Robert Rathbun Wilson lahir di Frontier, Wyoming, pada 1914,[1] sebagai putra dari pasangan Platt Elvin dan Edith Elizabeth (Rathbun) Wilson. Ia memiliki seorang kakak yang bernama Mary Jane.[2] Orangtuanya berpisah ketika ia berusia delapan tahun[3]
Hoddeson, Lillian; Henriksen, Paul W.; Meade, Roger A.; Westfall, Catherine L. (1993). Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos During the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-44132-3. OCLC26764320.
Weart, Spencer R. (2000). "From Frontiersman To Physicist: Robert Rathbun Wilson". Physics in Perspective. American Institute of Physics Center for History Of Physics. 2: 141–203. Bibcode:2000PhP.....2..141W. ISSN1422-6944.