Engineering Education Blog: Ernest Lawrence accepts Nobel Prize in physics for the cyclotron
by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (122) · February 29th, 2008 · Add a Comment
Today in History – February 29, 1940 – The Nobel Prize in Physics was presented to Ernest Lawrence “for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements”. Due to WWII, the prize could not be awarded in Sweden and was awarded instead in Berkley, California on this date.
In 1929 Ernest Lawrence invented the cyclotron, a particle accelerator designed to bombard atoms of various elements, disintegrating the atoms to subparticles, sometimes resulting in completely new elements. Hundreds of radioactive isotopes of the known elements were discovered from the cyclotron, including the transuranium element, plutonium, the first synthetic element to be produced on a large scale. Ernest Lawrence’s brother, John, collaborated with him in studying medical and biological applications of the cyclotron, laying the foundation for today’s diagnostic tools and radiation treatment for cancer.
During World War II Ernest Lawrence made vital contributions to the development of the atomic bomb under the Manhatten Project. After the war he worked hard to obtain international agreement on the suspension of atomic-bomb testing and was a member of the U.S. delegation at the 1958 Geneva Conference on this subject. His work to “control the atom” from misuse was controversial and his lack of support for colleagues brought before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities during the control war came under criticism by both the right and the left.
This discovery provides an interesting case in engineering ethics and the social implications of technology. Today, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), named after Lawrence, has taken the lead in a diverse range of projects in particle physics and energy, such as environmental energy technologies.
See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on particle physics and the cyclotron or visit the Nuclear Engineering Education or the Chemical Engineering Education community sites for more information.
It is interesting to note that Lawrence grew up in a small town in South Dakota. My grandfather, who worked as an aeronautical and civil engineer, went to high school with him and recalls that small towns in the West provided fertile ground for young minds excited about opportunities in science and engineering. The Hewlett Foundation has recently re-visited this concept and is funding the Engineering Schools of the West Initiative.
Tags: General Engineering, Engineering Science · Nuclear Engineering · Physics
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