Eugene P. Wigner (1902–1995)

Born in Budapest, Hungary, Paul Wigner earned a Ph.D. in engineering in Berlin in 1924. During the 1930s he became one of a group of Hungarian scientists who left Europe and settled in the United States. He became a U.S. citizen in 1937. Married three times (his first two wives died), Wigner has afficher plus two children. From 1935 to 1937, Wigner served as visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, an experience that inspired in him a deep love for his adopted country. He then moved on to Princeton University (where he was named Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics in 1938) and began an association that lasted the remainder of his career. While at Princeton, Wigner played a major role in persuading the U.S. government to establish the Manhattan Project. Wigner has been called one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century as a result of his contributions to many fields of physics and his profound influence on the field. His pioneering application of group theory to the atomic nucleus established a method for discovering and applying the principles of symmetry to the behavior of physical phenomena and earned him a Nobel Prize in 1963 (a prize he shared with Maria Goepert Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen). Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in nuclear physics, Wigner's contributions are not limited to this area. For example, he and Pascal Jordan published an important basic paper in field theory. And his definitive work with Victor Weisskopf on the relationship between line shape and transition became an integral part of theoretical physics. Moreover, with his student Fredrick Seitz, Wigner also contributed substantially to solid-state physics. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins