The accuracy of his experimental opinions and predictions eventually led to a sign in his corridor pointing the way to the "Los Alamos Oracle."

In 1943 Weisskopf joined MIT's faculty as a professor of physics. He subsequently took a leave of absence when he was appointed the fourth director-general of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, an international collaboration of scientists dedicated to the peaceful use of atomic knowledge.

Following his directorship at CERN from 1961-65. Weisskopf returned to MIT to teach before retiring in 1975.

Throughout his career in quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics, and the physics of elementary particles. Weisskopf wrote a large number of scientific papers and books, including his Theoretical Nuclear Physics with John M. Blatt (1952), Knowledge and Wonder (1962), and Physics in the Twentieth Century(1972).

E. Bright Wilson, Richards Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, has done groundbreaking work in the field of molecular spectroscopy and determining the structure of molecules, using first infrared and later microwave radiation.

Born in Tennessee on December 18, 1908, Wilson received as B.S. and Masters Degree from Princeton, and went on to earn his Ph.D. at California Institute of Technology in 1933.

In 1934, the chemist came to Harvard as a junior fellow of the Society of Fellows, a three-year funded post awarded to young scholars of extraordinary promise. He has remained at Harvard ever since, becoming a full professor in 1946 and teaching actively until age 70.

Among Wilson's long lost of honors are the Pauling Award, the 1975 National Medal of Science and honorary degrees from Princeton, Columbia, Dickinson, the Universities of Bologna and Brussels.

At Harvard, Wilson has been "a paragon of what you can hope for in a professor," according to Dudley R. Herschbach, Baird Professor of Chemistry, a former student of Wilson's. At 74, Wilson continues to do theoretical work on spectroscopy and molecular structure although his graduate students perform the actual experiments. Herschbach says.

Wilson's son, Cornell physicist Kenneth G. Wilson '56, in February delivered the first of an annual lecture series at Harvard he established in honor of his father. The younger Wilson received a 1982 Nobel Prize and was awarded a Harvard honorary degree of his own in 1981.

E. Bright Wilson has been among the pioneers in his field since the 1930s, when he co-authored a textbook on quantum mechanics with the chemist I must Pauling. He went on to write "Introduction to Scientific Research" (1952) and co-author an influential study on molecular vibrations in 1955.

His work to illuminate the structure and reactive properties of molecules has aided other research not only in chemistry, but also in biology, and physics Wilson's research, for instance, was among the information that led to the discovers of DNA structure. More recently, he has helped clarify the structure of such molecules as hemoglobin. Herschbach says.

Wilson has served on a number of committees, both nationally and within the University. During World War II, he worked on defense related research for conventional weapons at Woods Hole under the late Harvard chemist George Kistiakowsky, and during the 1950s he sat on a government weapons evaluation committee. More recently, Wilson chaired a National Academy of Science committee examining the management of radioactive waste.

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Robert Winthrop '26, currently honorary chairman of the New York brokerage and investment banking firm of Wood, Struthers and Winthrop, is the only honorary degree recipient this year who graduated from the College.