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Robert R. Wilson

Robert Rathbun Wilson (March 4, 1914 – January 16, 2000) was an American physicist known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, as a sculptor, and as an architect of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), where he was the first director from 1967 to 1978.

Robert R. Wilson
Wilson at the Fermilab groundbreaking ceremony
Born(1914-03-04)March 4, 1914
DiedJanuary 16, 2000(2000-01-16) (aged 85)
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
ThesisTheory of the Cyclotron (1940)
Doctoral advisorErnest Lawrence
Signature

A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley (BA and PhD), Wilson received his doctorate under the supervision of Ernest Lawrence for his work on the development of the cyclotron at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. He subsequently went to Princeton University to work with Henry DeWolf Smyth on electromagnetic separation of the isotopes of uranium. In 1943, Wilson and many of his colleagues joined the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, where Wilson became the head of its Cyclotron Group (R-1), and later its Research (R) Division.

After the war, Wilson briefly joined the faculty of Harvard University as an associate professor, then went to Cornell University as professor of physics and the director of its new Laboratory of Nuclear Studies. Wilson and his Cornell colleagues constructed four electron synchrotrons. In 1967 he assumed directorship of the National Accelerator Laboratory, subsequently known as Fermilab. He managed to complete the facility on time and under budget, but at the same time made it aesthetically pleasing, with a main administrative building purposely reminiscent of the Beauvais Cathedral, and a restored prairie with a herd of American Bison. He resigned in 1978 in a protest against inadequate government funding.

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 University of California, Berkeley, in 1932, and was awarded his Bachelor of Arts (AB) degree cum laude in 1936.[3] He joined Ernest O. Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory, which was at that time blossoming into the top American site for both experimental and theoretical physics due to the efforts of Lawrence and J. Robert Oppenheimer, respectively.[5] Wilson received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1940 for his thesis on "Theory of the Cyclotron".[6] That year he married Jane Inez Scheyer.[7]

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 the development of an alternative approach to electromagnetic separation from Lawrence's calutron method, used for the purpose of separating the fissile uranium-235 isotope of uranium from the much more common uranium-238, which is a key step to producing an atomic bomb. By 1941 the project had produced a device called the "isotron," which, unlike the calutron, used an electrical field to separate the uranium instead of a magnetic one.[8]

 
Robert R. Wilson's ID badge photo from Los Alamos

The work at Princeton was terminated during World War II when Oppenheimer's secret laboratory for research on the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos National Laboratory, opened in 1943. "Like a bunch of professional soldiers," Wilson later recalled, "we signed up, en masse, to go to Los Alamos."[9]

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 implosion-type nuclear weapon, Wilson became head of R (Research) Division.[11] As such he had four groups reporting to him: the Cyclotron Group (R-1), still headed by himself; the Electrostatic Group (R-2), headed by John H. Williams; the D-D (Deuterium-Deuterium) Group (R-3), headed by John H. Manley; and the Radioactivity Group (R-4), headed by Emilio G. Segrè. In March 1945, R Division acquired the additional responsibility of developing instrumentation for the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945. Wilson helped stack boxes of explosives for the 100-ton test that preceded it.[10] At Los Alamos, he was also active in community affairs, serving on the town council.[12]

In May 1945, when Nazi Germany surrendered, and the initial motivation for the crash atomic bomb project dissipated as it was discovered that the German nuclear energy project was years behind, Wilson raised the question of whether they should continue with their work. News of this met with an icy reception from Major General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project. In later life, when interviewed in the Oscar-nominated documentary The Day After Trinity (1980), Wilson would say that he should have strongly considered ceasing work on the bomb after the surrender of Germany, and regretted not doing so to some extent.[13]

After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wilson helped organize the Association of Los Alamos Scientists (ALAS), which called, with a scientists' petition, for the international control of atomic energy.[14] The petition was carried by Oppenheimer to Washington, D.C., eventually making its way via Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to President Harry S. Truman.[15]

Post-World War II

 
Jane and Robert Wilson with I. I. Rabi (c. 1950)

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.[16][17]

Cornell

In 1947 Wilson went to Cornell University as professor of physics and the director of its new Laboratory of Nuclear Studies. At Cornell, Wilson and his colleagues constructed four electron synchrotrons. The first, a 300 MeV synchrotron, was under construction when he arrived.[7] In a 1948 report to the Office of Naval Research, he described their purpose:

The most important problems of nuclear physics, to our minds are: What are the elementary particles of which nuclei are made and what is the nature of the forces that hold these particles together? A more general but connected problem concerns the general expression of electrical laws at such high energies as will be produced by our synchrotron. Our experiments are planned to attack all three problems. Thus we hope to produce artificial mesons which are supposedly elementary particles and to study the interactions of these mesons with nuclei. Further, we shall explore the electrical interactions of high energy electrons with electrons and protons in search of evidence pointing to a correct theory of electricity at high energy.[7]

Wilson initiated the construction of a 1.4 GeV synchrotron in 1952. As he had foreseen in 1948, it produced artificial K mesons and rho mesons, and tested quantum electrodynamics at short distances. The last machine he built at Cornell was a 12 GeV synchrotron that remains in use as an injector for the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR), built between 1977 and 1999.[18] It is located in what is now known as the Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory.[19]

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.[20]

Fermilab

 
Wilson had a direct role in the aesthetic design of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Shown here is Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall.

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 Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Bucking the trend of the day, Wilson emphasized it had nothing at all to do with national security, rather:

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.[21]

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 Atomic Energy Commission chairman Glenn T. Seaborg his assurance "signed in blood" that he would not exceed the authorized $250 million budget and "would rot in Hell" if he did.[22] The facility centered on a four-mile circumference, 400 GeV accelerator.[22] Wilson subsequently initiated the design of the Tevatron, a 1 TeV particle accelerator.[20] The National Accelerator Laboratory, was renamed the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in 1974, after Enrico Fermi. It is frequently referred to as "Fermilab".[23]

 
Bison graze on the prairie close to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Wilson had studied sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in Italy while on sabbatical in 1961,[20] and he wanted Fermilab to be an appealing place to work, believing that external harmony would encourage internal harmony as well, and labored personally to keep it from looking like a stereotypical "government lab", playing a key role in its design and architecture.[22] Surrounding the facility was a restored prairie which served as a home to a herd of American Bison that started with Wilson bringing in a bull and four cows in 1969.[24]

The site also had ponds, and a main building purposely reminiscent of the Beauvais Cathedral.[22] 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.[25] Fermilab's Central Laboratory building was named Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall in his honor in 1980.[26]

Wilson served as the director of Fermilab until 1978, when he resigned in protest against what he considered was inadequate funding by the Federal government.[27] He then joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as Ritzma Professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute. He became Emeritus Professor of Physics at Chicago in 1980. He moved to Columbia University, where he became I. I. Rabi Visiting Professor of Science and Human Relations in 1979, Michael I. Pupin Professor of Physics in 1980, and Emeritus Professor in 1982. He retired in 1983 and moved back to Ithaca, NY.[7]

Awards and honors

Wilson received many awards and honors, including the Elliott Cresson Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1964, the National Medal of Science in 1973, and the Department of Energy's Enrico Fermi Award in 1984. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and was president of the American Physical Society in 1985.[28]In 1986, Wilson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[29]

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,[30] and was buried at the 19th-century Pioneer Cemetery on the Fermilab site.[31][32] He was survived by his wife, Jane; his three sons, Daniel, Jonathan and Rand; and his sister, Mary Jane Greenhill.[32] His papers are in the Cornell University Library.[20]

Notes

  1. ^ McDaniel, Boyce; Silverman, Albert (April 2000). "Obituary: Robert Rathbun Wilson". Physics Today. 53 (4): 82–83. Bibcode:2000PhT....53d..82M. doi:10.1063/1.883056.
  2. ^ "Dowling Family Genealogy". Ancestry.com. Retrieved October 28, 2014.
  3. ^ a b c McDaniel & Silverman 2001, p. 4.
  4. ^ a b c "Oral History Transcript — Dr. Robert R. Wilson". American Institute of Physics. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  5. ^ Herken 2002, pp. 11–15.
  6. ^ Wilson, Robert R. (May 1940). Theory of the Cyclotron (PhD). -University of California. OCLC 29834068.
  7. ^ a b c d e f McDaniel & Silverman 2001, p. 5.
  8. ^ a b Herken 2002, pp. 47–48.
  9. ^ Hoddeson et al. 1993, p. 59.
  10. ^ a b . Los Alamos National Laboratory. Archived from the original on February 19, 2005. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  11. ^ a b Hoddeson et al. 1993, pp. 78–79.
  12. ^ Segelken, Roger (January 20, 2000). . Cornell Chronicle. Archived from the original on September 19, 2012. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  13. ^ The Day After Trinity. 1980.
  14. ^ Hunner 2004, pp. 112–115.
  15. ^ Bird & Sherwin 2005, pp. 324–325.
  16. ^ "Robert R. Wilson: Remembered as "Father of Proton Therapy"". The National Association for Proton Therapy. Retrieved September 1, 2011.
  17. ^ Wilson, Robert R. (November 1946). "Radiological Use of Fast Protons". Radiology. 47 (5): 487–491. doi:10.1148/47.5.487. PMID 20274616. S2CID 27210693.
  18. ^ McDaniel & Silverman 2001, pp. 7–8.
  19. ^ "Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory". Cornell University. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ "R.R. Wilson's Congressional Testimony, April 1969". Fermilab History and Archives Project. Retrieved August 14, 2013.
  22. ^ a b c d Wilson, Robert. . Fermilab. Archived from the original on February 19, 2013. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  23. ^ "NAL Dedication". Fermilab. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  24. ^ "Fermilab Bison and Prairie Info". Fermilab. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  25. ^ Peterson, Ivars (March 17, 2003). "Möbius at Fermilab". Science News. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  26. ^ "Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall". Fermilab. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  27. ^ "Resignation of Bob Wilson" (PDF). CERN. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  28. ^ McDaniel & Silverman 2001, p. 14.
  29. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement.
  30. ^ "Robert R. Wilson, Founding Director of Fermilab, Dies at Age 85". Fermilab. Retrieved February 15, 2014.
  31. ^ "What is Fermilab?". Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  32. ^ 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

Further reading

  • Hilts, Philip J. (1982). Scientific Temperaments : Three Lives in Contemporary Science. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-22533-9. 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. American Institute of Physics Center for History Of Physics. 2 (2): 141–203. Bibcode:2000PhP.....2..141W. doi:10.1007/s000160050041. ISSN 1422-6944. 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
  • . 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.
  • Robert R. Wilson on INSPIRE-HEP  

robert, wilson, other, people, named, robert, wilson, robert, wilson, disambiguation, robert, rathbun, wilson, march, 1914, january, 2000, american, physicist, known, work, manhattan, project, during, world, sculptor, architect, fermi, national, accelerator, l. For other people named Robert Wilson see Robert Wilson disambiguation Robert Rathbun Wilson March 4 1914 January 16 2000 was an American physicist known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II as a sculptor and as an architect of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Fermilab where he was the first director from 1967 to 1978 Robert R WilsonWilson at the Fermilab groundbreaking ceremonyBorn 1914 03 04 March 4 1914Frontier Wyoming U S DiedJanuary 16 2000 2000 01 16 aged 85 Ithaca New York U S Alma materUniversity of California BerkeleyAwardsElliott Cresson Medal 1964 National Medal of Science 1973 Enrico Fermi Award 1984 Andrew Gemant Award 1995 Scientific careerFieldsPhysicsInstitutionsUniversity of California Berkeley Los Alamos Laboratory Harvard University Cornell University Fermilab University of Chicago Columbia UniversityThesisTheory of the Cyclotron 1940 Doctoral advisorErnest LawrenceSignatureA graduate of the University of California Berkeley BA and PhD Wilson received his doctorate under the supervision of Ernest Lawrence for his work on the development of the cyclotron at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory He subsequently went to Princeton University to work with Henry DeWolf Smyth on electromagnetic separation of the isotopes of uranium In 1943 Wilson and many of his colleagues joined the Manhattan Project s Los Alamos Laboratory where Wilson became the head of its Cyclotron Group R 1 and later its Research R Division After the war Wilson briefly joined the faculty of Harvard University as an associate professor then went to Cornell University as professor of physics and the director of its new Laboratory of Nuclear Studies Wilson and his Cornell colleagues constructed four electron synchrotrons In 1967 he assumed directorship of the National Accelerator Laboratory subsequently known as Fermilab He managed to complete the facility on time and under budget but at the same time made it aesthetically pleasing with a main administrative building purposely reminiscent of the Beauvais Cathedral and a restored prairie with a herd of American Bison He resigned in 1978 in a protest against inadequate government funding Contents 1 Early life 2 Manhattan Project 3 Post World War II 3 1 Cornell 3 2 Fermilab 4 Awards and honors 5 Death 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksEarly life EditRobert 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 University of California Berkeley in 1932 and was awarded his Bachelor of Arts AB degree cum laude in 1936 3 He joined Ernest O Lawrence s Radiation Laboratory which was at that time blossoming into the top American site for both experimental and theoretical physics due to the efforts of Lawrence and J Robert Oppenheimer respectively 5 Wilson received his Doctor of Philosophy PhD in 1940 for his thesis on Theory of the Cyclotron 6 That year he married Jane Inez Scheyer 7 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 EditAt Princeton Wilson eventually took over Smyth s project the development of an alternative approach to electromagnetic separation from Lawrence s calutron method used for the purpose of separating the fissile uranium 235 isotope of uranium from the much more common uranium 238 which is a key step to producing an atomic bomb By 1941 the project had produced a device called the isotron which unlike the calutron used an electrical field to separate the uranium instead of a magnetic one 8 Robert R Wilson s ID badge photo from Los Alamos The work at Princeton was terminated during World War II when Oppenheimer s secret laboratory for research on the atomic bomb the Manhattan Project s Los Alamos National Laboratory opened in 1943 Like a bunch of professional soldiers Wilson later recalled we signed up en masse to go to Los Alamos 9 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 implosion type nuclear weapon Wilson became head of R Research Division 11 As such he had four groups reporting to him the Cyclotron Group R 1 still headed by himself the Electrostatic Group R 2 headed by John H Williams the D D Deuterium Deuterium Group R 3 headed by John H Manley and the Radioactivity Group R 4 headed by Emilio G Segre In March 1945 R Division acquired the additional responsibility of developing instrumentation for the Trinity nuclear test in July 1945 Wilson helped stack boxes of explosives for the 100 ton test that preceded it 10 At Los Alamos he was also active in community affairs serving on the town council 12 In May 1945 when Nazi Germany surrendered and the initial motivation for the crash atomic bomb project dissipated as it was discovered that the German nuclear energy project was years behind Wilson raised the question of whether they should continue with their work News of this met with an icy reception from Major General Leslie Groves director of the Manhattan Project In later life when interviewed in the Oscar nominated documentary The Day After Trinity 1980 Wilson would say that he should have strongly considered ceasing work on the bomb after the surrender of Germany and regretted not doing so to some extent 13 After the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Wilson helped organize the Association of Los Alamos Scientists ALAS which called with a scientists petition for the international control of atomic energy 14 The petition was carried by Oppenheimer to Washington D C eventually making its way via Secretary of War Henry L Stimson to President Harry S Truman 15 Post World War II Edit Jane and Robert Wilson with I I Rabi c 1950 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 16 17 Cornell EditIn 1947 Wilson went to Cornell University as professor of physics and the director of its new Laboratory of Nuclear Studies At Cornell Wilson and his colleagues constructed four electron synchrotrons The first a 300 MeV synchrotron was under construction when he arrived 7 In a 1948 report to the Office of Naval Research he described their purpose The most important problems of nuclear physics to our minds are What are the elementary particles of which nuclei are made and what is the nature of the forces that hold these particles together A more general but connected problem concerns the general expression of electrical laws at such high energies as will be produced by our synchrotron Our experiments are planned to attack all three problems Thus we hope to produce artificial mesons which are supposedly elementary particles and to study the interactions of these mesons with nuclei Further we shall explore the electrical interactions of high energy electrons with electrons and protons in search of evidence pointing to a correct theory of electricity at high energy 7 Wilson initiated the construction of a 1 4 GeV synchrotron in 1952 As he had foreseen in 1948 it produced artificial K mesons and rho mesons and tested quantum electrodynamics at short distances The last machine he built at Cornell was a 12 GeV synchrotron that remains in use as an injector for the Cornell Electron Storage Ring CESR built between 1977 and 1999 18 It is located in what is now known as the Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory 19 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 20 Fermilab Edit Wilson had a direct role in the aesthetic design of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Shown here is Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall 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 Joint Committee on Atomic Energy Bucking the trend of the day Wilson emphasized it had nothing at all to do with national security rather 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 21 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 Atomic Energy Commission chairman Glenn T Seaborg his assurance signed in blood that he would not exceed the authorized 250 million budget and would rot in Hell if he did 22 The facility centered on a four mile circumference 400 GeV accelerator 22 Wilson subsequently initiated the design of the Tevatron a 1 TeV particle accelerator 20 The National Accelerator Laboratory was renamed the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in 1974 after Enrico Fermi It is frequently referred to as Fermilab 23 Bison graze on the prairie close to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Wilson had studied sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze in Italy while on sabbatical in 1961 20 and he wanted Fermilab to be an appealing place to work believing that external harmony would encourage internal harmony as well and labored personally to keep it from looking like a stereotypical government lab playing a key role in its design and architecture 22 Surrounding the facility was a restored prairie which served as a home to a herd of American Bison that started with Wilson bringing in a bull and four cows in 1969 24 The site also had ponds and a main building purposely reminiscent of the Beauvais Cathedral 22 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 25 Fermilab s Central Laboratory building was named Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall in his honor in 1980 26 Wilson served as the director of Fermilab until 1978 when he resigned in protest against what he considered was inadequate funding by the Federal government 27 He then joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as Ritzma Professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute He became Emeritus Professor of Physics at Chicago in 1980 He moved to Columbia University where he became I I Rabi Visiting Professor of Science and Human Relations in 1979 Michael I Pupin Professor of Physics in 1980 and Emeritus Professor in 1982 He retired in 1983 and moved back to Ithaca NY 7 Awards and honors EditWilson received many awards and honors including the Elliott Cresson Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1964 the National Medal of Science in 1973 and the Department of Energy s Enrico Fermi Award in 1984 He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and was president of the American Physical Society in 1985 28 In 1986 Wilson received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement 29 Death EditWilson 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 30 and was buried at the 19th century Pioneer Cemetery on the Fermilab site 31 32 He was survived by his wife Jane his three sons Daniel Jonathan and Rand and his sister Mary Jane Greenhill 32 His papers are in the Cornell University Library 20 Notes Edit McDaniel Boyce Silverman Albert April 2000 Obituary Robert Rathbun Wilson Physics Today 53 4 82 83 Bibcode 2000PhT 53d 82M doi 10 1063 1 883056 Dowling Family Genealogy Ancestry com Retrieved October 28 2014 a b c McDaniel amp Silverman 2001 p 4 a b c Oral History Transcript Dr Robert R Wilson American Institute of Physics Retrieved February 15 2013 Herken 2002 pp 11 15 Wilson Robert R May 1940 Theory of the Cyclotron PhD University of California OCLC 29834068 a b c d e f McDaniel amp 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 Hunner 2004 pp 112 115 Bird amp Sherwin 2005 pp 324 325 Robert R Wilson Remembered as Father of Proton Therapy The National Association for Proton Therapy Retrieved September 1 2011 Wilson Robert R November 1946 Radiological Use of Fast Protons Radiology 47 5 487 491 doi 10 1148 47 5 487 PMID 20274616 S2CID 27210693 McDaniel amp 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 Retrieved February 15 2014 Fermilab Bison and Prairie Info Fermilab Retrieved February 15 2014 Peterson Ivars March 17 2003 Mobius at Fermilab Science News Retrieved February 16 2014 Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall Fermilab Retrieved February 15 2014 Resignation of Bob Wilson PDF CERN Retrieved February 16 2014 McDaniel amp Silverman 2001 p 14 Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement www achievement org American Academy of Achievement Robert R Wilson Founding Director of Fermilab Dies at Age 85 Fermilab Retrieved February 15 2014 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 EditBird Kai Sherwin Martin J 2005 American Prometheus The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer New York New York Alfred A Knopf ISBN 0 375 41202 6 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 ISBN 978 0 8050 6588 6 OCLC 48941348 Hoddeson Lillian Henriksen Paul W Meade Roger A Westfall Catherine L 1993 Critical Assembly A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years 1943 1945 New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 44132 3 OCLC 26764320 Hunner Jon 2004 Inventing Los Alamos The Growth of an Atomic Community Norman University of Oklahoma Press ISBN 978 0 8061 3891 6 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 EditHilts Philip J 1982 Scientific Temperaments Three Lives in Contemporary Science New York Simon and Schuster ISBN 978 0 671 22533 9 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 American Institute of Physics Center for History Of Physics 2 2 141 203 Bibcode 2000PhP 2 141W doi 10 1007 s000160050041 ISSN 1422 6944 S2CID 115886156 External links Edit 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 Robert R Wilson on INSPIRE HEP Portals World War II Nuclear technology Physics History of science Biography Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Robert R Wilson amp oldid 1121504767, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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