Ernest Lawrence - Early Life

Early Life

Ernest Orlando Lawrence was born in Canton, South Dakota. His parents, Carl Gustavus and Gunda (née Jacobson) Lawrence, were both the offspring of Norwegian immigrants who had met while teaching at the high school in Canton, South Dakota, where his father was also the superintendent of schools. Growing up, his best friend was Merle Tuve, who would also go on to become a highly accomplished nuclear physicist.

Lawrence attended St. Olaf College in Minnesota, but he transferred to the University of South Dakota after his first year. Lawrence completed his bachelor's degree in 1922. He earned his master's degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1923. Next, Lawrence spent a year at the University of Chicago, and then he moved on to Yale University, where he completed his Ph.D. degree in physics in 1925, making him somewhat unusual in his field—a very promising young physical scientist who had received his entire education in the United States. These were years when study at one of the great science institutions of Europe was considered to be essential for anyone who truly wished to make a significant scientific progress. Lawrence remained at Yale University as a researcher, working in the photoelectric effect, and he became an assistant professor there in 1927.

In 1928, Lawrence was hired as an Associate Professor of Physics at the University of California, and two years later he became a full Professor, becoming the youngest Professor at the University of California. There, he was called the "Atom Smasher", and the man who "held the key" to atomic energy. "He wanted to do 'big physics,' the kind of work that could only be done on a large scale with a lot of people involved," said Herbert York, the first director of the Lawrence Livermore laboratory, as quoted on that Laboratory's official Web site. Lawrence was named before Ernest Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth, California.

Robert Gordon Sproul was a member of the Bohemian Club, and he sponsored Lawrence's membership in 1932. Through this club, Lawrence met William Henry Crocker, Edwin Pauley, and John Francis Neylan. They were influential men who helped him obtain money for his energetic nuclear particle investigations.