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Conwell, Esther M. (Esther Marley), 1922-. Oral history interview with Esther M. Conwell, 1983 March 22.

Title: Oral history interview with Esther M. Conwell, 1983 March 22.

Childhood and early schooling in Bronx, NY; undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College; fellow students, Ralph Bray, Seymour Benzer, Arthur Ginzberg, all later affiliated with Purdue University. Graduate studies at University of Rochester and, from 1943, at University of Chicago; reasons for transfer. Extensive comments on her masters thesis under Victor Weisskopf (Vivian Johnson, Karl Lark-Horowitz); Ph.D. in astrophysics. Instructorship at Brooklyn College; work on germanium mobilities and resistivities at Bell Laboratories with William Shockley. Discussions of published works on single crystal production, 1952 (Peter Debye); comments on her book on transport in high electrical fields; Shockley's theory on hot carriers in germanium; work on microwave power detector while at Sylvania.

ArchivalResource: Untranscribed.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/79756910 View

William Francis Gray Swann Papers, 1903-1962

Title: William Francis Gray Swann Papers 1903-1962

The physicist W.F.G. Swann was a pioneer in high energy physics and the study of cosmic rays. Climbing the academic ranks from the University of Sheffield to the Universities of Minnesota, Chicago, and Yale, Swann was selected as the first director of the Bartol Research Foundation of the Franklin Institute in 1927, and remained there until his retirement in 1959. An able administrator and excellent mentor, he was best known for his popular work on the new physics, The Architecture of the Universe (1934) and for his research on cosmic rays. Avocationally, he was an accomplished cellist and in addition to performing, he helped organize and support the Swarthmore Symphony Orchestra and other local groups. He died at his home in Swarthmore in 1962. The Swann Papers consist of 41 linear feet of correspondence, class notes, lectures, and photographs documenting Swann's career at the Bartol Research Foundation from 1927 until the end of his life. The collection is wide ranging, touching on atmospheric electricity, particle acceleration, atomic bomb defense, atomic energy, electrets, electrodynamics, magnetism, music, quantum theory, radiation, relativity and Einstein, science and civilization, stratospheric flights (by balloon and airplane), thermodynamics, psychic science, and wave mechanics. It is particularly rich for study of the history of cosmic ray research and the Bartol Institute, and for study of the popularization of modern physical sciences.

ArchivalResource: 41.0 Linear feet

http://www.amphilsoc.org/mole/view?docId=ead/Mss.B.Sw1-ead.xml View

Ridenour, Louis N. (Louis Nicot), 1911-1959. Papers, 1946-1959.

Title: Papers, 1946-1959.

Correspondence, reports, publications, book reviews, and other papers relating to scientific research projects, military research and development, nuclear energy, atomic and hydrogen bombs, international understanding, loyalty and security, Ridenour's consulting work, metallurgy, solid state physics, and various government and private organizations involved in scientific research, such as: Atomic Energy Commission Office of Scientific Research and Development, Aberdeen Ballistic Research Lab, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Research and Development Report (1949), and the Army Advisory Committee on Research and Development Contractual procedures. Correspondents include: Hans A. Bethe, Vannevar Bush, Karl Compton, I. Bernard Cohen, James H. Doolittle, Lee DuBridge, Edward M. Earle, H. H. Harris, James R. Killian, David Lilienthal, Karl Lark-Horovitz, Charles C. Lauritsen, Leon Linford, Wheeler Loomis, Carl Overhage, I. I. Rabi, Frederick Seitz, George D. Stoddard, George E. Valley, T. F. Walkowicz, Warren Weaver, and Raymond Woodrow.

ArchivalResource: 2.0 linear ft.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/154303021 View

Johnson, Vivian Annabelle, 1912-1985. Oral history interview with Vivian Annabelle Johnson, 1981 July 13.

Title: Oral history interview with Vivian Annabelle Johnson, 1981 July 13.

Born in Oregon 1912, entered Purdue University, 1932, studying solid state physics, teaching assistant work with Lothar Nordheim on crystal structure, 1937; Ph.D. thesis, 1937 (published 1940); physics department under Karl Lark-Horovitz grows in the 1930s, visiting lecturers (refugees from Germany and Europe: Lothar Nordheim, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Eugene Wigner). First cyclotron (homemade), 1935. War work: basic research in germanium, rectification of crystals (Bethe), close connections with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania; Lark-Horovitz chose solid state physics as less sensitive field with respect to clearance; showed silicon-germanium intrinsic semiconductors, 1942; General Electric's germanium interest; success interpreting resistivity and thermoelectric behavior in germanium, 1944. American Physical Society meeting intense interest in Purdue presentations, January 1946; the transistor, 1948 (William Shockley, Ralph Bray); how to grow germanium crystals, 1949; Esther Conwell's thesis (Victor Weisskopf). Also prominently mentioned are: John Backus, Seymour Benzer, Hubert Maxwell James, A. A. Knowlton, K. W. Meissner, E. P. Miller, Ronald Smith, Herbert J. Yearian; and Purdue University Department of Physics.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 30 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80301600 View

Whaley, R. M. (Randall McVay), 1915-. Oral history interview with R. M. Whaley, 1982 October 29.

Title: Oral history interview with R. M. Whaley, 1982 October 29.

Whaley's career in physics up to the end of World War II, particularly years at Purdue University during the war. Major topics include childhood and educational background, decision to attend Purdue University, work there on purification and doping of germanium ingots, and impressions of Karl Lark-Horovitz.

ArchivalResource: 1 session, audiotape, 2 cassettes, 2.0 hrs.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81865411 View

Sachs, Robert Green, 1916-. Oral history with Robert Green Sachs, 1981 June 10.

Title: Oral history with Robert Green Sachs, 1981 June 10.

Sach's work at Purdue University during World War II. Major topics include his educational background, transition to teaching at Purdue, work on the theory of point contact rectification, relationship with Karl Lark-Horovitz at Purdue, work immediately after leaving Purdue in 1942.

ArchivalResource: Untranscribed.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81360270 View

James, Hubert Maxwell, 1908-1986. Oral history interview with Hubert Maxwell James, 1981 July 15.

Title: Oral history interview with Hubert Maxwell James, 1981 July 15.

Background and family; studies at Harvard University, associations with Edwin C. Kemble and William D. Coolidge; Ph.D. thesis incorporating hydrogen and lithium calculations, 1934; the approximation method; pre- and post-World War II work on rubber; Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in pre-World War II Europe; radar development at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory, editing of Rad Lab notebooks, movement of Swoboda from Czechoslovakia to United States by CIA, work on crystal detectors. Purdue University years; publications on semiconductors, starting 1949; head of physics department, following Karl Lark-Horovitz; activities since 1974 retirement.

ArchivalResource: Untranscribed.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81483316 View

Lark-Horovitz, K. (Karl), 1892-1958. Papers on semiconductor research, 1942-1956.

Title: Papers on semiconductor research, 1942-1956.

Scientific manuscripts; research progress reports; notes and data sheets; thesis. Materials relate to semiconductor research and document research on germanium and silicon at Purdue University under the direction of Lark-Horovitz, primarily the World War II project on the development of germanium rectifiers. Topics in the field of semiconductors include acceptors and donors, heat conductivity, pressure effects, resistivity, electron scattering, irradiation, electrical properties, and thermoelectric power measurements. The collection includes typescripts on the history of germanium research at Purdue University by Lark-Horovitz, and a manuscript biography of Lark-Horovitz by an associate, Vivian A. Johnson. Also included is a report on semiconductor research in Europe written after a trip in 1950.

ArchivalResource: 1 linear ft. (2 boxes)

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82445938 View

Purcell, Edward M. Oral history interview with Edward Mills Purcell, 1977 June 8 and 14.

Title: Oral history interview with Edward Mills Purcell, 1977 June 8 and 14.

Early life in Illinois; B.S. from Purdue University under Karl Lark-Horovitz, 1929-1933. Visit to Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. Theoretical and experimental work and teaching at Harvard University, 1934-1941, under Emory L. Chaffee, Kenneth T. Bainbridge, John Van Vleck. World War II research on radar at MIT Radiation Laboratory, 1941-1946. Return to Harvard; teaching, nuclear magnetic resonance and 21-cm line research. Discusses government consulting work, 1950-1970, especially President's Science Advisory Committee, American Physical Society presidency; teaching at Harvard. Interests in astrophysics, developing physics curricula. Also prominently mentioned are: Kenneth Tompkins Bainbridge, Felix Bloch, Bobby Cutler, Robert Henry Dicke, Edwards, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harold Ewen, Ferry, William Francis Giauque, William Webster Hansen, Malcolm Hebb, Ted Hunt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Fritz Leonhart, Dunlap McNair, Otto Oldenburg, Jan Hendrik Oort, Wolfgang Pauli, Robert V. Pound, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Norman Foster Ramsey, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Schnabel, Julian R. Schwinger, Francis Eugene Simon, Charles Steinmetz, Henry Torrey, Hendrik Christoffell van de Hulst, John Von Neumann, Isidor Walerstein, Walter Witzel, Hubert J. Yearian, Jerrold Reinach Zacharias; Bell System Technical Journal, Great Britain Royal Air Force Coastal Command, Radio Research Laboratory, Illinois Southeastern Telephone Co., Killian Committee, Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, National Academy of Sciences, Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, Unitarian Church, United States Office of Naval Research, University of California at Berkeley, and Voice of America.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 59 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82576526 View

Fan, H. Y. Oral history interview with Hsu Yun Fan, 1977 April 22.

Title: Oral history interview with Hsu Yun Fan, 1977 April 22.

Recollection of the work done on semiconductors at Purdue University after World War II. Major topics include Fan's education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his recollections of the Purdue physics department in the 1940s, and work on semiconductors at Purdue in the 1940s. Also prominently mentioned are: Ralph Bray, Karl Lark-Horovitz, A.H. Wilson; Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory.

ArchivalResource: Preliminary transcript.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84275833 View

Fritzsche, Hellmut. Oral history interview with Hellmut Fritzsche, 1981 March 31.

Title: Oral history interview with Hellmut Fritzsche, 1981 March 31.

Karl Lark-Horovitz's contribution to Purdue University germanium work.

ArchivalResource: Untranscribed.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77931106 View

Woodyard, John R., 1904-1981. Oral history interview with John R. Woodyard, 1976 August 27.

Title: Oral history interview with John R. Woodyard, 1976 August 27.

Testing klystrons at Wright Field for blind landing, at request of Wilmer L. Burrow of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sperry Gyroscope research contract with Stanford University, San Carlos and Garden City plants. Contact with solid state physics through use of old-fashion crystal detectors in the klystron. Bell Laboratories and other centers for research in microwaves; John Pierce and other scientists in semiconductor work. Cooperation among industrial labs and the military for war effort; doping of germanium; history of silicon detectors, Winfield Salisbury's contribution, William P. Cook, Karl Lark-Horovitz. Sperry patent; first semiconductor amplifier designed by Woodyard but not claimed on patent; the Sperry-Texas Instruments patent suit. Work on the Manhattan Project, 1942. Joined Lark-Horovitz at Purdue University following war to continue research in electron linear accelerator. Move to Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory; continued work on transistors. Also prominently mentioned are: William Webster Hansen, R. A. Heising, Vivian Annabelle Johnson, Jones, Guglielmo Marconi, Arthur Norbert, Russell S. Ohl, David Sloan, and Bill Wasson.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 21 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81121499 View

Yearian, Hubert J., 1905-. Oral history interview with Hubert J. Yearian, 1981 September 23.

Title: Oral history interview with Hubert J. Yearian, 1981 September 23.

Years at Purdue University from 1928 to the present, with special emphasis on his work during World War II on germanium. Major topics include his childhood, how he came to Purdue, the cyclotron built at Purdue in the 1930s, his work on the DC properties of germanium rectifiers under Karl Lark-Horovitz, the transition to peacetime work, and his relationship with Karl Lark-Horovitz.

ArchivalResource: Untranscribed.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84584835 View

Lark-Horovitz, K. (Karl), 1892-1958. Correspondence with William Francis Gray Swann, 1932-1952.

Title: Correspondence with William Francis Gray Swann, 1932-1952.

Correspondence with William Francis Gray Swann.

ArchivalResource: 64 items.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80451920 View

Bray, Ralph, 1921-. Oral history interview with Ralph Bray, 1982 May 14.

Title: Oral history interview with Ralph Bray, 1982 May 14.

Born in Russia 1921, moved to New York 1922; Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (physics); Purdue University (Ph.D.), 1942-1949; works teaching military students, 1943-1945; cyclotron and beta ray spectroscopy projects (related to Manhattan Project); Karl Lark-Horovitz as blanket-adviser; semiconductor project with Ron Smith; spreading resistance measurements; Edward Teller, John Bardeen, William Shockley; the self-transistor effect (Bell Laboratories); third electrode work by Seymour Benzer, 1949; semiconductor project; comments on Lark-Horovitz. Also prominently mentioned are: Joseph A. Becker, Walter Houser Brattain, Bill Fan, Arthur Ginsburg, Vivian Annabelle Johnson, Bernard Kurrelmeyer, Robert Green Sachs, Isidor Walerstein, Hubert J. Yearian; American Physical Society, Brooklyn College, Manhattan Project, and United States Army Signal Corps.

ArchivalResource: Sound recording: 2 sound cassettes (ca. 2.0 hrs.), 1 session.Transcript: 26 p.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82628615 View

Schreiber, R. E. (Raemer Edgar). Oral history interview with Raemer Edgar Schreiber, 1976 February 13.

Title: Oral history interview with Raemer Edgar Schreiber, 1976 February 13.

Family background and early education in Oregon, undergraduate studies at Linfield College, majoring in physics and mathematics (Hershell Howett), 1931; Master's degree University of Oregon, 1932. Research assistant at University of Oregon, graduate studies at Purdue University, from 1935. Ph. D. thesis on Energy Distribution of Neutrons from Fission, 1941. Comments on the research group (Hans Bethe, Karl Lark-Horovitz, Marshall G. Holloway, Charles P. Baker). To Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and the Manhattan Project in 1943; construction of water boiler reactor; Holloway's group (Fat Man Assembly) and the Trinity Test. Reflections on wartime climate; discussions of transition and postwar reorganization (Leslie Groves, Norris E. Bradbury), decision to stay at Los Alamos and comments on colleagues at that time (Darol Froman, et. al.). Los Alamos mission in the late 1940s and 1950s. Character of the Lab; H-bomb development (Holloway). Remarks on contacts with other Atomic Energy Laboratories (Livermore). Establishment of Rover Program. Technical associate director from 1962. Comments on retirement. Organization and personnel.

ArchivalResource: Sound recording: audiotape, 1 session.Transcript: 46 p.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81716334 View

James, Hubert Maxwell, 1908-1986. Response to early 1930s Ph.D.s Survey, 1980.

Title: Response to early 1930s Ph.D.s Survey, 1980.

File consists of a very personal reminiscence of James' graduate education at Harvard University under Edwin C. Kemble, including a fairly detailed discussion of his Ph.D. thesis work; his work at Purdue University in the 1930s with Karl Lark-Horovitz and visiting professor Lothar Nordheim; his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory during the Second World War on night-fighter tactics, propagation of radar waves, and the stabilization of radar systems; his perceptions of the influences of the war on science in general; and reflections on his career. Respondents were asked to discuss their choice of physics as a profession and the course of their careers, their satisfactions and disappointments, the changes they saw in working and teaching conditions in the field, and relations within the community and with the society at large.

ArchivalResource: 5 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/81062505 View

Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, 1898-1950 (bulk), 1898-1950

Title: Archive for the History of Quantum Physics, 1898-1950 (bulk) 1898-1950

Primary source materials for the history of quantum physics in the twentieth century, collected under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society and the American Physical Society, with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

ArchivalResource: 300.0 Microfilm reel(s), 12,500 items on 300 microfilm reels; 107 recordings

http://www.amphilsoc.org/mole/view?docId=ead/Mss.530.1.Ar2-ead.xml View