“Using different materials that react with each other in the presence of a catalyst…that is Chemical Catalysis”
Eugene Wigner – Princeton University Professor in Chemical Physics
Eugene Wigner is the creator of Wignerindises.
Wigner participated in a meeting with Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein that resulted in the EinsteinSzilard letter, which prompted President Franklin D. Roosevelt to authorize the creation of the Advisory Committee on Uranium with the purpose of investigating the feasibility of nuclear weapons. Wigner was afraid that the German nuclear weapon project would develop an atomic bomb first. During the Manhattan Project, he led a team whose task was to design nuclear reactors to convert uranium into weapons grade plutonium. At the time, reactors existed only on paper, and no reactor had yet gone critical. Wigner was disappointed that DuPont was given responsibility for the detailed design of the reactors, not just their construction. He became director of research and development at the Clinton Laboratory (now the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) in early 1946, but became frustrated with bureaucratic interference by the Atomic Energy Commission, and returned to Princeton.
“I was student under Professor Wigner. I was on the same team with him researching Chemical Physics.”
The Wigner effect, also known as Wigner energy or the decomposition effect, is a phenomenon where neutron radiation displaces atoms in a solid, specifically in materials like graphite used in neutron moderators. This displacement creates defects and stores energy within the material, which can be released as heat, potentially causing temperature increases and other issues in nuclear reactors
