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Eckart, Carl, 1902-1973. Oral history interview with Carl Henry Eckart, 1962 May 31.

Title: Oral history interview with Carl Henry Eckart, 1962 May 31.

Part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics oral history collection, 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: Edwin Plimpton Adams, Niels Henrik David Bohr, Max Born, Frank W. Bubb, Arthur Compton, Karl Compton, Ona K. Defoe, William Duane, Paul Sophus Epstein, Werner Heisenberg, Otto Hellwig, Frank Clark Hoyt, Georg Eric MacDonnell Jauncey, Cornelius Lanczos, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Wolfgang Pauli, Philip Rau, Henry Norris Russell, Erwin Schrödinger, Arnold Sommerfeld, John Von Neumann, Norbert Wiener; American Physical Society meeting (Washington), California Institute of Technology, Kaffee Heck (Munich), Princeton University, Princeton University Physics Colloquium, and Washington University.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 16 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/82445524 View

Compton, Betty Charity McCloskey, 1916-. Oral history interview with Betty Charity McCloskey Compton, 1968 April 11 and 14.

Title: Oral history interview with Betty Charity McCloskey Compton, 1968 April 11 and 14.

Early life on Ohio farm; College of Wooster; Arthur Holly Compton, his family, his academic and extracurricular interests. Princeton years, 1913-1916; associations and fellowships; marriage, 1916; experimentation at Westinghouse Lamp Co., 1917-1919; work on "large electron" leading to National Research Fellowship at Cavendish Laboratory, 1919-1920; association with Ernest Rutherford and J. J. Thompson, living arrangements, weekly colloquia; recollections of Albert Einstein. Chairman of Department of Physics at Washington University, 1920-1923; bringing in new faculty; freedom of research. Guggenheim Fellowship at Punjab University, 1926-1927; organizing Kashmir expedition, observational work and other expedition details. Reaction to A. H. Compton's Nobel Prize award, 1927; trip to Sweden and Nobel address. Recollections of Solvay and Volta Conferences; association with James Franck, Niels Bohr, and Marie Curie; development of A. H. Compton's cosmic ray interest, world cosmic ray expeditions, 1931-1934; anecdotes and places visited; Compton-Robert A. Millikan controversy; comments on Century of Progress Exposition, 1933; memories of stay at University of Oxford on A. H. Compton's Eastman professorship, 1934-1935; associates at Oxford; recollection of European colleagues Aston, Enrico Fermi, Werner Heisenberg, and Karl Sommerfeld. About A. H. Compton: chairman of Physics Department at University of Chicago, 1940-1945; earlier contacts with Chicago; relation to Michelson; widening of philosophical interests; long-term consultant to General Electric Co., 1926-1945; consultant to National Cancer Advisory Council and Chicago Tumor Institute. Disappointment in Compton family life; close working relationship between A. H. Compton and Betty; relation of physicists' wives to their husbands' work; Betty's assessment of her career.

ArchivalResource: Transcript, 211 pp.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80932030 View