48 Facts About Eugene Wigner

Eugene Wigner received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles".

In particular, Eugene Wigner's theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics.

Eugene Wigner is known for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus.

Eugene Wigner was afraid that the German nuclear weapon project would develop an atomic bomb first.

Eugene Wigner was disappointed that DuPont was given responsibility for the detailed design of the reactors, not just their construction.

Eugene Wigner became Director of Research and Development at the Clinton Laboratory in early 1946, but became frustrated with bureaucratic interference by the Atomic Energy Commission, and returned to Princeton.

Eugene Wigner Jeno Pal was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary on November 17,1902, to middle class Jewish parents, Elisabeth Elsa Einhorn and Antal Anton Eugene Wigner, a leather tanner.

Eugene Wigner had an older sister, Berta, known as Biri, and a younger sister Margit, known as Manci, who later married British theoretical physicist Paul Dirac.

Eugene Wigner was home schooled by a professional teacher until the age of 9, when he started school at the third grade.

At the age of 11, Eugene Wigner contracted what his doctors believed to be tuberculosis.

Eugene Wigner's parents sent him to live for six weeks in a sanatorium in the Austrian mountains, before the doctors concluded that the diagnosis was mistaken.

Eugene Wigner's family was Jewish, but not religiously observant, and his Bar Mitzvah was a secular one.

Eugene Wigner explained later in his life that his family decision to convert to Lutheranism "was not at heart a religious decision but an anti-communist one".

Eugene Wigner was not happy with the courses on offer, and in 1921 enrolled at the Technische Hochschule Berlin, where he studied chemical engineering.

Eugene Wigner attended the Wednesday afternoon colloquia of the German Physical Society.

Eugene Wigner met the physicist Leo Szilard, who at once became Eugene Wigner's closest friend.

Eugene Wigner worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, and there he met Michael Polanyi, who became, after Laszlo Ratz, Eugene Wigner's greatest teacher.

Eugene Wigner returned to Budapest, where he went to work at his father's tannery, but in 1926, he accepted an offer from Karl Weissenberg at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin.

Eugene Wigner explored quantum mechanics, studying the work of Erwin Schrodinger.

Eugene Wigner delved into the group theory of Ferdinand Frobenius and Eduard Ritter von Weber.

Eugene Wigner received a request from Arnold Sommerfeld to work at the University of Gottingen as an assistant to the great mathematician David Hilbert.

Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics and in 1927 introduced what is known as the Wigner D-matrix.

Eugene Wigner's theorem proved by Eugene Wigner in 1931, is a cornerstone of the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics.

At Princeton in 1934, Eugene Wigner introduced his sister Margit "Manci" Eugene Wigner to the physicist Paul Dirac, with whom she remarried.

Eugene Wigner therefore accepted a 1938 offer from Princeton to return there.

Eugene Wigner became a naturalized citizen of the United States on January 8,1937, and he brought his parents to the United States.

Eugene Wigner was afraid that the German nuclear weapon project would develop an atomic bomb first, and even refused to have his fingerprints taken because they could be used to track him down if Germany won.

On June 4,1941, Eugene Wigner married his second wife, Mary Annette Wheeler, a professor of physics at Vassar College, who had completed her Ph.

In July 1942, Eugene Wigner chose a conservative 100 MW design, with a graphite neutron moderator and water cooling.

Eugene Wigner was present at a converted rackets court under the stands at the University of Chicago's abandoned Stagg Field on December 2,1942, when the world's first atomic reactor, Chicago Pile One achieved a controlled nuclear chain reaction.

Eugene Wigner was disappointed that DuPont was given responsibility for the detailed design of the reactors, not just their construction.

Eugene Wigner threatened to resign in February 1943, but was talked out of it by the head of the Metallurgical Laboratory, Arthur Compton, who sent him on vacation instead.

Eugene Wigner did not regret working on the Manhattan Project, and sometimes wished the atomic bomb had been ready a year earlier.

An important discovery Eugene Wigner made during the project was the Eugene Wigner effect.

The Eugene Wigner effect was a serious problem for the reactors at the Hanford Site in the immediate post-war period, and resulted in production cutbacks and a reactor being shut down entirely.

Eugene Wigner was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1944 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1945.

Eugene Wigner accepted a position as the Director of Research and Development at the Clinton Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in early 1946.

Eugene Wigner saw the Army's continuation of wartime security policies at the laboratory as a "meddlesome oversight", interfering with research.

Eugene Wigner argued that Groves's order had been superseded, but was forced to terminate the experiments, which were completely different from the one that killed Slotin.

Eugene Wigner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950.

Eugene Wigner argued that biology and cognition could be the origin of physical concepts, as we humans perceive them, and that the happy coincidence that mathematics and physics were so well matched, seemed to be "unreasonable" and hard to explain.

Eugene Wigner thereby followed an ontological approach that sets human's consciousness at the center: "All that quantum mechanics purports to provide are probability connections between subsequent impressions of the consciousness".

Interestingly, Hugh Everett III discussed Eugene Wigner's thought experiment in the introductory part of his 1957 dissertation as an "amusing, but extremely hypothetical drama".

Eugene Wigner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles".

In 1979, Eugene Wigner married his third wife, Eileen Clare-Patton Hamilton, the widow of physicist Donald Ross Hamilton, the Dean of the Graduate School at Princeton University, who had died in 1972.

Eugene Wigner was credited as a member of the advisory board for the Western Goals Foundation, a private domestic intelligence agency created in the US in 1979 to "fill the critical gap caused by the crippling of the FBI, the disabling of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the destruction of crucial government files".

Eugene Wigner died of pneumonia at the University Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey on 1 January 1995.

Eugene Wigner was survived by his wife Eileen and children Erika, David and Martha, and his sisters Bertha and Margit.