Wilson at the groundbreaking for Fermilab's Main Ring accelerator in 1969. Robert Rathbun Wilson (1914-2000) was an American physicist who was a group leader of the Manhattan Project, a sculptor, and an architect of Fermi National Laboratory (Fermilab), where he was also the director from 1967-1978. In 1943, Wilson was appointed as head of the Cyclotron Group (R-1) by Oppenheimer for the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Only in his late twenties, he was the youngest group leader in the experimental division. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wilson helped organize the Association of Los Alamos Scientists (ALAS), which called, with a scientists' petition, for the international control of atomic energy. He also helped form the Federation of American Scientists and served as its chairman in 1946. |