Oral history interview Milton Grandison White, 1972 May 11 to 1975 February 28.

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Oral history interview Milton Grandison White, 1972 May 11 to 1975 February 28.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/78553459

Family background, early education and interests; undergraduate at Sacramento Junior College and University of California, Berkeley; first independent physics work under Harvey White; graduate work at Berkeley, career choices, joining Ernest Lawrence on cyclotron work; work on ion sources, taking over running of small cyclotron and verifying creation of high energy proton; reactions to discovery of the neutron, developing Geiger counters with Donald Cooksey, announcement of Cockcroft-Walton discovery of artificial disintegration, work on disintegration of lithium; work schedule; work on boron, 1935; comparison of Van de Graaff and cyclotron machines; ideas about p-p scattering, new cloud chamber; financial difficulties; White's refinement of process for extracting protons; completion of Ph.D. Physical Review paper, 1935; marriage. Postgraduate work at Princeton University, fellowship arranged by Lawrence; setting up Princeton cyclotron, research program, funding of the cyclotron; Princeton atmosphere and colleagues, appointment as assistant professor, 1938; relationship of theory and experiment in nuclear physics, Eugene Wigner's influence. Research on the tachyon, magnetic monopole, 1973; reactions to Niels Bohr's new model; its dissolution. WWII work at MIT Radiation Laboratory, 1940-1945; administrative tasks, relationship with the military, with engineers; advisor to Eagle Radur at Alamagordo; reactions to the dropping of atomic bomb. Return to a depleted Princeton Physics Department, rebuilding the cyclotron and the department; government funding of science, consulting projects. Work on the Brookhaven National Laboratory's Cosmotron, beginning 1946; White's variation on the Livingston, Richard Courant and Snyder strong focussing synchrotron. Return to Princeton as professor, proposals and designs for the Princeton-Penn Accelerator (PPA), construction and problems, scientific management of the machine under Harvey White, his philosophy of administration, relationship with the Princeton Physics Department. Budget cuts; government administration of science funding; closing down of PPA.

Transcript, 241 pp.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 8216743

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