Ernest Lawrence: The Architect of 'Big Science' Behind Oppenheimer

In the recently released film *Oppenheimer*, the character of Ernest Lawrence surely leaves a lasting impression. Although his screen time is limited, he was one of the most pivotal figures in the real-life Manhattan Project and in advancing U.S. basic scientific research in the post-World War II era.

This name may be somewhat unfamiliar to some readers, yet it was he who developed the cyclotron—now an essential component of large-scale physics experimental facilities—and devised the method for separating uranium-235, the key material that saved the Manhattan Project’s atomic bomb effort.

It was Lawrence who transformed Vannevar Bush’s famous report, *Science: The Endless Frontier*, submitted to Franklin D. Roosevelt, from a visionary blueprint into an actionable reality. As a pragmatist, he ushered in the era of “Big Science,” characterized by research institutions mobilizing vast financial and disciplinary resources to achieve singular objectives, thereby making technological competition among major powers the dominant narrative.

Ernest Lawrence was born in 1901 in Canton, a small town in South Dakota. This seemingly tranquil and picturesque town must have been blessed by some feng shui anomaly, as it has produced an abundance of forestry resources and physicists. In addition to Lawrence, his brother John was one of the founders of radiological medicine; his brother-in-law Edwin McMillan researched transuranium elements and invented the synchrotron; and Lawrence’s childhood friend Frank Tuve served as the first director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), the largest university-affiliated research center in the United States.

A physics enthusiast, Lawrence learned through play and made his way to Yale, where he earned his Ph.D. At that time, Ernest Rutherford, the representative of the “small science” era, was still hand-crafting reform counters in a dark room in Manchester to observe particle scintillations.

In 1928, several universities extended faculty offers to Lawrence. Due to colleagues at Yale questioning his lack of teaching experience and his sensitive background as a Norwegian immigrant, Lawrence instead accepted a position as an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where the annual salary was higher. Two years later, he was promoted to full professor, becoming the youngest professor in the university’s history. At that time, Lawrence was only 29 years old.

In the same year he was appointed full professor, Lawrence and his team accidentally discovered nitrogen-13 while bombarding carbon-13 with high-energy protons; it subsequently became a radioactive tracer used in PET scans.

Unexpected discoveries kept coming one after another. One night, while working overtime, Lawrence inadvertently glanced at an article by Norwegian physicist Rolf Widerøe. Although the text was not in English, the diagrams were understandable. Lawrence suddenly conceived the idea of accelerating particles using a circular orbit. He immediately sketched the design on a napkin and built the first 10-cm cyclotron prototype at a cost of just over $20.

Robert Gordon Sproul, the newly appointed President of the University of California, observing Lawrence’s productive output (and his ever-increasing expenditure), introduced him to the elite Bohemian Club, of which Sproul was a member. There, Lawrence connected with numerous American celebrities and business leaders, ensuring that he did not rely solely on his own institution for research funding. This marked the beginning of what would later become the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.Radiation Laboratory, and successfully implemented a business model that leverages global basic scientific research: unpaid PhD students who do everything and wealthy donors who ask no questions.

To build a successful career, one must not neglect love. In 1932, Lawrence married his longtime girlfriend, Molly. At the wedding, her father, George Blumer, Dean of Yale School of Medicine, wept profusely. Meanwhile, his future brother-in-law, Edwin McMillan, had no idea that he would follow in his brother-in-law’s footsteps and win the Nobel Prize twenty years later.

In the following years, Lawrence continued to expand and enhance his cyclotron, not only refining its design but also developing clinical therapeutic applications through collaboration with the Department of Physiology at the University of California, Berkeley, thereby laying the groundwork for future interdisciplinary cooperation within the laboratory.

For his design and construction of the high-energy particle cyclotron, Lawrence was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939. At that time, he had just passed his 38th birthday by less than three months.

With the outbreak of World War II and the United States’ significant lag behind Europe in basic scientific research, Lawrence’s “Big Science” approach surged onto the historical stage.

Throughout the 1930s, Lawrence was able to create increasingly large physical research facilities with financial support from private philanthropists. Following the era of “small science,” represented by Rutherford and the Curies, Lawrence was the first representative figure to assemble large teams to construct major projects for making discoveries in basic research.

It is worth highlighting the financial sponsorship from American philanthropists and industry players at that time. On one hand, Lawrence was indeed capable of mobilizing substantial resources to ensure the proper utilization of funds; more importantly, entrepreneurs in the industry recognized the profound potential of nuclear physics to revolutionize the energy era.

As time went on, these devices became too large to be housed on the university campus, so in 1940, the Radiation Laboratory moved to its current location at the Berkeley Lab on the hills above the campus. Among the team assembled during this period was a well-liked comrade who favored wide-brimmed hats and was rarely without a cigarette—J. Robert Oppenheimer.

By late 1942, the European theater of war was intensifying. Eager to bring the war to an early end, the U.S. military dispatched representative Leslie Groves to visit Lawrence’s Radiation Laboratory.

At that time, he was organizing the Manhattan Project and had his first meeting with J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer was tasked with organizing the development of the nuclear bomb and established what is now Los Alamos National Laboratory to help maintain the secrecy of the work.

Leveraging the continuous flow of resources and demands provided by the military to the Radiation Laboratory, Lawrence and his colleagues drew upon their experience with cyclotrons to develop electromagnetic uranium enrichment technology, thereby making the production of atomic bombs possible. Lawrence’s laboratory also made outstanding contributions to the development of proximity fuzes and radar, which, together with the atomic bomb, are regarded as the three most valuable technological advancements produced as a byproduct of the war.

Regarding the “Manhattan Project,” films likely offer more dramatized portrayals; here, we merely highlight some striking figures: At its peak, the project employed 130,000 people and cost a total of $2 billion (equivalent to approximately $24 billion today). Ninety percent of the budget was allocated to infrastructure construction and raw material extraction, while 10% was devoted to the actual fabrication of the bomb. The entire endeavor spanned more than 30 research and development centers across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Following the end of World War II, as a key contributor to the Manhattan Project, the Radiation Laboratory saw its credit line surge, with an annual discretionary research budget reaching $2 million. This funding was allocated to various basic research projects of differing scales, enabling Ernest Lawrence to attain a position of scientific leadership comparable to that supported by government agencies during peacetime.

Capitalizing on the rapid breakthroughs achieved during World War II, Lawrence also extended these technologies to industry and other disciplines. Artificial radioactive isotopes were applied in biological research institutions to investigate methods for killing cancer cells, while energy companies gained insights into the secrets of nuclear power generation.

As the director, Lawrence managed the Radiation Laboratory until his death in 1958. During the laboratory’s more than 90-year history, nearly one-third of that time was under Lawrence’s leadership. The strategic direction he established for the laboratory has endured for over six decades to this day.

To this day, even after its scale has grown exponentially, the laboratory’s DNA remains unchanged.

At Berkeley Lab, interdisciplinary collaboration remains a constant core mission. The laboratory continuously promotes cross-disciplinary cooperation across different scientific fields, bringing together experts in physics, chemistry, biology, materials science, and engineering. This approach enables researchers to address complex problems from multiple perspectives, thereby yielding innovative solutions and breakthroughs.

As a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory, Berkeley Lab naturally has access to government funding and support. This stable financial backing enables researchers to pursue long-term, high-impact projects and maintain their focus on basic research.

As basic science researchers, we should always keep in mind that research should focus on addressing the social challenges faced by the human community and adhere to long-term goals to cope with ever-changing complex challenges.