Ernest LawrenceBirth Chart

Ernest Orlando Lawrence was an American physicist whose invention of the cyclotron established his influence on twentieth-century experimental physics. He received the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of this type of particle accelerator and went on to build ever larger machines, transforming high-energy research techniques. As an institutional leader, he founded the Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley — which evolved into the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — and played a key role in creating the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. During World War II he contributed to the war effort through the electromagnetic separation of isotopes using so-called calutrons, a process employed on a large scale at Oak Ridge for the Manhattan Project. After the war, Lawrence became an tireless proponent of “Big Science,” advocating large government-funded programs and major research facilities. His role in building scientific infrastructure and coordinating with public and private funders left a lasting legacy: two national laboratories bear his name and the chemical element with atomic number 103 was named lawrencium in his honor.