Call Number:

C0742

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

• 119 boxes
• 49.7 linear feet

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Eugene Paul Wigner Papers, Box and Folder Number; Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1930s-1980s (inclusive) and 1940s-1970s (bulk)

Creator:

Wigner, Eugene Paul (1902-1995)

Form:

Audio cassettes., Correspondence -- 20th century, and Lectures. -- 20th century

Abstract:

Consists of the papers of Hungarian-born, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner, and includes correspondence, subject files, writings, and offprints reflecting his long career in physics.

A Hungarian-born physicist, Wigner worked in the early 1930s as a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, where he studied the quantum mechanical interpretation of atomic spectra which resulted in the publication of his book Gruppentheorie und Ihre Anwendung auf die Quantenmechanik Der Atomspektren (1931), later translated and published as Group Theory (1951), now a classic in its field. He moved to the United States, where he became professor of mathematical physics at Princeton University from 1933 to1937 and from 1937 to 1938 at the University of Wisconsin; he then returned to Princeton, where he worked until 1971, becoming professor emeritus. Prior to World War II, Wigner, along with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein, was instrumental in getting the United States government to investigate the use of atomic energy for military purposes. During the War, he was on the staff of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago (the Manhattan Project) researching ways to produce an atomic bomb, and he helped design the nuclear reactor at Hanford, Wash., where plutonium was produced. He was a member of the general advisory committee for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (1952-1957, 1959-1964) and director of the Civil Defense Research Project at Oak Ridge, Tenn. (1964-1965), reflecting his interests in civil defense and national security. He received the Enrico Fermi Award (1958) and the Max Planck Medal (1961), and in 1963 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The collection consists of the papers of Wigner, including correspondence, subject files, writings, and offprints reflecting his long career in physics. While some of the material concerns his work in the early 1930s as a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, the bulk of the papers relate to the period after Wigner moved to the United States. There is correspondence with other physicists and scientsts, such as John von Neumann, Pascual Jordan, Werner Heisenberg, Leo Szilard, Glenn T. Seaborg, Frederick Seitz, and Alvin M. Weinberg, as well as correspondence relating to his receipt of the Enrico Fermi Award, the Max Planck Medal, and the Nobel Prize for Physics. Additionally, there are 15 cassettes of taped interviews with Wigner discussing his entire life, conducted by Andrew Szanton from 1988 to 1989. Most of the papers and correspondence are in English; however, there is some material in German or Hungarian.

In addition, there are two sets of typewritten lectures on "Solid State" delivered at Princeton University. The first (138 pp.), dating from the 1930s, contains autograph notes by Frederick Seitz. The second set of lectures (181 pp.) is titled "Theory of Solid State" and was delivered at Princeton University between 1948 and 1949.