Obituaries : Eugene P. Wigner; Nobel Physicist Helped Develop A-Bomb

Eugene P. Wigner, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who played a prominent role in the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear energy, has died of pneumonia. He was 92.

Wigner died Sunday at the Medical Center of Princeton.

A professor emeritus in mathematical physics at Princeton University, Wigner won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1963 for his insight into quantum mechanics. Wigner used group theory to organize the quantum energy levels of electrons in atoms.

Together with fellow Hungarian expatriate Leo Szilard, Wigner persuaded Albert Einstein in 1939 to write to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the potential of producing vast amounts of energy from uranium.

Wigner took a leave of absence from Princeton in 1942 to join a team at the University of Chicago working on a secret effort to design reactors to produce the first plutonium for nuclear weapons.

He retired from active status on the Princeton faculty in 1971.

Wigner, who emigrated from Hungary in 1930, was awarded his native country’s highest accolade, the Order of Merit, this year for his scientific contributions.

He also received the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission’s Enrico Fermi Award in 1958.

Wigner served as the director of civil defense research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee from 1964-65.

He is survived by his wife, Eileen Hamilton Wigner of Princeton, three children, two grandchildren and two sisters.

A memorial service is scheduled for Jan. 28 in the Princeton University Chapel.