Edwin Mattison McMillan (born 18.09.1907) is an American physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1947). He was born in Redondo Beach (California). He graduated from the California Institute of Technology (1928) and in 1932 received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Princeton University. In 1933 — 73 he worked at the University of California at Berkeley, in 1946—73 as professor and in 1958 —71 as director of the E. Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.
His work was in the field of nuclear physics, accelerator technology and high-energy physics. In 1940, bombarding uranium with neutrons, he synthesised together with P. Abelson the first transuranic element, neptunium-239. In 1941, with G. Seaborg, he synthesised plutonium-239 and came to the conclusion that the transuranic elements must form a second series of rare-earth elements, later called the actinides. In 1945, independently of the Soviet physicist V. I. Veksler, he put forward a new principle of particle acceleration, the principle of phase stability, and in 1947 he built a 330 MeV electron synchrotron. He carried out (1949) early experiments on the photoproduction of mesons.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1951). The Atoms for Peace Award (1963).