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.

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.

Robert Rathbun Wilson was born in Frontier, Wyoming, in 1914, the son of Platt Elvin and Edith Elizabeth (Rathbun) Wilson.

He had an older sister, Mary Jane.

His parents separated when he was eight years old, and custody was awarded to his father, although he lived with his mother from time to time.

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, where his grandmother worked.

Wilson entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1932, and was awarded his Bachelor of Arts (AB) degree cum laude in 1936.

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.

Wilson received his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in 1940 for his thesis on "Theory of the Cyclotron".

That year he married Jane Inez Scheyer.

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.

At Princeton, Wilson eventually took over Smyth's project of 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.

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.

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."

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.

The cyclotron would be used for measurements of the neutron cross section of plutonium.

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.

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.

At Los Alamos, he was also active in community affairs, serving on the town council.

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 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.

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.

Richard Feynman recalled seeing Wilson sitting and moping on the morning right after the Trinity test as everyone celebrated and had parties.

When asked why, Wilson told Feynman, "It's a terrible thing that we made."

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.