Compare Constellations

Nierenberg, William Aaron, 1919-2000. Oral history interview with William Aaron Nierenberg, 1986 February 6 to 30 June.

Title: Oral history interview with William Aaron Nierenberg, 1986 February 6 to 30 June.

Childhood in New York City; high quality of public schools during Depression; decision at 13 to become physicist; inspirational high school teachers; aptitude for mathematics; undergraduate at City College of New York and junior year in Paris; graduate of Columbia University; involvement in Manhattan Project with John Dunning from 1942; University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley after war; wife and children. Postwar transitions: scientists' reaction to the May-Johnson bill; the new physics; Ph. D., 1947. Michigan University's place in American physics (summer schools, Horace R. Crane). Joins University of California, Berkeley in 1950. Joins Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, 1950-1965; involvement in creating the Hudson Laboratories at Dobbs Ferry (Columbia University) in early 1950s; Director, 1953-1954. Assistant Secretary General of NATO (as Chief of NATO Science Committee), 1960-1962; joins JASON in 1962. Director of Scripps Institute of Oceanography from 1965. Assessment of own research. Consultancies and committee-work during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, often with U.S. Navy involvement. Scripps is touched upon, especially his difficulties upon assuming the directorship in 1965. More comments on the new physics (after World War II) and the Depression in physics in the late 1960s. Also prominently mentioned are: Carl David Anderson, Hymen Goldsmith, Harvey Hall, Morton Hamermesh, Ivan Hurlinger, Willis. E. Lamb, Robert Andrews Millikan, Frederick B. Robinson, Harold Clayton Urey, Harold Worthington Webb, Lawrence Wills, Mitchell Wilson, and Robert Wolfe.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 98 p.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/79005537 View

Lamb, Willis E. (Willis Eugene), 1913-2008. Letter to Luigi Giulotto describing Lamb's work on singly-ionized helium.

Title: Letter to Luigi Giulotto describing Lamb's work on singly-ionized helium.

ArchivalResource: 2 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82113406 View

Lamb, Willis E. (Willis Eugene), 1913-2008. Oral History interview with W. E. Lamb, 1985.

Title: Oral History interview with W. E. Lamb, 1985.

Some of the topics discussed include: the development of his career along with the problems of the simultaneous development of his wife Ursula Lamb's career in academia; radiation; megnetron oscillators; laser theory; quantum theory of lasers; government funding of research. Some of his associates mentioned are: Arnold Nordsieck, George Uhlenbeck, Van der Pol, Charles Townes, Leonel Menegozzi, William Wing, Marlan Scully, E. T. James, William Bennett, Richard Fork, Sargent, among others.

ArchivalResource: Preliminary transcript: 91 pages.Sound recording: 5 cassettes.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/154305292 View

Hargrove, Logan Ezral, 1935-. Oral history interview with Logan Ezral Hargrove, 1985 June 25.

Title: Oral history interview with Logan Ezral Hargrove, 1985 June 25.

Michigan State University, Ph.D 1961; thesis on interaction between light, sound, and nonlinear acoustics (Prof. Hiedmann). Research job with Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1962; discusses freedom to pursue research directions as characteristic of the laboratory; begins work on mode-locking. Origins of collaboration with Richard Fork; Fork's attempts to find beats between two laser modes, difficulty of running He-Ne lasers stably with two modes (Willis Lamb). Documentation on mode-locking research; details of collaboration with Fork; Fork's contribution of diagnostic equipment and its role. Experiment with J. Courtney-Pratt to make real-time records of laser output. Detailed discussion of artifact given to Smithsonian Museum by Fork and its probable place in the sequence of experiments. Discusses DeMaria and his team at United Technologies; Moro Didomenico's work at Bell Laboratories. Cornell Electron Devices conference (Yariv, Steve Harris); New York Academy of Sciences conference on lasers, 1963 (Gürs and Muller). Good work atmosphere at Bell Laboratories; publishes trilogy of papers with Fork and Pollack. Follow-up researches on mode-locking; frequency-shifting (Michel Duguay), extension of acousto-optic modulation work. Moved to Crawford Hill, is discontent with more applied orientation, leaves Bell.

ArchivalResource: Untranscribed.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80775335 View

Helmer, John, 1926-. Response to Laser History Project Survey, 1986.

Title: Response to Laser History Project Survey, 1986.

Letter to Joan Bromberg, director of the Laser History Project, responding to questionnaire. Helmer discusses his graduate work in electrical engineering at Stanford University's Microwave Laboratory with Willis Lamb, and at Columbia University with T. C. Wang, Ali Javan, and Koichi Shimoda on ammonia masers; his employment by Varian Associates, where he worked with Bob Jepsen and Koichi Shimoda on noise properties of the maser amplifier for the Army Signal Corps. He also describes his History of the Ammonia Maser and some of the work done at RCA Research Laboratories in Princeton, N.J. File also includes a copy of the survey questionnaire and Helmer's brief answers.

ArchivalResource: 7 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80830676 View

Lamb, Willis E. (Willis Eugene), 1913-2008. Remarks by Willis E. Lamb in a telephone conversation with Ken Ford, 1994.

Title: Remarks by Willis E. Lamb in a telephone conversation with Ken Ford, 1994.

Lamb's recollections of carrying the news of fission from Princeton to Columbia (especially to Enrico Fermi) on January 20, 1939. Remarks on being hired by I. I. Rabi and working with John Wheeler.

ArchivalResource: Transcript: 3 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78630776 View

Mehra, Jagdish. Jagdish Mehra collection, 1924-2001

Title: Jagdish Mehra collection, 1924-2001

A vast number of books, monographs and reference works on physics, mathematics, philosophy and history of science compose the collection. There are thousands of reprints of original papers autographed by their authors. The manuscripts of hundreds of published and unpublished books, papers, and lectures from physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, and literati are in the collection. Dr. Mehra's research in the history of 20th century physics has produced taped interviews with many famous scientists. The tapes compile discussions on physics, astrophysics, cosmology, quantum mechanics and quantum physics. Those interviewed include P.A.M. Dirac, W. Heisenberg, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Willis E. Lamb Jr., Murray Gell-Mann and numerous other Nobel Laureates and distinguished scientists. Other tapes record speeches by many Nobel Prize winners in physics. The information in these oral histories is unique.

ArchivalResource: 175 boxes

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/694866607 View

Jagdish Mehra Collection 1995-003., 1924-2001

Title: Jagdish Mehra Collection 1924-2001

A vast number of books, monographs and reference works on physics, mathematics, philosophy and history of science compose the collection. There are thousands of reprints of original papers autographed by their authors. The manuscripts of hundreds of published and unpublished books, papers, and lectures from physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, and literati are in the collection.

ArchivalResource: 175.00 Boxes

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uhsc/00070/00070p3-P.html View

Jagdish Mehra Collection 1995-003., 1924-2001

Title: Jagdish Mehra Collection 1924-2001

A vast number of books, monographs and reference works on physics, mathematics, philosophy and history of science compose the collection. There are thousands of reprints of original papers autographed by their authors. The manuscripts of hundreds of published and unpublished books, papers, and lectures from physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, and literati are in the collection.

ArchivalResource: 175.00 Boxes

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uhsc/00070/00070p2-P.html View

Townes, Charles H. Oral history interview with Charles H. Townes, 1979 June 18 and 20.

Title: Oral history interview with Charles H. Townes, 1979 June 18 and 20.

Childhood and youth; his family life and siblings; education at Furman during the Depression, 1931-1935; merit scholarship. Graduate study at Duke University in 1936; shifts to Caltech during second year; early interest in astronomy; works with Fred Zwicky. His first job, at Bell Telephone Laboratories, from 1939-1947; scientific associates (Dean Wooldridge, William Shockley). Discussion of work on microwave spectroscopy, and NH3 spectrum; competition with Bleaney and Good. Accepts I.I. Rabi's offer to join Columbia University faculty in 1948. Interest in molecules, atoms (not solid state physics), and in short microwaves; comments on teaching, students, and faculty; department head from 1952-1955. Inventions of the maser and laser in the 1950s, background ideas; Treshkas' and Lamb's writings on stimulated emission. Purcell, Pound, Dicke did not think of maser; discussion of the effects contributing to the appearance of simultaneity of inventions. Masers in radioastronomy; consultantship at BTL; joint laser invention with Arthur Schawlow. Interactions with Gordon Gould; BTL's interest in the laser.

ArchivalResource: Preliminary transcript.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78403418 View

Jagdish Mehra Collection 1995-003., 1924-2001

Title: Jagdish Mehra Collection 1924-2001

A vast number of books, monographs and reference works on physics, mathematics, philosophy and history of science compose the collection. There are thousands of reprints of original papers autographed by their authors. The manuscripts of hundreds of published and unpublished books, papers, and lectures from physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, and literati are in the collection.

ArchivalResource: 175.00 Boxes

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uhsc/00070/00070p1-P.html View

Kroll, Norman Myles 1922-. Oral History interview with Norman M. Kroll, 1986 June 28.

Title: Oral History interview with Norman M. Kroll, 1986 June 28.

This interview discusses: Kroll's youth and education at Columbia University; his work at Columbia Radiation Laboratory and his studies with Lamb and Melman on magnetrons; his collaboration with W.E. Lamb on shift calculations; his comments on the work of Lamb, Schwinger, Feynman and Dyson in the late 1940s; particle physics in Kroll's career; his participation in JASON laser studies; his research on the interactions of laser beams with plasmas, on visible parametric oscillators and free electron lasers.

ArchivalResource: Transcript: 66 pages.Audio tapes: 4 cassettes, 3.5 hours.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/154305689 View

DeMaria, Anthony John, 1931-. Oral history interview with Anthony John DeMaria, 1984 April 13.

Title: Oral history interview with Anthony John DeMaria, 1984 April 13.

Research and education, 1956 to ca. 1970. Establishment of the electromagnetics group at United Aircraft Research Center, 1958. Inauguration of laser research after the Schawlow-Townes paper appeared. Modulating laser output. Modelocking investigations. Laser work on fusion and gas-dynamic CO2 lasers by other United Technologies groups. Also prominently mentioned are: Nicolaas Bloembergen, Chap Cutler, Edward Danielson, Carl Feyrar, Fork, Bill Glenn, Steve Hanis, Logan E. Hargrove, Hans Heynau, Henry Hoadley, George Housemann, Ippen, Arthur Robert Kantrowitz, Wes Kuhrt, Willis E. Lamb, John Lee, Reiss Meyerand, Al Penny, Peter Persham, Pollack, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Marlan Scully, Chuck Shank, Ben Snavely, Charles Hard Townes, Brian Tracy, Caspar Ultec, Hans Weber; Andersen Laboratories, Inc., Avco-Everett Research Laboratory, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Eastman Kodak Co., Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Group, Office of Naval Research of United States Navy, and University of Connecticut.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 93 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82113415 View

Rabi, I. I. (Isidor Isaac), 1898-1988. Oral history interview with I. I. Rabi, 1963 December 8.

Title: Oral history interview with I. I. Rabi, 1963 December 8.

This interview was conducted as part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics project, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with ca. 100 atomic and quantum physicists. Subjects discuss their family backgrounds, how they became interested in physics, their educations, people who influenced them, their careers including social influences on the conditions of research, and the state of atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics during the period in which they worked. Discussions of scientific matters relate to work that was done between approximately 1900 and 1930, with an emphasis on the discovery and interpretations of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Also prominently mentioned are: Niels Henrik David Bohr, Max Born, Gregory Breit, A. C. Crehore, Peter Josef William Debye, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Paul Ehrenfest, R. Fraser, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Hertz, Edwin Crawford Kemble, Earl H. Kennard, Ralph de Laer Kronig, Willis Eugene Lamb, Wilhelm Lenz, Maclaurin, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Wolfgang Pauli, Henry Augustus Rowland, Erwin Schrödinger, John Clarke Slater, Arnold Sommerfeld, Otto Stern, Phillip Subkow, Leo Szilard, John B. Taylord, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, Wilhelm Wien, A. P. Wills; Columbia University, Cornell University, Kbe︣nhavns Universitet, New York City College, Universität Berlin, Universität Göttingen, Universität Hamburg, and Universität Leipzig.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 38 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/83017404 View

Enrico Fermi and the Beginnings of Nuclear Fission Centennial Conference (2001: New York, NY). Proceedings [sound recording] Papers presented at the Enrico Fermi and the beginnings of nuclear fission Centennial Conference. 2001 November 15 and 16.

Title: Proceedings [sound recording] Papers presented at the Enrico Fermi and the beginnings of nuclear fission Centennial Conference. 2001 November 15 and 16.

Held at the Italian Academy, Columbia University in the City of New York. Talks on Thursday: "The Physics of Fission" by Richard Garwin; "The Rise of the Fermi Group" by Gerald Holton; "Slow Neutrons at Via Panisperna" by Ugo Amaldi; "Enrico Fermi as a Phenomenologist" by Carlo Bernardini. On Friday, speakers include Willis Lamb, Albert Wattenberg, Harold Agnew, Philip Abelson, Alvin Weinberg, Tsung-Dao Lee, Milla Baldo Ceolin, and David I. Kaiser.

ArchivalResource: 8 sound tape cassettes (12 hrs.) : analog, mono.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/83770257 View

Yergin, Paul Flohr, 1923-. Response to 1981 History of Nuclear Physics Survey, 1982.

Title: Response to 1981 History of Nuclear Physics Survey, 1982.

Three-page, typed response to questionnaire discussing Yergin's early interest in science; education at City College, New York, Union College, and Columbia University under Willis Lamb; postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania with Julius Halpern; his move to Rensselear Polytechnic Institute; and his work in photonuclear spectra. Recipients were asked to discuss their entry into a scientific career in general and nuclear physics in particular, their work during the Second World War, their scientific achievements, the funding of their projects, the roles of related sciences--especially high energy physics--in their research, their work as educators, their perceptions of the public's attitude towards science, and their involvement in physics-related organizations.

ArchivalResource: 7 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84008668 View