Oral history interview with Maria Goeppert Mayer, 1962 February 20.

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Oral history interview with Maria Goeppert Mayer, 1962 February 20.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/77594613

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: Max Born, Pau Ehrenfest, Enrico Fermi, Laura Fermi, James Franck, Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, Werner Heisenberg, David Hilbert, Ida Noddack, Robert W. Pohl, Victor Frederick Weisskopf; Universität Göttingen, and University of Cambridge.

Transcript, 9 pp.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 8198912

Related Entities

There are 14 Entities related to this resource.

Franck, James, 1882-1964

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65f9j9x (person)

James Franck was born August 26, 1882 in Hamburg, Germany, where his Sephardic Jewish forebears had lived for over two hundred years [Box 20, folder 58 and Box 21, folder 1]. His father, Jacob Franck, was a banker who wanted his son to follow a business career in keeping with family tradition. From childhood on, however, James could imagine no other life but science. An X-ray photograph illustrates his fascination with new discoveries in physics. He had already read of Roentgen's X...

Universität Göttingen.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gr7pq3 (corporateBody)

Mayer, Maria Goeppert, 1906-1972

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w60p11z2 (person)

Maria Goeppert Mayer was born on June 28, 1906 in Kattowitz, Germany, to Friedrich and Maria (nee Wolff) Goeppert. In 1910 she moved with her parents to Gottingen where her father taught pediatrics at the University. She enrolled at the University at Gottingen in the spring of 1924 with the expectation of pursuing a career in mathematics, but soon became attracted to physics and the developing field of quantum mechanics. In 1930 Mayer took her doctorate in theoretical physics under t...

Pohl, Robert Wichard, 1884-1976

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w64b34sm (person)

Major affiliations include: Georg-August Universität Göttingen, Gottingen, Germany, 1917-1952. From the description of Letters and pictures, 1906-1976. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 80043957 From the description of Letters to James Franck, ca. 1920-ca. 1960. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 83225971 Major affiliations include: Georg-August Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany, 1917-1952. From the description of Correspondence and pre-1945 instru...

Fermi, Enrico, 1901-1954

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6736s35 (person)

Enrico Fermi was a physicist. From the description of Letters, 1918-1926, to Enrico Perisco. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 173466015 From the guide to the Enrico Fermi letters, 1918-1926, to Enrico Perisco, 1918-1926, (American Philosophical Society) Physicist. From the description of Papers of Enrico Fermi, 1919-1954. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 71068165 Physicist (slow neutrons, artificial radioactivity, beta-ray emission, statistical mode...

Born, Max, 1882-1970

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61v5g64 (person)

Physicist (solid state physics, quantum mechanics, lattice dynamics, wave functions, molecules). On the physics faculty at Universität Göttingen (1908-1914, 1921-1933); Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin (1914-1919); and University of Edinburgh (1936-1956). From the description of Lecture notebooks, 1905-1937. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79287462 From the description of Papers, ca. 1945-1970. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 77749891 From the description of P...

Goudsmit, Samuel A. (Samuel Abraham), 1902-1978

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sq91sb (person)

Samuel A. Goudsmit (1902-1978). Physicist. From the description of The development of physics in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s [sound recording] / 1974 April 22. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84276317 From the description of Address [sound recording] (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 80830635 Physicist (atomic physics) and editor. On the physics faculty at University of Michigan, 1927-1946; on the staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory, 1948-1970, and chai...

Kuhn, Thomas S.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6sx6g8x (person)

Heisenberg, Werner, 1901-1976

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6j967hs (person)

Physicist (quantum theory, quantum mechanics, uncertainty principle, unified field theory) and administrator. On the physic faculty at Universität Göttingen (1923-1924, 1925-1926); Kovenhavens Universitet (1924-1925, 1926-1927); Universität Leipzig (1927-1941); director, Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut für Physik (1941-1945); director, Max-Planck Institut für Physik (1946-1958); and director, Max-Planck Institut für Physik und Astrophysik (1958-1970). From the description of Papers. (U...

Ehrenfest, Paul, 1880-1933

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fn18ht (person)

Nuclear physicist (statistical mechanics, applied quantum physics). On the physics faculty at Universität Wein (1900-1904); on the staff of Petrogradskii politeknicheskii (1907-1912); and on the physics faculty at Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden (1912-1933). From the description of Papers, 1902-1933. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79973171 ...

Fermi, Laura

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6zw1pzp (person)

University of Cambridge.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r24w7r (corporateBody)

Harvard University celebrated its 250th anniversary in 1886. Many institutions of higher education, governments, and individuals sent greetings and congratulations to commemorate the occasion. This seal accompanied greetings from the University of Cambridge, England, to the university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From the description of Sigillum coe cancellarii mror et scholariu Universitat Cantebrigie, 1886. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 228509847 The University...

Weisskopf, Victor Frederick, 1908-2002

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tm7cd2 (person)

Victor F. Weisskopf, Ph.D., University of Gottingen, Germany, 1931, was professor of Physics at MIT from 1946 until his retirement in 1974. He was director general of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961 to 1965. Weisskopf's research focus was theoretical work in quantum electrodynamics and nuclear particle physics. Other major affiliations include: University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA, 1937-1943; Los Alamos, NM, USA, 1943-1947. Fro...

Hilbert, David, 1862-1943

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6hd7xmh (person)

German mathematician and professor, who discovered or developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas of mathematics, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of geometry. He also formulated the theory of "Hilbert spaces," one of the foundations of functional analysis. He is also one of the founders of proof theory. For many years, he held a position at the Mathematical Institute at the University of Göttingen. From the description of Vorlesungen über die Funkti...