Lawrence, Seaborg and Oppenheimer in early 1946 at the controls to the magnet of the 184 inch cyclotron, which was being converted from its wartime use to its original purpose as a cyclotron. 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. Glenn Theodore Seaborg (April 19, 1912 - February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Julius Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 - February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Along with Enrico Fermi, he is often called the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that developed the first nuclear weapons.