Alvin Martin Weinberg | |
|---|---|
 Alvin Weinberg, c. 1960 | |
| Born | April 20, 1915 |
| Died | October 18, 2006 (aged 91) |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Known for | |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nuclear physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Mathematical Foundations for a Theory of Biophysical Periodicity (1939) |
| Doctoral advisor | Carl Eckart |
Alvin Martin Weinberg (/ˈwaɪnbɜːrɡ/; April 20, 1915 – October 18, 2006) was an American nuclear physicist who was the administrator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) during and after the Manhattan Project. He came to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1945 and remained there until his death in 2006. He was the first to use the term "Faustian bargain" to describe nuclear energy.
A graduate of the University of Chicago, which awarded him his doctorate in mathematical biophysics in 1939, Weinberg joined the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory in September 1941. The following year he became part of Eugene Wigner's Theoretical Group, whose task was to design the nuclear reactors that would convert uranium into plutonium.
Weinberg replaced Wigner as director of research at ORNL in 1948, and became director of the laboratory in 1955. Under his direction it worked on the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program, and pioneered many innovative reactor designs, including the pressurized water reactors (PWRs) and boiling water reactors (BWRs) which have since become the dominant reactor types in commercial nuclear power plants, and Aqueous Homogeneous Reactor designs.
In 1960, Weinberg was appointed to the President's Science Advisory Committee in the Eisenhower administration and later served on it in the Kennedy administration. After leaving the ORNL in 1973, he was named director of the Office of Energy Research and Development in Washington, D.C., in 1974. The following year he founded and became the first director of the Institute for Energy Analysis at Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU).