Concept
Eugene Wigner
Overview
Eugene Paul Wigner (Hungarian: Wigner Jenő Pál, pronounced [ˈviɡnɛr ˈjɛnøː ˈpaːl]; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He 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".
A graduate of the Technical Hochschule Berlin (now Technische Universität Berlin), Wigner worked as an assistant to Karl Weissenberg and Richard Becker at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, and David Hilbert at the University of Göttingen. Wigner and Hermann Weyl were responsible for introducing group theory into physics, particularly the theory of symmetry in physics. Along the way he performed ground-breaking work in pure mathematics, in which he authored a number of mathematical theorems. In particular, Wigner's theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. He is also known for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus. In 1930, Princeton University recruited Wigner, along with John von Neumann, and he moved to the United States, where he obtained citizenship in 1937.
Wigner participated in a meeting with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein that resulted in the Einstein–Szilard letter, which prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the creation of the Advisory Committee on Uranium with the purpose of investigating the feasibility of nuclear weapons. Wigner was afraid that the German nuclear weapon project would develop an atomic bomb first. During the Manhattan Project, he led a team whose task was to design nuclear reactors to convert uranium into weapons grade plutonium. At the time, reactors existed only on paper, and no reactor had yet gone critical. Wigner was disappointed that DuPont was given responsibility for the detailed design of the reactors, not just their construction. He became director of research and development at the Clinton Laboratory (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) in early 1946, but became frustrated with bureaucratic interference by the Atomic Energy Commission, and returned to Princeton.
In the postwar period, he served on government bodies, including the National Bureau of Standards from 1947 to 1951, the mathematics panel of the National Research Council from 1951 to 1954, the physics panel of the National Science Foundation, and the influential General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1952 to 1957 and again from 1959 to 1964. In later life, he became more philosophical, and published "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences", his best-known work outside technical mathematics and physics.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The three principal sources of our knowledge concerning atoms have been the light they emit, X-rays and radio-activity. As everyone knows, when the light emitted by a glowing gas is passed through a prism, it is found to consist of well-defined lines of different colours, which are characteristic for each element, and constitute what is called its “spectrum”. The spectrum extends beyond the range of visible light…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
States what Eugene Wigner is.
The closely similar set of disturbances, with very nearly the same center, which is found existing slightly earlier or slightly later, will be defined as _being_ the electron at a slightly earlier or slightly later moment. In this way, we preserve all the laws of physics, without having recourse to unnecessary hypotheses or inferred entities, and we remain in harmony with the general principle of economy which has…
Bertrand Russell, The A B C of Relativity
Close in meaning to Eugene Wigner; the term itself is not named.
When we come to atoms, the presumption in favor of a simple law seems very slender. There is room for serious doubt whether the fundamental laws of mechanics hold good for single atoms, and it seems quite likely that they are capable of motion in more than three dimensions.
Charles S. Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic
Close in meaning to Eugene Wigner; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Eugene Wigner
Related ideas
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Hungary
- Judaism
- National Science Foundation
- John von Neumann
- Max Tegmark
- University of Göttingen
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Theoretical physics
- Atomic nucleus
- Ivor Grattan-Guinness
- Lutheranism
- University of Wisconsin–Madison
- Princeton University
- Quantum mechanics
- American Philosophical Society
- Austria-Hungary
- The New York Times
- Nazism
- University of Chicago
- Werner Heisenberg
- Yale University
- Budapest
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Place in the tradition
Part of Analytic philosophy.