Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 – August 27, 1958) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physicist and
Nobel Laureate, known for his invention, utilization, and improvement of the
cyclotronA cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. Cyclotrons accelerate charged particles using a high-frequency, alternating voltage...
beginning in 1929, and his later work in uranium-isotope separation in the
Manhattan ProjectThe Manhattan Project was the codename for a project conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb. The project was led by the United States, and included scientists from Denmark, The United Kingdom and Canada...
. He had a long career at the
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...
where he was a professor of physics. In 1939, Lawrence was awarded the
Nobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Prize in literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
for his work on the cyclotron and its applications. Chemical element number 103 is named "
LawrenciumLawrencium is a radioactive synthetic element with the symbol Lr and atomic number 103.Its most stable known isotope is 262Lr, with a half-life of approximately 3.6 hours...
" in his honor. He was also the first recipient of the
Sylvanus Thayer AwardThe Sylvanus Thayer Award is an award that is given each year by the United States Military Academy at West Point. Sylvanus Thayer was the fifth superintendent of that academy and in honor of his achievements, the award was created...
. His brother
John H. LawrenceJohn Hundale Lawrence was an American physicist and physician best known for pioneering the field of nuclear medicine. He was also the brother of physicist Ernest O. Lawrence....
is known for pioneering the field of
nuclear medicineNuclear medicine is a branch or specialty of medicine and medical imaging that uses radioactive isotopes and relies on the process of radioactive decay in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. In nuclear medicine procedures, radionuclides are combined with other chemical compounds or...
.
Early life
Born in
Canton, South DakotaCanton is a city in and the county seat of Lincoln County, South Dakota, United States. The city was named by Norwegian settler and former legislator James M. Wahl. The population was 3,110 at the 2000 census...
, Lawrence attended
St. Olaf CollegeSt. Olaf College is a coeducational, residential, four-year, private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 by a group of Norwegian-American immigrant pastors and farmers, led by Pastor Bernt Julius Muus. The college is named after Olaf II of Norway, former king and...
in
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
, but transferred to the
University of South DakotaThe University of South Dakota, the state’s oldest university, was founded in 1862 and classes began in 1882. Located in Vermillion, South Dakota, USD is home to South Dakota's only medical school and law school. USD is governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents, and its current president is Jim...
after his first year. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1922. He received his Master's Degree in Physics from the
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States...
in 1923. He spent a year at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
, and received his Ph.D. in physics at
Yale UniversityYale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
in 1925, making him somewhat unusual in his field -- a very promising young scientist who had received his entire education in the United States, in a day when study at one of the great science institutions of Europe was considered essential for someone who truly wished to make a significant contribution. He remained at Yale as a researcher on the
photoelectric effectThe photoelectric effect is a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength, such as visible or ultraviolet light. Electrons emitted in this manner may be referred to as "photoelectrons"...
, becoming an assistant professor in 1927.
In 1928 he was appointed Associate Professor of Physics at the
University of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...
, and two years later he became a full Professor, being the youngest at Berkeley. There, he was called the "Atom Smasher,"; 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 YorkHerbert Frank York was an American nuclear physicist. He held numerous research and administrative positions at various United States government and educational institutes.-Biography:...
, the first director of the Lawrence Livermore laboratory, as quoted on the lab's official Web site.
Robert Gordon SproulRobert Gordon Sproul was eleventh President of the University of California serving from 1930 to 1958.Sproul's outstanding contribution during his 28-year administration was the multiple-campus expansion of the University to meet the demands for higher education in widely separated parts of the...
was a member of the
Bohemian ClubThe Bohemian Club is a prominent private men's club in San Francisco, California, United States.Its clubhouse is located at 624 Taylor Street in San Francisco...
, and sponsored Lawrence's membership in 1932. Through the club, Lawrence met
William H. CrockerWilliam H. Crocker founded and then later became the president of Crocker National Bank. He attended Phillips Academy, Andover and Yale University, where he was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity...
, Edwin Pauley and
John Francis NeylanJohn Francis Neylan, lawyer, journalist, political and educational figure, was born in New York City on November 6, 1885. After graduation from Seton Hall College in New Jersey in 1903, he came West. California was his destination, but he stopped off in Arizona and worked there for several years as...
; influential men who helped him get money for his energy investigations.
Cyclotron
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 particlesParticle physics is a branch of physics that studies the elementary constituents of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them. It is also called high energy physics, because many elementary particles do not occur under normal circumstances in nature, but can be created and detected...
required for
atomic disintegrationIn nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts, often producing free neutrons and lighter nuclei, which may eventually produce photons...
by means of a succession of very small "pushes." The device as depicted however, was laid out in a straight line using increasingly longer electrodes. Lawrence saw that such an
acceleratorA particle accelerator is a device that uses electric fields to propel ions or charged subatomic particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator...
would soon become too long and unwieldy for his university laboratory. In pondering a way to make the accelerator more compact, Lawrence decided to set a circular accelerating chamber between the poles of an electromagnet. The magnetic field would hold the charged protons in a spiral path as they were accelerated between just two semicircular electrodes connected to an alternating potential. After a hundred turns or so, the protons would impact the target as a beam of high-energy particles. Lawrence excitedly told his colleagues that he had discovered a method for obtaining particles of very high energy without the use of any high voltage.
Other scientists, including
Leo SzilardLeó Szilárd was a Hungarian physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction and worked on the Manhattan Project...
, had both investigated similar concepts, though Lawrence is credited with developing it further and turning it into practice.
The first model of Lawrence's
cyclotronA cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. Cyclotrons accelerate charged particles using a high-frequency, alternating voltage...
was made out of brass, wire, and sealing wax and was only four inches in diameter--it could literally be held in one hand. It probably cost $25 in all. And it worked: When Lawrence applied 2,000 volts of electricity to his makeshift cyclotron on January 2, 1931, he got 80,000-electron volt protons spinning around (at about 1% the speed of light). Through his increasingly larger machines, Lawrence was able to provide the crucial equipment needed for experiments in
high energy physicsParticle physics is a branch of physics that studies the elementary constituents of matter and radiation, and the interactions between them. It is also called high energy physics, because many elementary particles do not occur under normal circumstances in nature, but can be created and detected...
. Around this device, Lawrence built up his
Radiation LaboratoryThe Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory conducting unclassified scientific research. It is located on the grounds of the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Hills above the central campus. It is managed and...
, which would become the world's foremost laboratory for the new field of nuclear physics research in the 1930s. He received a
patentA patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention....
for the cyclotron in 1934, which he assigned to the
Research CorporationThe Research Corporation is an organization in the United States devoted to the advancement of science, funding research projects in the physical sciences. It was also a major supporter of the research that led to the presentation of Interlingua in 1951...
. In 1936 the Radiation Laboratory became an official department of the University of California with Lawrence formally appointed its Director. He served in that capacity until his death.
In November 1939, Lawrence was awarded the
Nobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Prize in literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
for his work on the cyclotron and its applications. Not only was he the first at Berkeley to become a Nobel Laureate, he was also the first ever to be so honored while at a state-supported university. The award ceremony was held on February 29, 1940 in
Berkeley, CaliforniaBerkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
due to the
warWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, in the auditorium of Wheeler Hall on the campus of the university with Lawrence receiving his medal from Carl E. Wallerstedt,
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
's
Consul GeneralA consul general heads a consulate general and is a consul of the highest rank serving at a principal location and usually responsible for other consular offices within a country. The Counsul General serves as an adviser who speaks on behalf of his or her state in the country to which he or she is...
in San Francisco.
World War II
During
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Lawrence eagerly helped to ramp up the American investigation of the possibility of a weapon utilizing
nuclear fissionIn nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts, often producing free neutrons and lighter nuclei, which may eventually produce photons...
. 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 ProjectThe Manhattan Project was the codename for a project conducted during World War II to develop the first atomic bomb. The project was led by the United States, and included scientists from Denmark, The United Kingdom and Canada...
. An early champion of the electromagnetic separation method to enrich
uraniumUranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the symbol U and atomic number 92. Besides its 92 protons, a uranium nucleus can have between 141 and 146 neutrons. The most common uranium isotopes are U-238 and U-235 . A uranium atom has...
, Lawrence manufactured his
calutronA calutron is a mass spectrometer used for separating the isotopes of uranium. It was developed by Ernest O. Lawrence during the Manhattan Project and was similar to the cyclotron invented by Lawrence. Its name is a concatenation of Cal. U.-tron, in tribute to the University of California,...
s — specialized forms of mass spectrometers — for the massive separation plants at
Oak Ridge, TennesseeOak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about 25 miles west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...
. His secretary,
Helen GriggsHelen L. Seaborg was an American child welfare advocate and the wife of Nobel Prize chemist Glenn T. Seaborg....
married future Nobel chemistry laureate
Glenn T. SeaborgGlenn Theodore Seaborg was an American scientist who won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements," contributed to the discovery and isolation of ten elements, developed the actinoids concept and was the first to propose the actinoids series...
in 1942 as they made their way to work on the Manhattan Project in Chicago.
Post-war Career and Legacy
After the war, Lawrence campaigned extensively for government sponsorship of large scientific programs. Lawrence was a forceful advocate of "
Big ScienceBig Science is a term used by scientists and historians of science to describe a series of changes in science which occurred in industrial nations during and after World War II, as scientific progress increasingly came to rely on large-scale projects usually funded by national governments or groups...
" with its requirements for big machines and big money.
For his service to his country, Lawrence received the
Enrico Fermi AwardThe Enrico Fermi Award is an award honoring scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use, or production of energy. It is administered by the U.S. government's Department of Energy...
from the
U.S. Atomic Energy CommissionThe United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
in 1957, and was the first recipient of the prestigious
Sylvanus Thayer AwardThe Sylvanus Thayer Award is an award that is given each year by the United States Military Academy at West Point. Sylvanus Thayer was the fifth superintendent of that academy and in honor of his achievements, the award was created...
by the United States Military Academy in 1958.
In July 1958,
President EisenhowerDwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was a five-star general in the United States Army and the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. During the Second World War, he served as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe, with responsibility for planning and supervising the...
requested Lawrence travel to Geneva, Switzerland, to negotiate a proposed treaty with the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
to ban nuclear weapons testing. Despite suffering from a serious flare-up of his chronic
colitisColitis is a chronic digestive disease characterized by inflammation of the colon.Colitis is one of a group of conditions which are inflammatory and auto-immune, affecting the tissue that lines the gastrointestinal system...
, Lawrence participated, but became ill while in Geneva and was rushed to the hospital at Stanford. He died a month later in Palo Alto, California, at the age of 57.
Just 23 days after his death, the
Regents of the University of CaliforniaThe Regents of the University of California make up the governing board of the University of California. The Board has 26 full members:* The majority are appointed by the Governor of California for 12-year terms....
voted to rename the
Lawrence LivermoreThe Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California is a scientific research laboratory founded by the University of California in 1952...
and
Lawrence Berkeley LaboratoriesThe Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory conducting unclassified scientific research. It is located on the grounds of the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Hills above the central campus. It is managed and...
after him. The
Ernest Orlando Lawrence AwardThe Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award was established in 1959 in honor of a scientist who helped elevate American physics to world leadership.E. O. Lawrence was the inventor of the cyclotron, an accelerator of subatomic particles, and a 1939 Nobel Laureate in physics for that achievement...
was established in his memory in 1959. Chemical element number 103, discovered at LBNL in 1961, is named "
LawrenciumLawrencium is a radioactive synthetic element with the symbol Lr and atomic number 103.Its most stable known isotope is 262Lr, with a half-life of approximately 3.6 hours...
" in his honor. In 1968 the
Lawrence Hall of ScienceThe Lawrence Hall of Science is a public science center featuring hands-on exhibits and activities. Located in the hills above the University of California, Berkeley campus, LHS is also a resource center for preschool through high school science and mathematics education.Established in 1968 in...
public science education center was established in honor of Ernest Lawrence, who had been throughout his career a passionate advocate of encouraging public interest in science, particularly among schoolchildren. The museum features a permanent exhibit devoted to Lawrence's life.
External links