Ernest Orlando Lawrence
Ernest
Orlando Lawrence
(1901-1958)
- Birthdate: August
8, 1901
Birthplace:
Canton, South Dakota, USA
- Education
: Univ. of South Dakota, B.A., 1922; Univ. of Minnesota, M.A., 1923; Yale Univ.,
Ph.D., 1925
E.O.
Lawrence was a prolific researcher and writer who led the way to many advances.
He was an important part of the Atomic Bomb Project and the attempt to suspend
atomic-bomb testing. Lawrence won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the invention
and development of the cyclotron and for the results obtained with it, especially
with regard to artificial radioactive elements."
The
cyclotron permitted nuclear particle acceleration to very high energies. The particles
were used to bombard atoms, leading to many new isotopes and elements - artificial
transmutation.
Lawrence
is the namesake of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, both located in the San Francisco Bay area USA and of the element
103 - Lawrencium (formed by artificial transmutation).