42 Facts About Edwin McMillan

Edwin Mattison McMillan was an American physicist credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium.

Edwin McMillan led teams working on the gun-type nuclear weapon design, and participated in the development of the implosion-type nuclear weapon.

Edwin McMillan was appointed associate director of the Radiation Laboratory in 1954 and promoted to deputy director in 1958.

Edwin McMillan became director upon the death of lab founder Ernest Lawrence later that year, and remained director until his retirement in 1973.

Edwin McMillan had a younger sister, Catherine Helen, whose son John Clauser won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022.

Edwin McMillan's father was a physician, as was his father's twin brother, and three of his mother's brothers.

Edwin McMillan did a research project with Linus Pauling as an undergraduate and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1928 and his Master of Science degree in 1929, writing an unpublished thesis on "An improved method for the determination of the radium content of rocks".

Edwin McMillan then took his Doctor of Philosophy from Princeton University in 1933, writing his thesis on the "Deflection of a Beam of HCI Molecules in a Non-Homogeneous Electric Field" under the supervision of Edward Condon.

In 1932, Edwin McMillan was awarded a National Research Council fellowship, allowing him to attend a university of his choice for postdoctoral study.

The main focus of the Radiation laboratory at this time was the development of the cyclotron, and Edwin McMillan, who was appointed to the faculty at Berkeley as an instructor in 1935, soon became involved in the effort.

Edwin McMillan became an assistant professor in 1936, and an associate professor in 1941.

Edwin McMillan bombarded it with neutrons produced in the Radiation Laboratory's 37-inch cyclotron through bombarding beryllium with deuterons.

Edwin McMillan identified the short-lived isotope as uranium-239, which had been reported by Hahn and Strassmann.

Edwin McMillan suspected that the other was an isotope of a new, undiscovered element, with an atomic number of 93.

Since these comprise a large percentage of fission products, Segre and Edwin McMillan decided that the half-life must have been simply another fission product, titling the article "An Unsuccessful Search for Transuranium Elements".

Edwin McMillan realized that his 1939 work with Segre had failed to test the chemical reactions of the radioactive source with sufficient rigor.

Edwin McMillan suddenly departed for war-related work at this point, leaving Glenn Seaborg to pursue this line of research and discover the second transuranium element, plutonium.

In 1951, Edwin McMillan shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Seaborg "for their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements".

Edwin McMillan conducted tests in April 1941 with the radar operating from an old Douglas B-18 Bolo medium bomber.

Edwin McMillan married Elsie Walford Blumer in New Haven, Connecticut, on June 7,1941.

Edwin McMillan's father was George Blumer, Dean Emeritus of the Yale Medical School.

Edwin McMillan joined the Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory near San Diego in August 1941.

Edwin McMillan developed a sonar training device for submariners, for which he received a patent.

Oppenheimer recruited Edwin McMillan to join the Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to create atomic bombs, in September 1942.

Edwin McMillan recruited personnel for the laboratory, including Richard Feynman and Robert R Wilson, established the test area known as the Anchor Ranch, and scoured the country for technical equipment from machine tools to a cyclotron.

Edwin McMillan took an early interest in this, watching tests of this concept conducted by Seth Neddermeyer.

Edwin McMillan heard disturbing news in April 1944, and drove out to Pajarito Canyon to confer with Segre.

Edwin McMillan remained in charge of the gun-type weapon, which would now be used only with uranium-235.

Edwin McMillan was involved with the implosion as the head of the G-3 Group within the G Division, which was responsible for obtaining measurements and timings on implosion, and served as the laboratory's liaison with Project Camel, the aerial test program being carried out by Caltech.

In June 1945, Edwin McMillan's thoughts began to return to cyclotrons.

Edwin McMillan dubbed this the "phase stability principle", and the new design a "synchrotron".

In 1964, Edwin McMillan received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

The phase stability principle was tested with the old 37-inch cyclotron at Berkeley after Edwin McMillan returned to the Radiation Laboratory in September 1945.

In 1970, it split into the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and Edwin McMillan became director of the former.

Edwin McMillan was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1947, serving as its chairman from 1968 to 1971.

Edwin McMillan was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1952.

Edwin McMillan served on the influential General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1954 to 1958, and the Commission on High Energy Physics of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics from 1960 to 1967.

Edwin McMillan was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1962.

Edwin McMillan was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1990.

Edwin McMillan suffered the first of a series of strokes in 1984.

Edwin McMillan died at his home in El Cerrito, California, from complications from diabetes on September 7,1991.

Edwin McMillan was survived by his wife and three children.