Speaker
Prof.
Malcolm STOCKS
Description
The modern Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is the largest of the US Department of Energy (DOE) research laboratories, had its origins in the Manhattan Project as a pilot-scale facility for the production and separation of plutonium. Although E. P. Wigner spent only a little more than a year as research director of what was then known as Clinton Laboratories, his influence on the development of ORNL extended far beyond that period. Indeed, it was Wigner who laid the foundations for many of the signature strengths that ORNL boasts today, including nuclear energy, materials and chemical sciences, neutron scattering, life sciences and arguably computational science. When discussing Wigner’s lasting impact on ORNL, it is useful to consider a series of somewhat distinct periods: Wigner pre-Clinton – the Manhattan Project and the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago; Wigner at Clinton – his role in developing and implementing a vision for a post-war civilian nuclear research laboratory underpinned by fundamental science; Wigner after Clinton – his continuing engagement with ORNL as consultant to and friend of ORNL’s longest serving director, Alvin Weinberg; and Wigner as ORNL’s “patron saint” and the inspiration for the establishment of the prestigious Wigner Fellowships for outstanding early-career researchers and most recently for the establishment of the “Eugene P. Wigner Distinguished Lecture Series,” which brings Nobel Laureates and internationally known industrial and technical leaders to the laboratory. In dealing with these periods we will refer to much original material that will convey Wigner’s most enduring legacy: that not only is basic science a matter of joy to the individual scientist, but it can and should contribute to the well-being of humanity.
