Ernest Lawrence's cyclotron accelerated charged particles through repeated passes across an electric field while a magnetic field bent their paths. Krishna Choudhary and Lester Nare explain how his work helped establish an era of large accelerators and large research teams. They also discuss the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory and Lawrence's role in developing electromagnetic uranium enrichment during the Manhattan Project.
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Lawrence received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing and developing the cyclotron and its applications.
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A cyclotron uses magnetic fields to guide charged particles and an alternating electric field to accelerate them.
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The hosts connect Lawrence's approach to the growth of large, collaborative experiments in high-energy physics.
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58:44>> For anyone who's a fan of the Born series, I'm sure when he walked in the room, everyone was like, "Jesus Jesus Christ, it's Max Born." >> Born. >> Born 1882, passed away 1970. >> Yes. All right, now we get to number eight, Ernest Lawrence. >> Okay. >> Played by um Josh Hartnett. >> Another great casting. I mean, it's just unbelievable. >> They look so alike. It's pretty funny. >> Yeah. >> Um American experimental physicist, the inventor of the cyclotron, which is this first of big particle accelerators. He's kind of the founder of particle accelerator research. Okay, he's the first one to build one. Um professor at
59:25UC Berkeley. Um pioneer of big science, the idea of getting a lot of money to make really big things. >> Yep. >> Right? >> Yep. >> To probe energies at a really high scale. Um, good friend of Robert Oppenheimer, warned Robert Oppen- warned Oppenheimer against politics, and post-war they kind of stopped being friends. Um, >> War will do that to you. >> Yeah, and he didn't actually testify for or against Oppenheimer in the hearing. Which is >> Interesting. >> Which is interesting, right? Um, he founds the Berkeley Radiation Lab, which is what we see in the film. And he invented the Calutron, which is
1:00:06the California University cyclotrons, used that for uranium 235 enrichment at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee. >> All right, then. >> Yeah, so he won the Nobel Prize for building the cyclotron, which is this particle accelerator that uses magnetic fields and an oscillating electric field to accelerate charged particles to a really, really high >> Yes. >> Um, speeds. >> Yes. >> Inventor of really particle physics in general. Some people would say like, you okay, that was actually Rutherford, but I would really say the modern version of particle physics is Ernest Lawrence. >> And would you sort of say it as we look at physics as a whole, this high energy particle physics as a sub genre is a top
1:00:48tier sub genre within all of the sub genres of modern modern physics? >> Exactly, yeah, it's probing, you know, the the fundamental limits of reality. And this is the guy to really be like, no, we just need to spend a lot of money and make big machines.
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