Therapy"". The National Association for Proton Therapy. Retrieved September 1, 2011.
- S2CID 27210693.
- ^ McDaniel & Silverman 2001, pp. 7–8.
- ^ "Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory". Cornell University. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
- ^ a b c d "Guide to the Robert R. Wilson Papers, 1936–2000 Collection Number: 14-22-3093". Cornell University Library. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
- ^ "R.R. Wilson's Congressional Testimony, April 1969". Fermilab History and Archives Project. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
- ^ a b c d Wilson, Robert. "Starting Fermilab". Fermilab. Archived from the original on February 19, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ "NAL Dedication". Fermilab. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ "Fermilab Bison and Prairie Info". Fermilab. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ Peterson, Ivars (March 17, 2003). "Möbius at Fermilab". Science News. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
- ^ "Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall". Fermilab. Archived from the original on February 17, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ "Resignation of Bob Wilson" (PDF). CERN. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
- ^ McDaniel & Silverman 2001, p. 14.
- American Academy of Achievement.
- ^ "Robert R. Wilson, Founding Director of Fermilab, Dies at Age 85". Fermilab. January 17, 2000. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- ^ "Fermilab | History and Archives | Site and Natural History".
- ^ "What is Fermilab?". Retrieved March 7, 2012.
- ^ a b Glanz, James (January 18, 2000). "Robert R. Wilson, Physicist Who Led Fermilab, Dies at 85". The New York Times. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
References
- OCLC 56753298.
- Herken, Gregg (2002). Brotherhood of the Bomb: The Tangled Lives and Loyalties of Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller. New York: Henry Holt and Co. OCLC 48941348.
- OCLC 26764320.
- Hunner, Jon (2004). Inventing Los Alamos: The Growth of an Atomic Community. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. OCLC 154690200.
- McDaniel, Boyce D.; Silverman, Albert (2001). Robert Rathburn Wilson 1915–2000 (PDF). Biographical Memoirs. Vol. 80. National Academy of Sciences. pp. 1–18. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
Further reading
- Hilts, Philip J. (1982). Scientific Temperaments : Three Lives in Contemporary Science. New York: Simon and Schuster. OCLC 8688830. Lengthy profiles of Wilson, geneticist Mark Ptashne, and computer scientist John McCarthy
- Weart, Spencer R. (2000). "From Frontiersman To Physicist: Robert Rathbun Wilson". Physics in Perspective. 2 (2). American Institute of Physics Center for History Of Physics: 141–203. S2CID 115886156.
External links
- Media related to Robert R. Wilson at Wikimedia Commons
- "Robert R. Wilson's Interview". Voices of the Manhattan Project. Retrieved November 5, 2016. 1982 Audio Interview with Robert R. Wilson by Martin J. Sherwin
- "Robert Rathbun Wilson". Fermilab. Archived from the original on May 23, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
- "A Conversation with Emeriti Professors Hans Bethe and Robert Wilson". Cornell University. Retrieved February 15, 2014. Video of a 1993 conversation with Hans Bethe and Robert Wilson discussing the atomic bomb projects.
- R.R.Wilson.1 Robert R. Wilson on INSPIRE-HEP