Reactor physicist Alvin Martin Weinberg
died peacefully at home on 18 October 2006. He was a passionate advocate for safe nuclear energy,
was actively involved with the issue of global warming before that phrase was coined, and was an
effective adviser on science, energy, and technology in Washington, DC, and abroad.
Alvin was born in Chicago
on 20 April 1915 and was educated at the University of Chicago, where he received his AB in 1935 and
AM in 1936 in physics and his PhD in molecular physics, under Carl Eckart, in 1939. His first paper,
"Rotation and Vibration of Linear Triatomic Molecules," written with Eckart, was published in
the Journal of Chemical Physics in 1937. His 541st publication, entitled "New Life for
Nuclear Power," appeared in 2003.
At the University of Chicago,
Alvin was studying the physics of nerve conduction with Nicholas Rashevsky in 1941 when the Manhattan
Project established the Metallurgical Laboratory there. Because of his considerable mathematical
skills, Alvin was co-opted into the atomic bomb project to work with Eugene Wigner on the design
of the huge plutonium production reactors for Hanford, Washington. Wigner, who would become Alvin's
hero, was looking for someone with keen physical intuition and a strong record in theoretical physics.
Alvin had both.
In 1945 Alvin was transferred
to Oak Ridge to design the Clinton Laboratories' X-pile, the world's first nuclear reactor, to
be a production reactor to make gram quantities of plutonium for use in chemical studies to separate
plutonium from uranium. Clinton Laboratories became Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the X-pile
became the graphite reactor, later the source of all the radioisotopes that transformed biology
and many other sciences after World War II.
Under Alvin's leadership—he
was research director from 1948 to 1955 and director from 1955 to 1973—ORNL changed from a
purely nuclear laboratory to a multidisciplinary national laboratory that not only built reactors
and accelerators but also developed expertise in environmental research, ecology, metallurgy,
mathematics, economics, and fusion. Through his involvement with the details of research programs
and their general direction, Alvin was a one-man quality assurance program.
Nuclear power was uppermost
in Alvin's mind throughout his life. He saw nuclear energy as a way to beat the Malthusian curse.
With cheap, unlimited energy, he saw the possibility of desalting seawater and making arid parts
of the world productive. He envisioned agro-industrial complexes in India that would provide
water for agriculture and electricity for industrial development. If high-grade uranium ores
became depleted, Alvin was going to "mine the rocks" or "mine the sea"—that is, extract uranium
and thorium from granite or from the oceans, where they are present in small quantities.
Alvin was not a blind booster
of nuclear power. From the outset he was concerned with reactor safety, and he argued for the creation
of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission so that one agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, would not
be both the advocate and regulator of nuclear power. His vocal concerns about reactor safety cost
him his job at ORNL.
Daunted but not defeated,
Alvin established the Institute for Energy Analysis in Oak Ridge in 1975, following a year-long
stint as director of the White House Office of Energy Research and Development. With
a small group of associates and a wider group of visitors, he delved into the carbon dioxide greenhouse
problem, the issues connected with nuclear waste, and environmental and other consequences of
energy conversion and use. He was director of the institute until 1985.
A prominent member of the
US science establishment, Alvin was a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Engineering—a rare honor—and was involved in many science-related studies.
As a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1960 to 1962, he represented national
laboratories in a body of largely academic and industrial representatives. He is well known for
his writing on scientific choice, wherein he distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic criteria.
Intrinsic criteria have to do with the value of the science itself: Is the science productive? Are
good people working in it? Are the results important? Extrinsic criteria deal with the question,
Is this particular science affecting other areas of science or the welfare of the people? He argued
that more funding should go to the sciences that showed great extrinsic value. For example, he concluded
that high-energy physics involves energies and time scales that cannot affect other sciences
or the well-being of humanity. That position earned him the ire of a large fraction of elementary-particle
physicists, but fortunately did not emasculate the budget for that branch of physics. In his later
days, when the connection between particle physics and cosmology became more evident, Alvin had
begun to change his mind.
Alvin deservedly accrued
many honors. He received both the Atoms for Peace Award and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in
1960, the 1980 Enrico Fermi Award, and many others, including my favorite, the Young Man of the Year
Award from the US Junior Chamber of Commerce in 1951.
Alvin was a superb laboratory
director. He knew everyone on the research staff by name, he knew their work in detail, he listened
to their presentations, and from his front-row seat he asked pointed questions. More than a manager,
he was a true scientific leader. He will never be replaced.
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