Robert Rathbun Wilson was a rare combination of particle physicist, philosopher, educator and artist. His work on protons in the 1950s significantly advanced knowledge of these elementary particles.
Background
Robert Rathbun Wilson was born in Frontier, Wyoming, United States, on March 4, 1914. His father was Platt Elvin Wilson, a local politician, and his mother was Edith (Rathbun) Wilson. When he was eight, his parents divorced. His youthful experiences on the cattle ranches of Wyoming—particularly his exposure to the blacksmith shop—familiarized him with tool-making and repair. This experience and an attitude that nothing was impossible would prove useful in the future when Wilson designed Fermilab.
Education
The young Wilson was as much a tinkerer as a physicist. In high school, he designed and constructed scientific devices, including a vacuum and a handsized particle accelerator. When it came time to go to college, he enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, intending to study philosophy. But the year was 1932—the middle of the Great Depression—and philosophy seemed impractical during those years of hardship. He became attracted to physics when he walked by a lab one day and saw machines and generators whirring inside. He felt an immediate affinity with the scientists and students working those machines.
Wilson received his bachelor's degree from the University of California in 1936 and remained at the University as a graduate student. He earned his doctor's degree in 1940.
Wilson took a position as a physics instructor at Princeton University in 1940. When the United States became involved in World War II, he was asked, along with thousands of other expert scientists and mathematicians, to help with the effort to develop an atomic bomb. From 1943 to 1946 he lived in Los Alamos, New Mexico, serving as leader of a group of scientists working on a cyclotron. In 1944 he became head of the division researching experimental nuclear physics, which eventually became responsible for designing instruments to measure the flash produced by the first test bomb.
During his stay in Los Alamos, it became clear that the United States government was not going to let the inventors of the weapon have any input about how the bomb was going to be used. Wilson, along with many other scientists involved, became discouraged about the political uses of the weapon they had designed. The power of the bomb was extraordinary; yet only the scientists seemed aware of its awesome power and the ramifications of misuse.
After World War II, Wilson took a position at Harvard University, designing a 150 MeV cyclotron—a machine that accelerates particles to 150 million electron volts. The early machines sprayed out protons in all directions, so that measurements were difficult. Wilson realized that magnets could be used to focus the emerging protons into a concentrated beam. As Lederman wrote in The God Particle, Wilson was “the first to understand the subtle but crucial effect the magnetic forces had in keeping the protons from spraying out.” As accelerators became more powerful they also became longer, eventually being designed in circular shapes. Magnetic fields were used to guide the particle beams around the accelerator rings.
In 1946 Wilson became a full professor at Cornell University, where he was also named the director of the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies. There, he oversaw the construction of a new type of particle accelerator, a 300 MeV synchrotron. (A synchrotron enabled particles to travel in a circular path at increasing speeds.) In the following years, he built ever more powerful accelerators to help explore the nature of the proton. From his experiments, the structure of the proton was established.
In the early 1960s, however, Wilson became discouraged with his research in particle physics. He seemed not to be making headway in his field. By the mid-1960s, he was considering a total change. He thought perhaps he should pursue full-time what had been a lifelong hobby, sculpture. It was at this time, when Wilson was casting about for change, that he was offered the opportunity to construct the 200-billion- electron-volt (200 GeV, or gigaelectron volts) synchrotron—the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Wilson approached his new project with zeal and creativity. Construction at Fermilab was started in 1968 and finished in 1971—far less time than had been estimated by other experts. The new accelerator was contained at the world’s best experimental facility in particle physics. Protons traveled near the speed of light, with collisions reaching an energy level of 400 gigaelectron volts. A few initial problems were resolved, and it became clear that the power of Fermilab would be useful in many ways. Wilson was convinced that the discovery was a direct result of the power of the accelerator. One of Wilson’s powerful innovations during his tenure at Fermilab was the use of superconducting magnets to optimize energy efficiency and produce a more powerful magnetic field to guide the beams of particles.
By 1974, it was clear that, in order to remain the world’s best, Fermilab’s power would have to be increased even more. In 1977, Wilson appealed to Congress for increased funding. Wilson wanted to build a second ring of magnets to boost the energy level to 1000 gigaelectron volts, but Congress denied the funding. Early in 1978, Wilson resigned as director, convinced that he could do more to advance physics on his own than as a director of a minimally funded lab.
Although Wilson remained involved with the lab as director emeritus and architectural consultant, he has spent most of his time after his resignation teaching. From 1978 to 1980, he was the Peter B. Ritzma Professor at the University of Chicago and from 1980 to 1983, the Michael Pupin Professor at Columbia. He has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, the University of Washington and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He was a professor of physics emeritus at Cornell University.
Wilson made contributions to the use of magnetic forces to guide beams of particles. In addition, Wilson had been an active sculptor during his years as a physicist, and his experience in both fields culminated in the design of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory at Batavia, just west of Chicago, Illinois. Wilson brought a philosophical approach to the building of Fermilab, comparing the process of building the lab to the process of building the great cathedrals in Europe. Several of Wilson’s sculptures—metal constructions and stone carvings—are displayed at Fermilab.
Wilson was awarded the Elliott Cresson Medal by Franklin Institute in 1964. In 1973 he won the National Medal of Science. Wilson also received the Enrico Fermi Award in 1984, as well as the Wright Prize in 1986 and Del Regato Medal in 1989. He also earned the Andrew Gemant Award in 1995.
Wilson had, at first, been a reluctant participant in the war efforts. He had initially opposed the war, but in the early 1940s, with the fighting in Europe escalating, he had accepted an invitation by Dr. Lawrence to attend a conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to discuss the war. There, he heard testimony from witnesses regarding the devastation in Europe. He agreed that Germany must be stopped.
Membership
Wilson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Federation of American Scientists and the Sigma Xi.
He was a president.
American Physical Society
,
United States
1985
Connections
Wilson married Jane Inez Scheyer on August 20, 1940. The couple produced three sons - Daniel, Jonathan and Rand.
