 In 1945 , Wigner accepted a position as the Director of Research at the Clinton Laboratories in Oak Ridge , Tennessee , which then had a staff of about 800 . He took with him his protégés Gale Young , Katherine Way and Weinberg . Weinberg , who was the first to arrive at Oak Ridge in May 1945 , became head of the Physics Division in 1946 . But after the Atomic Energy Commission took over responsibility for the laboratory 's operations from the Manhattan Project at the start of 1947 , Wigner , feeling unsuited to a managerial role in the new environment , left Oak Ridge at the end of summer in 1947 and returned to Princeton University . 
