California Institute of Technology (BS, MS) Princeton University (PhD)
Known for
Discovery of neptunium, the first transuranium element Synchrocyclotron
Awards
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1951) Atoms for Peace Award (1963) National Medal of Science (1990)
Scientific career
Fields
Chemistry
Institutions
University of California, Berkeley Berkeley Radiation Laboratory
Thesis
Deflection of a Beam of HCI Molecules in a Non-Homogeneous Electric Field(1933)
Doctoral advisor
Edward Condon
Edwin Mattison McMillan (September 18, 1907 – September 7, 1991) was an American physicist credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element, neptunium. For this, he shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Glenn Seaborg.
A graduate of California Institute of Technology, he earned his doctorate from Princeton University in 1933, and joined the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory where he discovered oxygen-15 and beryllium-10. During World War II, he worked on microwave radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, and then on sonar at the Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory. In 1942 he joined the Manhattan Project, the wartime effort to create atomic bombs, and helped establish its Los Alamos Laboratory where the bombs were designed. He led teams working on the gun-type nuclear weapon design, and also participated in the development of the implosion-type nuclear weapon.
McMillan co-invented the synchrotron with Vladimir Veksler, and after the war he returned to the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory to build them. He was appointed associate director of the Radiation Laboratory in 1954 and promoted to deputy director in 1958. He became director upon the death of lab founder Ernest Lawrence later that year, and remained director until his retirement in 1973.
Edwin Mattison McMillan (September 18, 1907 – September 7, 1991) was an American physicist credited with being the first to produce a transuranium element...
his closest friend in Berkeley. In 1941, Molly's sister Elsie married EdwinMcMillan, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951 with Glenn...
new approach was needed. EdwinMcMillan co-invented the synchrotron with Vladimir Veksler to address the problem. McMillan built an electron synchrotron...
The synchrotron principle was invented by Vladimir Veksler in 1944. EdwinMcMillan constructed the first electron synchrotron in 1945, arriving at the...
discovery were made over the years, the element was first synthesized by EdwinMcMillan and Philip H. Abelson at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory in 1940....
PhD 1930) proved the existence of positrons and muons, Nobel laureate EdwinMcMillan (BS 1928, MS 1929) synthesized the first transuranium element, Nobel...
A synchrocyclotron is a special type of cyclotron, patented by EdwinMcMillan in 1952, in which the frequency of the driving RF electric field is varied...
identified between December 1940 and February 1941 by Glenn T. Seaborg, EdwinMcMillan, Emilio Segrè, Joseph W. Kennedy, and Arthur Wahl by deuteron bombardment...
made sufficiently symmetric. Oppenheimer arranged for Neddermeyer and EdwinMcMillan to visit the National Defense Research Committee's Explosives Research...
Vladimir Veksler, who had invented the synchrotron independently from EdwinMcMillan. Its final energy for protons, and later deuterium nuclei, was 10 GeV...
1982, and his son Svante Pääbo was awarded the same prize in 2022. EdwinMcMillan, who shared the Prize in Chemistry in 1951, was the uncle of John Clauser...
Reichstein Bertrand Russell Ralph Bunche 1951 John Cockcroft; Ernest Walton EdwinMcMillan; Glenn T. Seaborg Max Theiler Pär Lagerkvist Léon Jouhaux 1952 Felix...
Neddermeyer to present a proposal for a greatly expanded research program. EdwinMcMillan and Isidor Isaac Rabi recommended that George Kistiakowsky, who had...
Livingston, M. S.; Blewett, J. (1969). Particle Accelerators. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-1-114-44384-6. "More background on accelerators". www.iaea...
mother, Catharine McMillan, was the humanities librarian at Caltech and sister of 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate EdwinMcMillan. He received a bachelor...
1949: William Giauque 1950: Otto Diels / Kurt Alder 1951–1975 1951: EdwinMcMillan / Glenn T. Seaborg 1952: Archer Martin / Richard Synge 1953: Hermann...
physicists Emilio Segrè, Felix Bloch, Franco Rasetti, John Manley, and EdwinMcMillan. They tentatively confirmed that a fission bomb was theoretically possible...
LBNL) at the University of California, Berkeley, led principally by EdwinMcMillan, Glenn Seaborg, and Albert Ghiorso, during 1945-1974: 93. neptunium...
for isotope separation. In 1943, their cyclotron was requisitioned by EdwinMcMillan for use by the U. S. Army. It was packed up and carted off to Los Alamos...
1934 - Ernest Lawrence and Stan Livingston invent the cyclotron 1945 - EdwinMcMillan devises a synchrotron 1952 - Donald Glaser develops the bubble chamber...
Global Information