Eugene Wigner
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".[1]
The native form of this personal name is Wigner Jenő Pál. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Eugene Wigner
January 1, 1995 (aged 92)
- Hungary (by birth)
- United States (naturalized 1937)
- Bargmann–Wigner equations
- Law of conservation of parity
- Wigner D-matrix
- Wigner–Eckart theorem
- Wigner's friend
- Wigner semicircle distribution
- Wigner's classification
- Wigner distribution function
- Wigner quasiprobability distribution
- Wigner crystal
- Wigner effect
- Wigner energy
- Relativistic Breit–Wigner distribution
- Modified Wigner distribution function
- Wigner–d'Espagnat inequality
- Gabor–Wigner transform
- Wigner's theorem
- Jordan–Wigner transformation
- Newton–Wigner localization
- Wigner–Inonu contraction
- Wigner–Seitz cell
- Wigner–Seitz radius
- Thomas–Wigner rotation
- Wigner–Weyl transform
- Wigner–Wilkins spectrum
- 6-j symbol
- 9-j symbol
David Wigner, Martha Wigner
- Medal for Merit (1946)
- Franklin Medal (1950)
- Enrico Fermi Award (1958)
- Atoms for Peace Award (1959)
- Max Planck Medal (1961)
- Nobel Prize in Physics (1963)
- National Medal of Science (1969)
- Albert Einstein Award (1972)
- Wigner Medal (1978)
A graduate of the Technical University of 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 a number of 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.
Later years[edit]
Wigner was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1944 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1945.[43][44] He accepted a position as the director of research and development at the Clinton Laboratory (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in early 1946. Because he did not want to be involved in administrative duties, he became co-director of the laboratory, with James Lum handling the administrative chores as executive director.[45] When the newly created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) took charge of the laboratory's operations at the start of 1947, Wigner feared that many of the technical decisions would be made in Washington.[46] He also saw the Army's continuation of wartime security policies at the laboratory as a "meddlesome oversight", interfering with research.[47] One such incident occurred in March 1947, when the AEC discovered that Wigner's scientists were conducting experiments with a critical mass of uranium-235 when the director of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., had forbidden such experiments in August 1946 after the death of Louis Slotin at the Los Alamos Laboratory. 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.[48]
Feeling unsuited to a managerial role in such an environment, he left Oak Ridge in 1947 and returned to Princeton University,[49] although he maintained a consulting role with the facility for many years.[46] In the postwar period, he served on a number of 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.[50] He also contributed to civil defense.[51]
Wigner was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950.[52]
Near the end of his life, Wigner's thoughts turned more philosophical. In 1960, he published a now classic article on the philosophy of mathematics and of physics, which has become his best-known work outside technical mathematics and physics, "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences".[53] He 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.[53] His original paper has provoked and inspired many responses across a wide range of disciplines. These included Richard Hamming in Computer Science,[54] Arthur Lesk in Molecular Biology,[55] Peter Norvig in data mining,[56] Max Tegmark in Physics,[57] Ivor Grattan-Guinness in Mathematics,[58] and Vela Velupillai in Economics.[59]
Turning to philosophical questions about the theory of quantum mechanics, Wigner developed a thought experiment (later called Wigner's Friend paradox) to illustrate his belief that consciousness is foundational to the quantum mechanical measurement process. He 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 (also called 'apperceptions') of the consciousness".[60]
Measurements are understood as the interactions which create the impressions in our consciousness (and as a result modify the wave function of the "measured" physical system), an idea which has been called the "consciousness causes collapse" interpretation.
Interestingly, Hugh Everett III (a student of Wigner's) discussed Wigner's thought experiment in the introductory part of his 1957 dissertation as an "amusing, but extremely hypothetical drama".[61] In an early draft of Everett's work, one also finds a drawing of the Wigner's Friend situation,[62] which must be seen as the first evidence on paper of the thought experiment that was later assigned to be Wigner's. This suggests that Everett must at least have discussed the problem together with Wigner.
In November 1963, Wigner called for the allocation of 10% of the national defense budget to be spent on nuclear blast shelters and survival resources, arguing that such an expenditure would be less costly than disarmament. Wigner considered a recent Woods Hole study's conclusion that a nuclear strike would kill 20% of Americans to be a very modest projection and that the country could recover from such an attack more quickly than Germany had recovered from the devastation of World War II.[63]
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".[1] The prize was shared that year, with the other half of the award divided between Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen.[1] Wigner professed that he had never considered the possibility that this might occur, and added: "I never expected to get my name in the newspapers without doing something wicked."[64] He also won the Franklin Medal in 1950,[65] the Enrico Fermi award in 1958,[66] the Atoms for Peace Award in 1959,[67] the Max Planck Medal in 1961,[68] the National Medal of Science in 1969,[69] the Albert Einstein Award in 1972,[70] the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1974,[71] the eponymous Wigner Medal in 1978,[72] and the Herzl Prize in 1982. In 1968 he gave the Josiah Willard Gibbs lecture.[73][74]
After his retirement from Princeton in 1971, Wigner prepared the first edition of Symmetries and Reflections, a collection of philosophical essays, and became more involved in international and political meetings; around this time he became a leader[75] and vocal defender[76] of the Unification Church's annual International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences.
Mary died in November 1977. In 1979, Wigner married his third wife, Eileen Clare-Patton (Pat) Hamilton, the widow of physicist Donald Ross Hamilton, the dean of the graduate school at Princeton University, who had died in 1972.[77] In 1992, at the age of 90, he published his memoirs, The Recollections of Eugene P. Wigner with Andrew Szanton. In it, Wigner said: "The full meaning of life, the collective meaning of all human desires, is fundamentally a mystery beyond our grasp. As a young man, I chafed at this state of affairs. But by now I have made peace with it. I even feel a certain honor to be associated with such a mystery."[78] In his collection of essays 'Philosophical Reflections and Syntheses' (1995), he commented: "It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness."[79]
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".[80]
Wigner died of pneumonia at the University Medical Center in Princeton, New Jersey on 1 January 1995.[81]