Eugene Paul Wigner, 1902-1995

Eugene Paul Wigner, was born in Budapest, Hungary, November 17, 1902, and was naturalized a U.S. citizen January 8, 1937. In 1941 he married Mary Annette Wheeler, and they had two children, David and Martha. During World War II, from 1942 to 1945, Dr. Wigner worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago. In 1946-1947 he became Director of Research and Development at Clinton Laboratories.

Dr. Wigner was a professor of theoretical physics for 33 years at Princeton University until his retirement in 1971. He shared the 1963 Nobel Prize for physics for his principles governing the interactions of atomic nuclear particles. Among his many scientific awards were the U. S. Medal for Merit (1946); the Enrico Fermi Prize (1958); Atoms for Peace Award (1960); the Medal of the Franklin Society; the Max Planck Medal of the German Physical Society; the George Washington Award of the American-Hungarian Studies Foundation (1964); the Semmelweiss Medal of the American-Hungarian Medical Association (1965); and the National Medal of Science (1969).