Edwin McMillan
American physicist (1907-1991) · United States · On the map · Scientists · Died at 83
He pushed past uranium on the periodic table, synthesizing neptunium in 1940 - the first element that didn't exist on Earth until someone built it in a lab.
Edwin McMillan is read about 55 times a day, in 62 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 31 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 400 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?A life in dates
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Edwin McMillan Nobel_tank_being_installed._Robert_Thornton_(right)_and_Edwin_McMillan._Photograph_date_unknown._184%22-277._(Photograph_by-_Unknown)_-_DPLA_-_b4eb1e60f8e55366926512ad5bc891df.jpg?width=1200)
184-inch cyclotron magnet with dee (vacuum) tank being installed. Robert Thornton (right) and Edwin McMillan. Photograph date unknown. 184"-277. (Photograph by- Unknown) - DPLA - b4eb1e60f8e55366926512ad5bc891df
24. Tagung 1974 Chemiker; Studentenabend mit den Nobelpreisträgern- Polonaise mit Frau Steurer, Oberbürgermeister Steurer, H. Kiderlen, Edwin M. Mc Mi - LABW - Staatsarchiv Freiburg W 134 Nr. 101128n
24. Tagung 1974 Chemiker; Studentenabend mit den Nobelpreisträgern- Ronald G. Norrish, Robert S. Mulliken, Edwin M. Mc Millan, Frau Mc Millan, Adolf B - LABW - Staatsarchiv Freiburg W 134 Nr. 101129b
60-inch cyclotron with Franz N.D. Kurie and Edwin McMillan.jpg?width=1200)
60-inch cyclotron, c 1930s. This shows the (9660569583)
Early Radiation Laboratory staff framed by the magnet for the 60-inch cyclotron in 1938
Edwin M. McMillan Los Alamos IDAwards
About this person
Edwin Mattison McMillan graduated from Caltech and earned his doctorate from Princeton in 1933, then joined Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory where he discovered oxygen-15 and beryllium-10. In 1940 he produced neptunium, the first transuranium element, work that would earn him half of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside Glenn Seaborg. World War II pulled him into microwave radar at MIT, sonar development for the Navy, and then the Manhattan Project in 1942, where he helped establish Los Alamos and led teams on the gun-type bomb design while contributing to the implosion weapon. After the war he co-invented the synchrotron with Vladimir Veksler and returned to Berkeley to build them. He rose to associate director in 1954, deputy director in 1958, and became director when Ernest Lawrence died later that year, holding the post until his retirement in 1973.
