Posing with the newly completed 60 inch cyclotron in the Crocker Laboratory are (left to right) Donald Cooksey, Dale Raymond Corson, Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Robert Lyster Thornton, John Warner Backus and Winfield Salisbury and (on top) Luis Walter Alvarez and Edwin Mattison McMillan. Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 - August 27, 1958) was an American physicist and Nobel Laureate, known for his invention, utilization, and improvement of the cyclotron atom-smasher beginning in 1929, based on his studies of the works of Rolf Wideroe, and his later work in uranium-isotope separation for the Manhattan Project. Lawrence had a long career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became a Professor of Physics. In 1939, Lawrence was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in inventing the cyclotron and developing its applications. After the war, Lawrence campaigned extensively for government sponsorship of large scientific programs. Lawrence was a forceful advocate of "Big Science" with its requirements for big machines and big money. He'd died in 1958 at the age of 57.