Fernando Vila

Levin:

Okay, this is an interview with Fernando Vila, and it’s the twenty-third of August, 1997. And this is being taped in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And I know that you were born the 30th of December, 1913 in Mendoza, Argentina. But I don’t know anything about your parents. Who were they and what did they do?

Vila:

My parents were from Catalufia [Spain]. They were Catalanes. They went to Argentina not knowing each other and in different times to the same place. They went to San Martin, a town in Mendoza [Argentina]. [Someone in the back speaking] My mother went there with her parents. My father worked as a commerce of general merchandise.

Levin:

Of merchandise?

Vila:

Merchandise yes. His magazine [store] had everything, but not fresh food. At that time in the fields, a commerce had to have everything: Bolts, screws, everything. And my grandmother went to buy something there and saw my father, who was blonde. And came back home and told my mother, “There is a Catalan in this commerce, who is blonde, just who you dislike.”

Levin:

And that’s how they met.

Vila:

They went to a party, not knowing each other and found themselves attracted, they should fall in love. They went to Lujan de Cuyo [Argentina] to live, the marriage was done there. I was born there. They stayed there. He established his own magazine shop. I had three sisters — Mercedes before me and after Joaquina and Margarita.

Lujan de Cuyo. It’s a place with a sanctuary church devoted to the Virgin Maria similar to the one here in Buenos Aires Province. They went to a small chapel to be married inside the new church. The old one, and the new one being built above the old one.

Levin:

Were your parents very firm Catholics, Roman Catholics?

Vila:

Yes. We are Catholic. I was baptized and had the First Communion and everything in this church. And my sisters had the same.

Levin:

And when you, as you were growing up, did you work in the store with your dad?

Vila:

There were several employees and I helped in it on Sunday mornings.

Levin:

You did, just on Sundays?

Vila:

On Sunday mornings it was open. So I had to be watching there to see that nothing bad could happen. Later on the commerce was closed on Sundays. When I was bigger, I went to the Lujan de Cuyo grammar school. I was a bad student.

Levin:

You were what?

Vila:

A bad student.

Levin:

Oh, a bad student.

Vila:

Very bad student. I had to repeat the fifth degree in the San José school, in the city of Mendoza which was eighteen kilometers from Lujan de Cuyo. This school was from the religious fraternity “Brothers Maristas.”

Levin:

Really.

Vila:

Yes. I won’t show you my documents of the school. I was the last of the class, at the beginning of the repeated year. It’s a pity.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

But then late in this fifth year, I was the second. Why? Because there was a very good teacher who knew how to take the best out of the children.

Levin:

Oh, well that’s good. That’s helpful.

Vila:

And he made what he called knowledge battles. Wisdom fights.

Levin:

Wisdom fight?

Vila:

Fights. And he made two lines with the students. The first in front of the second, the second in front of the third, and so on. I was the last one in the first round. The fight of geometry. In successive rounds I beat everybody. Three questions without answer dismissed a student.

Levin:

So it was a sort of a game that you played?

Vila:

Not a game! A contest of knowledge.

Levin:

Oh, okay.

Vila:

A contest of knowledge.

Levin:

And it was in geology?

Vila:

No, it was geometry in the grammar school, in the fifth degree. There was no geology.

Levin:

It was. But this contest, was it in all subjects or just?

Vila:

In geometry. That one was in geometry. Of course there were other subjects like grammar.

Levin:

Oh.

Vila:

Then I started to have more ambition to study. Because I was in competition with my sister. She was very good always, and I was bad. The best qualifications were for my sister. I was very angry.

Levin:

Oh, of course. Sibling rivalry.

Vila:

Yes. I was a very bad student. And as long as I was a bad student my parents sent me to a private school in Mendoza — The San José where I won the contest.

Levin:

To get extra help?

Vila:

A school of the Brothers de Marist. There is a congregation of French origin of friars, who devoted themselves to teach. So they are religious teachers who wear a cassock and a white collar. And here, in Mendoza, they have one school — in San José. This school, there, I started as the last, then I later became the first or the second.

Levin:

Because of the teacher that you had?

Vila:

Because of stimulation. Yes, stimulation. The most important thing for the children is to feel stimulated.

Levin:

This is true. What kind of subjects did they teach in the school? What kind of science did you have?

Vila:

Oh, everything. The name of the school was Colegio de Hermanos Maristas. 1932. When I was in primary school I had religion, Spanish, mathematics, history, French, geography, biology, physics, drawing and calligraphy, and English.

Levin:

And you’re showing me a sort of a yearbook. [Background noise drowns out words] — you got for each week.

Vila:

The mean or average qualification of two months. The yearbook is from the last, fifth year of secondary school.

Levin:

Excellent. And is ten the highest? Because you had a lot of eights.

Vila:

Yes. You see philosophy, literature, history, French, English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, anatomia, geografia.

Levin:

Anatomy, geography.

Vila:

Italiano.

Levin:

Italian.

Vila:

Instruccion civica, fisiologia e higiene, [Civics, Health]

Levin:

Quick instruction. [Background noise again drowns out words.] You seem to be scoring quite well.

Vila:

Here I am second, you see. But I was not second.

Levin:

No?

Vila:

No. Because they made a mistake in the average.

Levin:

Did they give you a higher ranking?

Vila:

No. I discovered this years later. This is the signature of my father.

Levin:

José Vila. [Talks in Spanish to someone else who comes in] And how many brothers and sisters did you have? You mentioned that one sister.

Vila:

How many what?

Levin:

Brothers and sisters.

Vila:

I am the only.

Levin:

The only son.

Vila:

I have three sisters.

Levin:

Three sisters. [Talks in Spanish to someone else] Are they older or younger?

Vila:

I have living, only one. My older sister Mercedes, one year and a half older. Mercedes. Joaquina died last month, and Margarita.

Levin:

And she was younger?

Vila:

Yes. Three years less. And the other one, Margarita. She is five years less than me.

Levin:

What kind of a house did you grow up in? What was your apartment like?

Vila:

No, it was not apartment-like.

Levin:

So it was a house?

Vila:

Something different. It was a very old house. I can’t speak without a pencil and paper. It has rooms facing a gallery surrounding a square court.

Levin:

Okay. So we’ll take a pause for that. [Tape interruption] You have honeysuckle. So we’re talking about your house and you drew a diagram.

Vila:

Oh, we had all around three sides of a court madreselvas [honeysuckle].

Levin:

All the way around there’s honeysuckle, madreselvas.

Vila:

Here, all around the gallery.

Levin:

And in the middle there was a patio.

Vila:

A wide gallery surrounding three sides of a square court with flowerpots, palms, and a small pool with fishes. And we have here a great dining room, a dining room.

Levin:

This is off of the corridor.

Vila:

And the rest were the rooms of the magazine shop. We have here an entrance, here, in front of a plaza, an entrance with two doors. One door and one here in the middle. With white things hanging.

Levin:

With trimming? Trim? White trim?

Vila:

I don’t know. But there was a bedroom where almost the whole family lived. There were some screens around the girls’ bed.

Levin:

So everyone shared the same bedroom.

Vila:

No. And here is Fernando’s bedroom.

Levin:

Oh, except you had your own room.

Vila:

Here is Fernando’s bedroom. There were more rooms. But the busy part was the kitchen. The kitchen was here.

Levin:

Did you have a library?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

You did?

Vila:

Yes. Many books in one big cabinet.

Levin:

Did you like to read as a child?

Vila:

Well, I read there in Catalan, [William] Shakespeare.

Levin:

Oh, in Catalan?

Vila:

Catalan.

Levin:

Interesting. So did you still speak Catalan at home with your parents?

Vila:

Yes, at that time of my childhood. There was a collection of books published by the newspaper La Nación. And these books were two hundred, more or less. All in Spanish.

Levin:

Two hundred books, wow.

Vila:

With novels and histories.

Levin:

And did you receive the journal La Nación in your house?

Vila:

We received not only La Nación from Buenos Aires, but we received [El Diario de] Los Andes. Our newspaper in Mendoza was Los Andes. My uncle was sending me a French magazine called Illustration with plenty of special numbers with masterpieces of art.

Levin:

Los Andes.

Vila:

Los Andes. Very good one. Still now it is in business. [Someone else speaks in Spanish.]

Levin:

And what kind of a journal was that?

Vila:

Well, similar to La Nación. A good one.

Levin:

So it talked a lot about history and culture, that sort of —

Vila:

Yes. But I did not read the newspaper at that time. I read cartoons in a children’s magazine called The Billiken. Cartoons, like every boy. Yes. But I liked to read books like Don Quixote.

Levin:

By [Miguel de] Cervantes.

Vila:

Don Quixote when I was, at that time, in high school. I read it again. Don Quixote. Two times I read it. And then I read [Francisco de] Quevedo. Writings of Quevedo, a Spanish writer. Do you know Quevedo?

Levin:

No.

Vila:

Oh, he’s very important in Spanish literature. And Don Quixote. I then read the book of my grandfather of Quevedo. I will show you it. Obras Completas de Quevedo. Published by M. Aquilar, Madrid, 1945.

Levin:

You still have it.

Vila:

I read several good books written in Spanish. The authors were Cervantes, Quevedo, [Pedro] Calderon de la Barca, Lope de Vega and others from the “Golden Century.”

Levin:

What kind of science was taught in your school? I saw you had chemistry and physics.

Vila:

Yes, sure.

Levin:

Were there — how was the physics and chemistry taught? Was it mostly?

Vila:

Theoretically and in the laboratory. With experiments.

Levin:

So you did a lot of experiments.

Vila:

Not myself, but we repeated the experiments made by the teacher.

Levin:

So your teacher did it and then you.

Vila:

We repeated it.

Levin:

You repeated it. Interesting. Did you feel like you were learning a lot?

Vila:

What?

Levin:

Did you feel like you were learning a lot by doing this?

Vila:

Oh, yes. I liked it. It was nice.

Levin:

You did?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

And did you participate in sports or music? Is this when you started painting, during this time when you were young? Did you start to paint?

Vila:

No. I started to paint in the second degree of primary school.

Levin:

In second grade.

Vila:

In second grade in primary school.

Levin:

Did you have any art courses?

Vila:

In primary and secondary school drawing and singing were taught. And copying objects. They took some white piece of sculpture, a model of gypsum, like the lis flower [fleur-de-lys.] You know the thing? The flower is like this. [Pause to draw]

Levin:

Oh yes.

Vila:

A lis flower made up of this white gypsum substance. There were many, many, many things of gypsum. They put it in the front and we made a copy of it. I did many copies with different illumination and shadows.

Levin:

Interesting. Because I know that your art is — your painting is something that you’ve continued to do throughout your life.

Vila:

I have done it all my life.

Levin:

It’s wonderful. It’s a good hobby to have. And when you finished grammar school, was it expected that you would go on to continue your schooling?

Vila:

Yes, I continued to study. And in my primary school there were six degrees, six degrees, maybe seven. The first was for the small children. So six degrees. In the secondary school I went the first year and the second, and I missed the third. I started studying during the vacation, and I gave all the exams for the subjects of the third year, and I went from the second to the fourth year.

Levin:

So you skipped a grade.

Vila:

So I did not want to go to school for the third year. I studied during the vacation with a paid teacher.

Levin:

Oh, so you were able to do it in less time.

Vila:

I regained the year of primary school that I lost because I went twice to the fifth year.

Levin:

Wonderful. That worked out well. And did you continue with your science in high school? The same? Oh, it’s the same book. Oh.

Vila:

This is the secondary school book. I had one book of science in primary school and another in the secondary school.

Levin:

Okay, so the book that we were looking at of the classes —

Vila:

It is the bulletin of qualifications. This one is the fifth year booklet. These are the central pages with the averages.

Levin:

— Was the last year of your high school. Okay. And you had physics and chemistry and — Wonderful.

Vila:

You see. This is the orden of merit.

Levin:

And you were one, first in merit. That’s very good.

Vila:

I started being the last in the first year of secondary school.

Levin:

And you ended up the first.

Vila:

In the fifth year.

Levin:

That is wonderful. And so you finished high school. And what did you think, what did you plan on doing once you finished the fifth grade?

Vila:

Oh, I had only one idea — to study engineering.

Levin:

Engineering.

Vila:

Yes, only one idea.

Levin:

Why did you want to study engineering?

Vila:

Everybody said, “This boy should study, should be an engineer.”

Levin:

And so it was expected of you.

Vila:

I had the Meccano, you know what the Meccano is?

Levin:

No. Meccano?

Vila:

I have the whole thing. I will show you.

Levin:

Oh, the books. [Someone talks in the background in Spanish]

Vila:

Yes, you refer to the Meccano book. That’s a very heavy box crowded of metal pieces. [Again background talking] Pieces like that, you see, with holes. And with these pieces joined with small bolts I built everything. Cranes, oh I made so many cranes when I was a boy. Motors, I made them run.

Levin:

So you really enjoyed making things, constructing things with your hands.

Vila:

Yes. Yes. And my grandfather had a carpenter shop. A shop to make things, mainly of wood, and mechanical things.

Levin:

And did you work in your grandfather’s shop, helping him make things?

Vila:

My grandfather died when I was eight years old. But my father also completed this shop, a good shop. Carpentry.

Levin:

Carpentry.

Vila:

Yes. So I had all the tools in carpentry. Many tools for mechanics. So I felt bad, because I was not able to use them properly. But I studied and I learned how to.

Levin:

And where did you plan on going to learn engineering? Was it assumed that you would go to the University of Buenos Aires?

Vila:

Well, this is another question. The students my age they were discussing it. One said, “I want to go to La Plata University because there is a city of students.” La Plata is in the Province of Buenos Aires, about fifty kilometers from Buenos Aires.

Levin:

Yes. That’s in this province.

Vila:

The other said, “I would like to go to Cordoba, another city of the interior, to study engineering.” Because there in Cordoba there is no examination to enter.

Levin:

So it’s easier.

Vila:

I said, “No, I’m going to Buenos Aires, which is the best.”

Levin:

So you did something individual.

Vila:

But I had to study by myself all the subjects and programs to enter. I came here to Buenos Aires and gave all the examinations and I entered. We worked to enter. More than one thousand.

Levin:

Really. More than a thousand took this test to enter?

Vila:

More than one thousand students who wanted to study engineering but had to pass.

Levin:

Pass this exam.

Vila:

The exams to enter.

Levin:

How many people were they going to accept?

Vila:

Three hundred and fifty. And when at the last year of engineering, only one hundred and thirty arrived.

Levin:

So a lot dropped out.

Vila:

Ten percent finish the six years of studies. [Background conversation in Spanish]

Levin:

You were up and down. And what was the engineering program like? Did you have a lot of physics classes and math classes?

Vila:

I don’t remember. But I imagine there was physics, mathematics, geometry, chemistry.

Levin:

Did you also have classes like literature and history and languages, or was it just engineering?

Vila:

Just engineering and one language. German in the first year.

Levin:

Just engineering.

Vila:

Nothing else. It is very good, this bread. Very good?

Levin:

Very good.

Vila:

Well, it was baked last night in the restaurant.

Levin:

And did you have much contact with your teachers outside of your classes?

Vila:

Mainly in secondary school, yes. Because they lived at the college, Maristas Brothers. This college had the dormitories inside for them, not the students. And as long as I was living so far away, I had to travel forty-five minutes back and forth every day.

Levin:

And that’s the high school.

Vila:

And from the fifth degree up. Because I was in the same school. You see? From here. From the fifth degree up until the end of secondary school I was in the same school, San José. San José had primary school and secondary school.

Levin:

But in the University of Buenos Aires, were there a lot of conferences, symposium where visiting professors came to give lectures? Did you?

Vila:

We had both things, a lot of two things. A lot.

Levin:

A lot.

Vila:

Classes, conferences. There was a room for one hundred, two hundred students there. And the teacher there giving a lecture to the class. But at the same time there were many professors. And we were divided in groups of six students. And each group was assigned a project of work. We had to do it by ourselves — the solving different kinds of problems of geometry, mathematics, and engineering. We had one of the best mathematics teachers in the Spanish language.

Levin:

Who was that?

Vila:

He’s famous. He was the Ph.D. Julio Rey Pastor. He wrote many books. But he was famous also because he was, how do you call that, a person who does not spend any money.

Levin:

A tightwad.

Vila:

I have the book of his here. Rey Pastor. Very good.

Levin:

Rey Pastor.

Vila:

Once, he wrote a very good book on Algebra and this book now is with my grandson in the United States. Algebra. Algebra. A very good book. Rey Pastor was Spanish.

Levin:

From Spain?

Vila:

Yes, he was from Spain. And he was responsible for elevating the status of mathematics in the University of Buenos Aires.

Levin:

Wonderful. That’s wonderful. What was he like? Did you have a chance to get to know him personally?

Vila:

Sometimes we talked with him, but we talked with the other teachers.

Levin:

The ones —

Vila:

Who had many discussions about how to solve the problems.

Levin:

Did you receive any visitors from outside to teach the theoretical classes? For instance during this time Argentina —

Vila:

To Argentina came many foreign scientists. [Albert] Einstein was in Buenos Aires. He lectured at Buenos Aires University.

Levin:

Right. Einstein. Do you remember his visit? No, he came to Argentina before my time of engineering studies.

Vila:

He held lectures.

Levin:

He gave lectures. Did you get the chance to attend any of his lectures?

Vila:

What?

Levin:

Did you get the chance to attend any of Einstein’s lectures?

Vila:

I was not there. I was in the secondary school.

Levin:

You didn’t.

Vila:

It was before I came to Buenos Aires. I will show you a book about science in Argentina.

Levin:

And you’re showing me a book of La Nación.

Vila:

It’s an article here somewhere about Einstein’s visit to Argentina.

Levin:

Argentine history in the twentieth century. [Pause while they look through book]

Vila:

But at that time I was in Mendoza. I had no idea there was some man whose name was Einstein.

Levin:

And what about, do you remember hearing about other scientists’ visits like [Enrico] Fermi?

Vila:

What?

Levin:

Do you remember hearing about the visits of other scientists like Fermi or Guido Beck, who actually came to live here for some time before the war?

Vila:

No. I don’t remember.

Levin:

Okay. How did you decide to study engineering?

Vila:

It is something very practical, engineering.

Levin:

Engineering. So very different from pure science. Very different. How did World War II affect? Did World War II affect you at all? Any, your studies or the country? La segunda guerra mundial.

Vila:

Well, the war started, and all the students ran into the street. Because of many things. But I did not lose anything of my studies.

Levin:

Why were the students striking?

Vila:

I would have to go through the newspapers to remember exactly. In my time the students’ reason was they disliked one professor and obtained in the same subject another interim professor. So those who wanted to go to the new professor, they shifted to the new professor. The others remained with the old one. I was not the only one who disliked him.

Levin:

Why?

Vila:

He was very, very difficult. Mainly in the examination. He also made questions like this one. “For what is it used, one elevator?” And the student said, “To take persons up, to take merchandise up, and so forth.” He did not say to take things down. The professor was saying, “What more? what more?” So many students disliked him. It’s understood that students like elevators for going up or for going down.

Levin:

Interesting. What did you think, what was the reaction here in Argentina to the bombing, the atomic bomb when it hit Hiroshima [Japan] and Nagasaki [Japan]?

Vila:

I think it was a natural reaction. We thought it was a very poor action. We disliked it.

Levin:

Because of?

Vila:

Mainly because the news of what happened there came here. The notice. I saw a photograph of horrible things on the back shoulder of a poor person.

Levin:

Of the bombing?

Vila:

Yes. We thought it was a decision of the United States government, because it was very hard to stop the war with the Japanese. But we disliked the results on humans. And now many people are suffering from that bomb.

Levin:

The consequences that are still being carried out.

Vila:

It is very impressive — Atomic energy is something, very, very catastrophic and big — enormous. But I was following all those things because I was working as an employee of YPF [Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales] in the laboratory in geophysics.

Levin:

At that time, you?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

When did you switch over to working in the? When did you move into the laboratory of geophysics? You majored in engineering.

Vila:

I started to work directly in the laboratory of geophysics after one year of postgraduate studies.

Levin:

Right after you graduated?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

How did you find that job?

Vila:

The YPF requested a list of students of the university with good qualifications who had studied different specialties. To incorporate them after one year of more studies in the Petroleum Institute [Instituto del Petróleo]. The oil company, the Argentine government oil company.

Levin:

YPF.

Vila:

And the lines of studies were geophysical exploration and geological exploration. Production of oil and gas and refining. Which is to drill, to pump oil, everything that is related to taking the oil out of the pool. This is production. Refining is to separate different products. Refinación was an oil specialty in which the students studied the methods to obtain different products from the oil. And this was in the institute, Instituto del Petróleo.

Levin:

So was this like studying an advanced degree?

Vila:

Yes Geofisica del Petróleo. This was, they say, a postgraduate engineer.

Levin:

Okay. Interesting.

Vila:

Postgraduate engineer. At the beginning there were two years, in my time only one, but myself and another student made it in six months of courses and three more studying.

Levin:

In six months? That’s fast.

Vila:

Because we entered in the middle of the year and we wanted to finish at the end of the year. So we made the great effort to go up to those who started on time.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

There was another one who was with me. The Institute of Petroleum was paid by the government oil company, YPF. This company gave funds to the university to pay the senior professors. And the professors were mainly officers for the oil companies. Each one was a specialist in his own field. I had several courses in geology. One was wonderful. It was in structural geology and given by Dr. Enrique Fossa Mancini.

Levin:

Wonderful course.

Vila:

Yes. He was a geologist, first class.

Levin:

What was his name?

Vila:

Ph.D. Enrique Fossa Mancini. He was an Italian. An Italian who was an officer during the war in balloons.

Levin:

Oh really?

Vila:

He was an observer of the enemy field from balloons. Fossa Mancini is an Italian name. Oh, he was a top geologist. He told nice stories for geology. He made structural geology drawings — fantastic and very clear.

Levin:

Really.

Vila:

If you want to understand facts in geology it is necessary to see really very good drawings. Because engineers never talked without a pencil to make a drawing. You have something with layers say like that.

Levin:

You’re drawing several layers. A rift.

Vila:

No, this is a fault.

Levin:

A fault line.

Vila:

Yes a fault. And this layer comes here. [Cross talk]. So the drawing I am showing you explains this type of fault. You see it, you understand it immediately. To draw in science is a must.

Levin:

So he was a good drawer?

Vila:

What?

Levin:

He drew well.

Vila:

Oh, he was fantastic.

Levin:

And this is interesting. Did he talk about continental drift, the movement?

Vila:

Not at that time.

Levin:

Not at that time?

Vila:

No. No.

Levin:

Did anyone?

Vila:

Not really. Ph.D. Anselmo Windhaussen, a German geologist in Argentina, said something about [Alfred] Wegener. There was only one book I had that said something about the continental drift. The book Geologia Argentina by Windhaussen, 1929. In there were authors who discussed the drift theory. But many geologists said, if the continents move across the ocean, they should leave some trace.

Levin:

And they didn't think there was any trace.

Vila:

There was not because they move with or at the same time to the bottom.

Levin:

Interesting. So you only had one.

Vila:

There were no noticeable traces. Because the continents were moving with the crust. The crust has three situations. One situation of collision, confrontation or collision is like this one — the Pacific Floor going down in South America and raising the Andes Mountains.

Levin:

You’re drawing a picture of the Andes.

Vila:

This is the bottom of the Pacific.

The collision between the Pacific Plate and South America originated earthquakes with focus lying in a forty-five degree plane more or less. But this was discovered later on with the study of the earthquakes. When the seismologists were able to place the focus of the earthquakes below in the epicenter, laying in a plane. But this is a very recent thing. An important notice in Argentina was the mid-Atlantic ridge and the Rift Valley. It appeared in the magazine Mundo Argentina as an interview with Ph.D. W. Maurice Ewing on 6 March, 1957. We know now that the earth is made up of big plates or spherical shells. The big plates slide over a layer which is very plastic or more or less fluid. And this displacement explains many characteristics of the earth. We know they are displaced since one is going there and the other is going there in different directions and also there is a region of collision.

Levin:

Two plates are converging in that place.

Vila:

Yes, but it is, was, very recent.

Levin:

When did people start to believe that here, in Argentina?

Vila:

Maybe during the cruise of the Vema to the South Atlantic, when W. Maurice Ewing came here to Buenos Aires. I don’t know when it was in the field of geology professors.

Levin:

Okay. That’s interesting.

Vila:

I should have really written an unpublished paper I have over there. I wrote a paper when I was incorporated into the Academy of Geography. I have the diplomas framed and hanging on the wall of my writing room. Yes, and later on into the Academy of the Sea — Academia del Mar. And I made a talk about many of these things in the Academy of Geography.

Levin:

When was that?

Vila:

Oh, let me see the date.

Levin:

October, 1990, and May, 1996, respectively.

Vila:

This is my diploma of the Academy of Geography.

Levin:

What years were you roughly in the Instituto de Petróleo?

Vila:

One year.

Levin:

In which year was it?

Vila:

1939. After the studies, one year of studying. First they sent me to the field to see the drilling of oil pools and the exploration of geophysical parties. And when I went back, I entered the laboratory. This was in 1940.

Levin:

1939. Was this, was it typical that the oil company would go to the university and recruit the graduating seniors?

Vila:

They did in that time. They had an agreement with the Faculty.

Levin:

In that time. Why in that time? Did they have a need for people?

Vila:

They were very clever managers. They were top. They were very clever. They selected graduates and invited them to join the company.

Levin:

Interesting. And why did you decide to join them? Why not do something else?

Vila:

I liked it. I was in contact with a professor, a professor of geodesy named Eduardo Baglietto. I liked always geodesy and geophysics. Eduardo Baglietto. He was a professor of geodesy. We had him in the fifth year. And he gave so much enthusiasm for geodesy to the students. And he made a campaign. The campaign, I have the book of the geodesy campaign somewhere. All the campaigns were made with the students. And we used all the instruments of geology, in the field, during one month, in the “precorlillera” of the Mendoza Andes.

Levin:

What did you do in the field during that month?

Vila:

As one of my duties, I had to go up to the peaks and use the radio and light, the special lights, for measurements in that time. Now with the satellites, it is not needed. Triangulation.

Levin:

Triangulation.

Vila:

It is the measurement of big triangles, ideally traced through fixed points. They made some triangulations. A peak of a mountain was good for a fixed point. I put a lantern there in one peak, a special lantern. It had the filament in a very, very small place. Not the filaments like common lamps that have extended filaments, but something concentrated.

Levin:

But very, very small.

Vila:

To make a spot of light. And then we looked at the spot with a theodolite, you know what the theodolite is? It is an instrument with a telescope and graduated circles or discs. The lamps are lighted, one measures the angle between points, the other measures the longitude of the line. It was a very nice practice of geodesy.

Levin:

And that gave practical experience.

Vila:

We were living in big tents at the foot of the cordillera in the vacation or recess of the year. Very nice experience.

Levin:

And what did you do after this year? After you graduated from the Instituto de Petróleo. Did you immediately — [Crosstalk]?

Vila:

I was paid all the time by the oil company. We were students with fellowships paid by the government oil company. I continued being paid after finishing the studies as an employee.

Levin:

So you kept working for them?

Vila:

Yes. We were sent for some time to the field, and then after I was sent out to the research laboratory. And they gave me very difficult things to do.

Levin:

What kind of things did they give you to do?

Vila:

Well to fix apparatus. Or to, well that is another story. It’s a story of something.

Levin:

And what happened?

Vila:

I broke a part of a gravity meter.

Levin:

Oh no.

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

What happened?

Vila:

As I told you. I’m the only one who knows in South America the technique of fused silica. This technique of fused quartz instruments.

Levin:

How did you learn it? How did you learn that skill?

Vila:

Well, there is one chapter in a book. This book has been published so many times, which is famous in the field of science, physical science.

Levin:

It’s been printed a lot.

Vila:

I’ll show you the book.

Levin:

Okay. So we’re looking at this book now that has the chapter. And the title of it is Procedures in Experimental Physics.

Vila:

Procedures in Experimental Physics.

Levin:

And it’s by [John] Strong.

Vila:

By Strong. This is something astounding. Astounding book.

Levin:

And by reading this book you were able to teach yourself how to do the fused technique?

Vila:

Well, what I did first was to build the tools needed when I broke an instrument made up of this material. Because the gravity meter was a spring balance of fused quartz. When I asked permission to work with that material it was denied.

Levin:

It was a struggle.

Vila:

You know what I did?

Levin:

What?

Vila:

I announced I was going to work after hours. I worked every day three hours more. And I learned everything here practically.

Levin:

Everything in that book.

Vila:

Yes. I was able to make something similar to the spring quartz balance in a very few days.

Levin:

Oh, very good.

Vila:

But I had to invent things. Because one of the main problems was the spring.

Levin:

The spring?

Vila:

The spring of fused quartz. I have one here. They shine very nicely in the light. You see glass. This thing looks like it is impossible. It’s a spring of glass. It jumps.

Levin:

That is amazing. It’s wonderful.

Vila:

Nowadays, the Worden company, who makes those gravity meters of quartz, they sell also the springs. But I had to learn how to do springs. But now I wrote a small book about this subject which covers many more things than in the Strong book. It is fifty pages. I have it somewhere. I’m going to look for it. Its title is Empleo de las tibras de silice en instrumeritos cientificos.

Levin:

Okay.

Vila:

I sent a copy of it to the head of the physics department.

Levin:

At the University of Buenos Aires?

Vila:

He told me, look, it’s very nice work, but in the whole of South America maybe one hundred persons would like to read it, it’s too much. So I sent a copy to my friend Ph.D. Paul Melchior at that time, to the director of the Royal Observatory in Belgium. And he enjoyed it very much, my paper, but nothing else. It’s a nice book.

Levin:

And so you kept on your work at YPF after you graduated. For how long were you with YPF?

Vila:

All the time. From 1939 to 1974.

Levin:

You just kept.

Vila:

Then a higher officer of the Hydrographic Office, Com. Luis Capurro, requested to the oil company to send someone there to work in the International Geophysical Year [IGY]. And the oil company sent me there and continued paying my salary.

Levin:

Interesting. What did you do as part of that International Geophysical Year?

Vila:

I worked in the ship, the Argentine ship Bahia Blanca, and to do geophysics at sea.

Levin:

Really?

Vila:

I was sent to New York to embark in the vessel Vema of Columbia University, the research vessel of Lamont [Geological Observatory, later Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory]. I came here to work with the people of the Vema. I had to take care of the geophysical laboratory. I was in charge of the geophysical laboratory eight hours a day. We were three people. With Doctor [W. Maurice] Ewing we did refraction work.

Levin:

Was this, this was during the IGY?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

Really? So you were sent to New York.

Vila:

The Vema came here to work in the submarine shelf.

Levin:

Oh, they came here.

Vila:

To meet the Argentine ship, Bahia Blanca. To study and increase knowledge of the submarine shelf.

Levin:

And you wrote this paper as part of this campaign.

Vila:

No, I wrote this paper after many years for the Instituto de Publicaciones Navales.

Levin:

And it’s called “Geomorphology and Minerals of the Floor Bottoms.”

Vila:

I will give one to you.

Levin:

“Geomorfologia y Minerales de Los Fondos Marinos.”

Vila:

Yes. This is for you.

Levin:

Oh, thank you.

Vila:

I have more.

Levin:

Interesting. And so who did you meet from the Vema? Did you meet Captain [Henry Kohler] or did you meet Doc Ewing? And Bruce Heezen came too?

Vila:

No, he was not in the ship. At Lamont I met, among others, first Doc Ewing, and Charles [L.] Drake and Joe [J. Lamar] Worzel.

Levin:

So you met Ewing. Who else do you remember meeting at that time?

Vila:

John [I.] Ewing was there. And he started to shoot with two ships. The method of seismic refraction. One ship was listening and the other ship was sailing and shooting.

Levin:

What did you think of this technique?

Vila:

It was the land method adapted to sea. When I started to work on the Vema it was measuring the profiles. I was making the graphs and I handed them to him. He saw the profiles and was very happy. We worked like — he was like a partner for me. The refraction shooting is one ship “standing by” recording and the other is sailing and shooting. And then the explosive with the starter goes over the side. With the date is made a graph of distance and time of arrival of the waves, which is a retraction profile.

Levin:

And the refraction time being on the vertical and distance on the horizontal, measured with the surface wave time.

Vila:

I made things like this refraction profile. These are the times obtained from the records.

Levin:

Okay. Interesting. And what did you think of this? Was this new for you or you had been doing this?

Vila:

I knew the land methods, but not the marine method.

Levin:

You already knew it.

Vila:

— the technique on land.

Levin:

On land.

Vila:

On land. The difference for me was the work on land is very slow and at sea it is very fast.

Levin:

Right. Interesting. So this is what you did as part of IGY.

Vila:

I embarked on the Vema in New York. I had with me Dr. Raimundo Celeste —

Levin:

In New York.

Vila:

In New York. And we went down to work in the Caribbean Sea and later on Dr. Ewing joined us and we started to work with an Argentine ship.

Levin:

Was it a navy ship?

Vila:

Yes, here she was the Bahia Blanca. We met Theta, they hired this ship there in the Caribbean. We made refraction shooting in those waters.

Levin:

An Argentine ship?

Vila:

No. No. Columbia works in the Caribbean with two ships, one hired by Columbia. As I said she was the Theta.

Levin:

A ship they hired in the Caribbean. Where did this other ship come from? Do you remember?

Vila:

It was a cargo ship. The scientific equipment was installed by a Lamont scientist. I don’t remember the owner.

Levin:

Okay.

Vila:

And when we arrived here, the Navy incorporated the Argentine ship. Bahia Blanca was their name.

Levin:

Bahia Blanca.

Vila:

Bahia Blanca. Bahia Blanca. A ship with an old propeller machine. Bahia Blanca. It was a small ship. Good for coastal hydrographic work.

Levin:

Did the oil company support this thinking that they could find oil? [Cross talk]

Vila:

Yes, because land sedimentary basins could be continued in the shelf. I brought from Lamont a magnetometer.

Levin:

Magnetometer.

Vila:

There are different kinds of magnetometers. But this one which has a Flux gate magnetometer. It was one of the first used in the war. The sensor was a piece of alloy like a cigar, this size. Like this. Surrounded by a coil.

Levin:

About, very thin like a cigar.

Vila:

It’s surrounded by a coil of wire. That’s all. That’s all. With the properties of this, metal worked the magnetometer. There was a box, special for handling this on the recorder. They explained to me things. It was for me nothing new because I knew the paper of Victor Vacquier, who was the inventor of flux-gate magnetometers. I had translated many papers on air-borne magnetometers during that time so I knew the detection of submarines. So they worked, they explained to me how to take measurements and to adopt it to the sea. You know Charles Drake.

Levin:

Charles Drake, yes.

Vila:

Charles Drake. He explained to me one day this magnetometer, an adaptation of Magnetic Airborne Detector [MAD].

Levin:

What did you think of Drake? Did you meet him at that time?

Vila:

Yes. A very fine example, a fine person. Yes.

Levin:

Were you able to speak English at that time?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

You were?

Vila:

Yes, I took several courses of English before.

Levin:

Wonderful.

Vila:

And my conversation was bad, the first few days after speaking the whole day in English, I was tired. I was so tired to think and to speak in English.

Levin:

The entire day. Trying to understand. Tiring.

Vila:

That was of course a very nice experience. And while they were here, the Vema in Buenos Aires, I invited Maurice Ewing to my laboratory.

Levin:

Did he come?

Vila:

He came to see my work in gravimeters.

Levin:

And what did he think of them? Did he say?

Vila:

Well, a question was done. I was very unhappy with what was going on in the lab with the pressure of unionism.

Levin:

With [Juan D.] Peron. [Cross talk]

Vila:

These were the times that were the unions. The power of the unions. This was ridiculous. That was very awful. I was going to resign. But I said to myself, “I’m going to resign. It’s better that I obtain a fellowship outside.” I started to look for one. I wrote to the Colorado School of Mines unsuccessfully, and someone told me, look, here is a person who is representing J. S. Guggenheim Foundation. He was a lawyer, I don’t remember his name now, it should be there in the letters I have, who is the representative for the Guggenheim Fellowship. I went there. They gave me the application and I presented myself to the Foundation. And when Ewing was in my laboratory, he told me, “Add my name to the references.” And he was very helpful to me in obtaining the fellowship. I had been at Lamont and Columbia more than one year. Later on, [J. Lamar] Worzel allowed me to go back.

Levin:

Worzel did?

Vila:

Worzel. Joe Worzel. And I worked with him. But I wasn’t able to make a sea gravimeter of fused quartz. It’s very hard. See, of this material, the fused silica. The market in this specialty there is Worden Gravimeters, and with metallic springs the company Romberg-Lacoste. Have you heard about Romberg-Lacoste?

Levin:

No, I hadn’t.

Vila:

Well, they make the gravimeters of metallic pieces, not of quartz.

Levin:

Interesting. How do they compare? How do you think they compare?

Vila:

Nowadays they are the best.

Levin:

They’re better.

Vila:

They are the best on land gravimeters.

Levin:

And that’s the kind that Columbia was using?

Vila:

What?

Levin:

And that was the type that Columbia was using?

Vila:

Everywhere in the world uses this land gravimeter now. Maybe they don’t in Lamont. For use at sea Graat-Askania was used over a stabilized table designed by Joe Worzel. But the best land gravimeter is the Romber-LaCoste. Because they were able to improve existing metallic materials like isoelastic used for it.

Levin:

So in terms of the Moss-Smith gravimeter of quartz that was being used while you were at YPF in Argentina versus the Graat-Askania granite in Lamont, this was better?

Vila:

The first is a land gravimeter improved by Worden with a big success. The second also is a good land meter, very well adapted to ships. Every geodesic institute of Argentinean universities has Worden gravimeters. When I obtained the U.S. Guggenheim fellowship, I took several courses, but later I preferred to work. That made me more happy.

Levin:

Instead of taking classes at Columbia, it was better to work at Lamont.

Vila:

Yes. And then Joe Worzel took me to a small house of wood, which I think was a house for horses in the Lamont’s family, to use part of it as a lab. I used to call it Fernando’s Hideaway. And there I obtained everything that I needed to work, and he took me to the shop and store and said to me, “Whatever you need, you take it from here. Here are the tools, here are the materials, here are the lathes, here is everything.” I was permitted to use all the machines.

Levin:

You must have loved that.

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

Knowing your love of making things, you must have been very pleased.

Vila:

He was very happy with me as I was with him. One day I had the chance to help make relief maps for the sea surface for Bruce [C.] Heezen — it’s interesting — but over spherical surfaces.

Levin:

Okay.

Vila:

Of gypsum.

Levin:

Of gypsum, oh. Had you made maps before?

Vila:

Wait, wait, wait. No, it was the first time. And then in order to make the shape of a sphere, I had to make spherical layers of gypsum. On top of these spherical layers, I glued the level contours. If in its borders was a map of the Mediterranean, with one contour was one layer of gypsum. I glued the paper of the contour and then I cut it with the saw. Then comes another contour. And then another contour, piled one over the other. I glued one on top of the other. Same thing. But spherical. Spherical. So I needed the spherical surface layers for the size of the earth to an appropriate scale.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

And I went to the shop. I said, “Do you have a tool to make spherical surfaces?” And they brought me a tool, but I was unable to use it because it was only for small radial surfaces. I needed one for an earth sphere with a size approximately sixty-four centimeters in radius to some feet.

Levin:

For something’s that about three feet.

Vila:

Yes. A scale of one part in ten millions. You see here one quarter of the meridian of the earth is twelve thousand kilometers. In a metric scale, it is one meter, thirty, in diameter. One part in ten millions.

Levin:

Was this the first time you had done this?

Vila:

You know how a sphere surface is made?

Levin:

How?

Vila:

It is made in a special shop machine. The machine is similar to the one used in optics. It is used to make gears. What’s the name in English? Machine used to make gears. The milling machine.

Levin:

Was this the first time you had done this?

Vila:

You know how a sphere surface is made?

Levin:

How?

Vila:

Is made in a special machine. The machine is similar to the one used in optics. What’s the name in English? Machine used to make gears. The milling machine.

Levin:

Gears.

Vila:

In this machine. I put the turntable head, which could rotate. I put the cutting tool, the end support device of the tool, at some distance of the rotation axis. Very well measured. And when this rotates, the tool cuts in a circular inclined path.

Levin:

When the head rotates.

Vila:

That makes the surface first starting in the border. This is a fairly cut surface. This is the center. Which is in a plate. This plate, I was able to rotate it with a screw, very slowly. So it started with something flat, see like this.

Levin:

So it was flat disk and then it gradually got more spherical.

Vila:

Right. And here, this is the perpendicular to the axis. This is the position of the head, right?

Levin:

It is on the diagonal.

Vila:

And here comes the tool. It rotates, it makes a circle. All circles tangent to the sphere, all circles equal, at the same distance from the center. All these circles’ surfaces secant to the sphere at the same distance are equal.

Levin:

Right.

Vila:

And the whole surface looked like something rounding, oh little circular traces — things like that. They’re very small. Some became perfect. With the same angles one is made concave by changing the position.

Levin:

That’s quite a bit of work that you were doing.

Vila:

Yes. I made those things.

Levin:

Was this?

Vila:

In the shop. Everybody came to see me to make these.

Levin:

To do that.

Vila:

Everybody in the shop. Although it was something regular in an optical shop.

Levin:

Was this something you decided you wanted to do for Bruce, or something he asked you to do? [Cross talk]

Vila:

Was my will.

Levin:

He must have loved that. What did he say?

Vila:

He liked it very much. Well, then he took a student and also made a relief globe with the same technique. He said to make the parts of gypsum with the thing I prepared for him.

Levin:

Where did, do you remember if Marie Tharp said anything about this globe that you were making, this sphere? Did she say anything?

Vila:

I think she knew. Because she knew everything we were doing.

Levin:

And was this the first relief map you had made?

Vila:

Yes, at that time.

Levin:

It must have been quite difficult — the personal relationship between him and Doc.

Vila:

— I don't know what happened between Ewing and — [Crosstalk]

Levin:

And Bruce.

Vila:

— Bruce. Years later, when he was out one day, they took from his room everything and they put everything in the outside court over the grass.

Levin:

Bruce’s home?

Vila:

Bruce’s home, no. From his office.

Levin:

No, they took everything from Ewing’s home?

Vila:

No. He had many rooms in the new building.

Levin:

Okay. So they took all of Bruce’s —

Vila:

Took everything out of Bruce’s —

Levin:

— Out of his office.

Vila:

And they put everything there in the outside court. But I tried when I was there to soften the things. And they weren’t very good to relations. When I left there happened this.

Levin:

Oh no.

Vila:

When I was there, there were very good relations among them which I helped to obtain.

Levin:

You were one of Bruce’s students or you worked with Bruce?

Vila:

Neither. Only one thing — I was sharing the house with him.

Levin:

Okay, you lived with him for a while?

Vila:

And we discussed about art, he loved music and we discussed about music. And when he went to Europe he bought paintings from the museums. Things like The Source by [Jean Auguste Domenique] Ingres. He loved very much tribal masks — He had the collection of masks. We had very good relations. They were out of work.

Levin:

What was it like to live with Bruce?

Vila:

Rather difficult.

Levin:

Difficult?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

What was he like?

Vila:

He was difficult. But then I decided to clean and help things. And he became very angry. Because he left the thing in one place, he wanted the thing there. So I never touched anything.

Levin:

Never touched anything again.

Vila:

So we lived there in this house by the river when he was out in Russia. My wife here with the children. I rented a furnished house.

Levin:

In Argentina still.

Vila:

Very hard to live alone out of home.

Levin:

Very difficult. You were here for — you were in New York for three years. Between ‘59 and ‘62.

Vila:

Yes. But not continually. I was out in stages. But this question of how to make spherical layers, of the same size.

Levin:

That took a lot of ingenuity.

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

That was very difficult.

Vila:

Not too much. It was nothing new for me because it is the way that the surfaces are made in optical shops — nothing new for me. A man has to use what he knows. You know? Let me see this in the Strong book.

Levin:

So the Strong book that you have now.

Vila:

Yes, in the YPF lab we made a machine like this one on page forty of Strong.

Levin:

— the Strong book.

Vila:

We have a machine like this one in our laboratory.

Levin:

It was how you learned how to do lenses or spherical surfaces. You had already known.

Vila:

Well, we made all those in the shop, we built it.

Levin:

And you just replicated that tool when you got to work.

Vila:

To work with.

Levin:

How did you find the instruments at Lamont?

Vila:

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait — let me look through the book.

Levin:

Okay.

Vila:

You see. The surfaces. Here is a place, how to correct the surface. I had all this knowledge of making optical surfaces.

Levin:

From this one book.

Vila:

Because we had instruments with lenses. And at that time there were no importations, and some lenses broke. We had to build a new one. You know?

Levin:

Right. You couldn’t afford to buy them.

Vila:

Yes, it was impossible. It was after the war.

Levin:

Right. So there wasn’t the importation.

Vila:

So we hired a technician, a person who worked in the factory of eye glasses. But he had no idea about polishing with the pitch, either side. The surface of the glass. First build it with very coarse material, a very hard material.

Levin:

Abrasive.

Vila:

And finish with very thin — It’s like a powder. It is a polishing powder. And after that the use of emerilitis with oxide of iron, óxido de hierro, or óxido de titanio. And I — We took this man and told him to polish them with pitch, to polish the surface. The pitch is a special mix of tar and waxes. A pitch is a black substance which should temper at some temperature and take the shape of the surface that we want to polish. And to this black substance the wax is added.

Levin:

Pitch.

Vila:

The pitch. The pitch is made of resins, asphalt, shellac, and wax. But a different substance that does not melt with low heat. But keeps the shape. So this surface, our polished surface, which is a mix, it is black. It is a mix of shellac, bitumen, tar, wax according to the needs and the temperature of the room. It supports the polish powder with water.

Levin:

Very good.

Vila:

I had a translation to Spanish of these chapters of Strong for our workers.

Levin:

How did you find the instruments at Columbia, I mean at Lamont? Did you find them to be up to date?

Vila:

Oh, they were up to date. They were in the front.

Levin:

In the front.

Vila:

They were in the front with special tools and materials.

Levin:

How did the instruments?

Vila:

Look, they were in the front of the laboratory to work at sea. Worzel made a stabilized platform to hold the sea gravimeter on top.

Levin:

So Worzel was also very good at constructing tools and instruments.

Vila:

Oh he was very good. Very good with his hands. It was his life. Is he still living?

Levin:

Yes, he is.

Vila:

I would like to send a letter saying, “Hello, Joe.”

Levin:

He would probably like to receive that.

When you first got to Lamont, was it difficult to adjust to life in New York, in Nyack? Was there anyone that was there to help you to adjust to the culture? Finding your way around town, using public transportation? Finding a place to live?

Vila:

The Consulate Argentine obtained for us the hotel Gorham in New York. We were living in different hotels and this was very near the Argentine Consulate. But later on we lived in one which now is too expensive, its name is Middletowne.

Levin:

Middletowne?

Vila:

Middletowne. On East 48th Street, New York.

Levin:

And so you were living with other Argentines?

Vila:

No. No.

Levin:

No.

Vila:

I didn’t care about that. I preferred to live with the English-speaking people.

Levin:

So you could keep practicing.

Vila:

Claro. Yes. Of course.

Levin:

So they found you that, your first place, when you came in. And they helped you get acquainted.

Vila:

Well, when I arrived there we went to the Gorham hotel. And the first problem I had was that I was trying to phone Palisades, New York, not Palisades, New Jersey. I discovered there were two.

Levin:

No, actually New York.

Vila:

I tell you actually New York State. So, I said there must be some mistake and then the telephone operator said, “Oh, this is Palisades, New York.” I obtained the telephone call and they told me what bus to take, for one dollar, to the bus station by the Washington Bridge. Before the second level. The bridge did not yet have the second level. And they told me where to descend, and there were some people down the hill waiting for us. And they took us up. And we were living some days near the Observatory. But I don’t remember where.

Levin:

You say we were. Who was we?

Vila:

[Raimundo] Celeste was the other, the geologist.

Levin:

Celeste?

Vila:

Celeste.

Levin:

Who, where was he from?

Vila:

He — Raimundo, Raimundo. Raimundo Celeste. Secretary of Meteorology. He was a geologist.

Levin:

Who was also coming? Where was he coming from?

Vila:

The story is like that. Celeste had a La Cour magnetometer. He was working in the Servicio Meterologica Nacional. And they used this magnetometer.

Levin:

The La Cour magnetometer.

Vila:

Things like that, you see? [Vila points it out in a book] It is something that has a circle and a box with the magnetometer. It is a head in a box. And here a circle — a graduated circular platform that supports the magnetometer house.

Levin:

A circle?

Vila:

Of course. A circle of course which supports the cylindrical box of the magnetometer.

Levin:

So you’re drawing a La Cour magnetometer.

Vila:

Yes, wait. And hanging there from a quartz fiber is a small mirror and a magnet. A small magnet. This magnet takes some orientation due to the magnetic field in balance with the torque of the fiber. But as long as it is permitted to make a rotation of one turn or one turn and a half, the rotation may be more than, let’s say, four hundred degrees. Let’s prove this. [Calculates in Spanish numbers] So, it really uses one third of the degree [again calculates in Spanish]. One division is one part in seventy-two thousand of this turn. So one of these parts is almost one and one half from one hundred thousand parts. This is a very sensitive meter. It is rotating. The circular base is divided into degrees and minutes, that’s all. It's very sensitive. And it was built at an institution in Copenhagen. And it was sent by mail, I think, and when it arrived in Argentina, someone in customs opened the box, and broke all the quartz fibers.

Levin:

They broke all. Right there.

Vila:

Yes. And a friend asked me to make them for him. He was from the Metereological Service in Argentina.

Levin:

Who asked you? Did Doc Ewing ask you to make them?

Vila:

No. It was a long time before going to Lamont.

Levin:

Who?

Vila:

This man.

Levin:

Celeste.

Vila:

The same man who worked in the Department of Geology of YPF when we were students at the Petroleum Institute.

Levin:

In Argentina?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

Celeste asked you to make them because the fibers were broken.

Vila:

Yes. We had knowledge of each other because when we were students in the Petroleum Institute we had the same place in the library to study and to work.

Levin:

Okay. And.

Vila:

And he remembered me. He said, “Fernando, can you make me the fibers?”

Levin:

So tell me, they were broken at customs, at aduanas?

Vila:

At aduanas. [cross talk] I made fibers with their pearled ends.

Levin:

So that’s how you met Celeste. [Cross talk]. Before in the government oil company.

Vila:

And the problem was to make the pearled ends in the fibers — That’s the problem.

Levin:

A specialized instrument that measures magnetic fields.

Vila:

How to make the fiber ends.

Levin:

It’s a straight line with broader ends.

Vila:

To make fibers of silica fused quartz there are three methods — by hand, with an arrow, and continuously in a lathe. Well, the fiber is made continually in the lathe.

Levin:

In the little swirl at the end.

Vila:

No, with a broader end or like a pearl. In lathe carriage is supported the fused quartz rod silica from which a fiber is pulled using a torch which is enveloped in a spool of one meter perimeter. And I started to rotate at the speed of one hundred turns per minute. You see in the air something — the fiber going out — shining. The torch is moving back slowly, slowly in the lathe carriage. The fiber diameter is obtained by computation that converts the rod one cylinder — the fiber.

Levin:

The thicker the fiber, the slower the pole? [cross talk].

Vila:

Yes, it is only a matter of finding the adequate relation and then to obtain the desired fiber. I made the computation.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

Here is a spring of quartz hanging from a tweezers. Astonishing to see this hanging in the air. It’s wonderful.

Levin:

And so Celeste was also coming to Lamont to work at the same time in the same vessel?

Vila:

Yes. And he sailed with me on the Vema.

Levin:

Wonderful.

Vila:

But he had no passion for science as I do, I think.

Levin:

He was more —

Vila:

His aim was to be like a millionaire in a ship crossing the Atlantic, having a glass of whiskey in his hand, sitting in an armchair on deck. [Laughter]

Levin:

Very different from the life that is actually the scientific life.

Vila:

It is a pity. I have many stories about working here. But the question is to make this. See? A micromanipulator.

Levin:

That specialized instrument.

Vila:

Entonces. It doesn’t exist like that in the market. I had to invent it. I had to adapt it and make some additions. It is a micromanipulator from the plate of a microscope. It permits the working of micromovements of the rod supporting the quartz, in two directions with two knobs.

Levin:

So did you continue making this at Lamont?

Vila:

Wait, wait, wait. Here, here. Yes, and I bought another in the States when I was there. Which is a support of a microscope making three movements in triaxial directions. They were handier than the ones in the Strong book? It was purchased at Edmont Scientific Company in Barrington, New Jersey. Here, here [hands interviewer a microscope piece].

Levin:

Just in Buenos Aires you used this?

Vila:

Yes, yes. A microscope piece as a micromanipulator.

Levin:

You didn’t make this at Lamont?

Vila:

No. No. It was here. Before going there, I think. I liked the people who do work in glass blowing. And I asked them to use the torch in a small piece of quartz and make something like this, a piece similar to a fork.

Levin:

And you’re drawing.

Vila:

See? Like this.

Levin:

Two lines that are converging. [cross talk].

Vila:

When I have done this, I came with a —

Levin:

Can you describe what you’re drawing?

Vila:

A support for a fiber, to handle it. This is the fiber.

Levin:

The fiber.

Vila:

The fiber.

Levin:

And this top line?

Vila:

For the micromanipulator support of a fiber.

Levin:

Okay.

Vila:

And this is supported by a micromanipulator. This is very short. And here this is showing you wax, special wax, which evaporates and leaves no material at all. It is the diphenylcarbazide. It’s very special. It is in the book. Then I put this in front. So, they are in front. One in front of the other. This is how the fibers are joined at their ends.

Levin:

One instrument in front of the other. Perhaps —

Vila:

I will make it very thick now. You see, this is the fiber. You have to think about it.

Levin:

This is a very complicated bit of work.

Vila:

It may seem — My purpose it to show how it is done.

Levin:

Interesting. What was the social life like at Lamont? I know you were married, but was there much that you were able to do?

Vila:

I didn’t have so much of a social life. But we were invited one day to have dinner in the house of Ewing, and another day in the house of the other Ewing.

Levin:

John Ewing?

Vila:

Yes, John Ewing. And one day in the house of a student. And they liked it to be so fine with us, knowing that the Argentineans eat with wine and they served us a very nice meal, with sweet wine. [Laughs]

Levin:

That was nice.

Vila:

Anyhow, we enjoyed being in this house. It was a wood house without nails. It had not one nail. We all looked and not one nail. Not one screw. Everything was fixed with wedges.

Levin:

Not one. No?

Vila:

Just plugs or wood wedges. Two pieces of wood joined with another wood. The whole house.

Levin:

The whole house.

Vila:

Beautiful.

Levin:

Whose house was this?

Vila:

It was in Long Island, south of New York. We went with a car, we had a crossing.

Levin:

Long Island?

Vila:

Yes, this man was living there and traveled once a week.

Levin:

And it was a person who was working at Lamont.

Vila:

I don’t remember his name. I met so many people.

Levin:

So you were able to go to several homes for dinners?

Vila:

¿Cómo?

Levin:

You were able to go to several homes to eat at times? Was it frequent or just rarely?

Vila:

No entiendo [I don’t understand].

Levin:

At times you were invited —

Vila:

Yes sometimes, a few times.

Levin:

Right. Very few times. Okay.

Vila:

[Answers in Spanish]

Levin:

So you were just invited when your wife was there?

Vila:

[Answers in Spanish] Yes.

Levin:

Wait, yes, so you’re telling me about —

Vila:

I was invited to the house of Harriett [Ewing] in her anterior home.

Levin:

Before they were married.

Vila:

She was with her first husband.

Levin:

Oh, what did you think of Harriett?

Vila:

Oh, she was very nice as a secretary.

Levin:

Nice?

Vila:

Yes. A hard worker.

Levin:

A hard worker?

Vila:

Yes. And Dr. Ewing had a bed at his place. When he was tired, he made a nap.

Levin:

In the office?

Vila:

Yes, in the office.

Levin:

Because of the long hours that he worked. Interesting.

Vila:

Sometimes he invited me to eat my sandwich with him, to talk.

Levin:

What did you talk about?

Vila:

Well, about those things, about my science work, I think. I don’t remember all the subjects.

Levin:

Interesting. Did he ever ask you how you were doing, about your personal life?

Vila:

He knew that I was like a bachelor because my wife was here.

Levin:

And that was difficult.

Vila:

And when Bruce went to Russia, my wife came to the house of Bruce Heezen and we used the whole house and also we made a trip to Canada, to the Niagara Falls. When we departed at night there was a strong storm — you can’t imagine how big a storm. It was impossible to drive. So I said to myself, when I see something worthwhile to stop at I will stop. We passed by a place with wood houses, made up of trunks or logs. Yes. By some mountain, going to the north. And we spent the night in this house. And then early in the morning, the man I paid, to the man who was the cashier, he told me as long as I was sleeping in the house of the honeymooners, he told us he was able to marry us if we wanted to do it.

Levin:

[Laughter] To marry you again.

Vila:

Yes. We continued the trip to Niagara Falls. I would like to find the book similar to this one within it all the things. But I don’t know, I have a mix of things, because as long as I’m writing I fill it up with many papers.

Levin:

You’re writing a book now. So, did you feel like you fit in at Lamont?

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

That you felt comfortable there.

Vila:

Yes. I was one among them. I was very happy. And I used to see passing by always the small boy of Joe Worzel, small boy. And I stopped him and asked him how he was and what he was doing, and so forth, and big conversation. And one day he told me, “Fernando, you are the finest man I ever met.”

Levin:

Oh that's a wonderful compliment. [Laughter] How was the adjustment for Celeste? Did he adjust as easily?

Vila:

No. No. He was only once at Lamont, and the sciences there were well outside of his field. But he was the one who asked me to come to Lamont.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

Yes. Because he was a person of the Meteorological Services, known by Capurro. [Luis] Capurro was the head of a section in the Hydrographic Office. The Hydrographic Office had several sections and one was oceanography. It was a new section in the Hydrographic Office and he started to work with Lamont for the International Geophysical Year.

Levin:

So why did you leave Lamont?

Vila:

What?

Levin:

Why did you leave Lamont? You worked there for three years.

Vila:

Oh, it’s very simple. When a person obtains a fellowship of the Guggenheim Foundation, he promises to come back to his country. I could stay several years here and then go to the observatory in the Pacific to work with the other man who was working in seismology. What’s the name? George Sutton.

Levin:

Yes.

Vila:

Yes. Did you see my books are by many people related with Lamont?

Levin:

You have a substantial library of geophysical books.

Vila:

I don’t have to go out in order to have all the material to work here.

Levin:

So you had the choice of working in the Pacific or going straight back to your country?

Vila:

No, I didn’t have a choice. I had to return. Nobody said to me to come back. But I knew that I should do it.

Levin:

What were your thoughts about going back? Were you worried with the political situation?

Vila:

It changed.

Levin:

It changed?

Vila:

When I came back, it changed. There were less political pressures. But there was no problem for me because the head of the Hydrographic Office, Commissioner Bagnatti, asked me to work with them and requested to the oil company to send me there, which they accepted. So I started to create in the Office the section of geophysics. There was not one.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

I had several helpers. People who make drawings, things like that. At the same time I had the support of the shop of the Hydrographic Office. And when I needed to do something, I went to the shop. The Hydrographic Office had this shop with several special machines. They had two special machines. In the country — there is one more in the whole country. It’s a huge machine to make precise divisions engraved in metallic supports.

Levin:

About four feet long.

Vila:

Table, a protected turntable, to make divisions in this like in Theodolite discs. I needed dials transparent in Lucite. They made for me many divided dials for a gravimeter, made in this huge machine.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

A top machine. Very specialized.

Levin:

So you had good tools when you came back, good instruments to work with.

Vila:

If a person moves, goes different places, he finds what he needs. If you stay at home, or you don’t go up, you will not get anything. In Argentina it is always possible to find difficult things or specialized workers.

Levin:

Anything. So you had to move around to get what you needed.

Vila:

Once I needed an optical system. I started with a book of geometrical optics. In order to be able to compute an optical system that would transfer the image of a scale engraved in glass to make a system that would transfer a scale engraved in the glass to some part where I had an eye piece. The ocular eyepiece was a Kellner optical system. I had to transfer this to here.

Levin:

The gradients to the lens.

Vila:

But the image of this scale.

Levin:

The image.

Vila:

So I had to build an optical system of glasses in order to transfer the image. So I started with a book, going back and forth, and trying the two types of glass. One is crown and the other is flint. There are two types of glasses, one of a strong optical index that makes a very big change in the direction of the ray. But it has, at the same time, this spectrum of the different colors. White light will appear here with many colors. If you move a white piece of paper here you will see several lines, several colors. And to correct this another glass to collect the rays is needed to bring them together. A composite lens made up with one crown and one flint will correct it. And if you adjust the thickness of the glasses, the surfaces and so forth, it’s a matter of trial to find the correct one. I have several books of geometrical optics. I am able to compute an optical system. When I was there in Lamont I made one optical system for a gravimeter. I asked if the technician of the optical lens of Lamont could advise me. And he came to see my work. He said, “No, no changes.” He said, “Okay.” He was the designer of underwater cameras, Dr. Edward M. Thorndyke.

Levin:

Oh great. Who came to do that?

Vila:

Dr. Thorndyke. For the gravimeter I was building. He was an engineer in optics. Dr. Thorndyke.

Levin:

That’s very interesting.

Vila:

See, he served in the program of optics in Lamont. But not always there, he was a consultant.

Levin:

So how was it different? What did you find different when you came back and started working in Argentina, then what it was like in Lamont? Was there a big difference in what you, how you were doing things?

Vila:

Not too much, the difference is with the scientific media, not with the place. In the lab where I was working here, I have the whole support of the shop and the whole support of the warehouse or magazine stores with all the materials needed.

Levin:

In Buenos Aires.

Vila:

We had everything we needed in the YPF research lab. The same at Lamont. But there it was also the support of the industry. If I needed something special from the industry it might be difficult to find where. But sometimes it would be imported —

Levin:

And here the industry?

Vila:

And here the industry is not as sensible to help research.

Levin:

Supportive.

Vila:

Wasn’t developed, like there. So one day I decided to study different materials to make the overdamping in the gravimeter, with a vane inside the magnetic field and we went with my helper. My helper.

Levin:

A graduate student.

Vila:

He was a postgraduate student. He had a fiancee. He married later on. Was a daughter of Italians. Porta was his name. His name in Italian means “door.” The technology of physics course has no appeal for people because it’s not well applied by industry. When science is not well applied it does not have too much commercial output. I may add, industry does not know the advantage of having scientists.

Levin:

So if it’s not applicable —

Vila:

[Cross talk] Not too much. Science is not too much applicable. Only in very few things. Maybe more in the laboratory.

Levin:

What about the government’s support of science? Do they only want things that can be applicable?

Vila:

No. No. The scientist recognized as such has very big freedom in the conducting of his research. The Council of Science pays for them. They have to do good research to make good reports. And special committees approve those reports. If I make a good report this year I will continue next year. So every two years I make this report as a researcher. The council is named CONICET, El Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas.

Levin:

So how does this work? The scientists get money from the government to do their studies? Do they have to send in their reports before they get the money, or they just get the money and then they do what they can with it?

Vila:

Correct. If I have a project and I need money, I apply for the project and they give me the money after the project has been approved by the committee for that specialty. I make two year reports, but also special reports for money.

Levin:

Okay. So you apply for it.

Vila:

Yes.

Levin:

And is the government the main source, or are there other sources?

Vila:

It’s possible. It’s possible to obtain other sources, but more difficult.

Levin:

More difficult.

Vila:

Here the industry did not realize how important it is for them to support research. They didn’t realize it. How important this is. The country has many good researchers, many, but they work with short funds, with the help carried out by their employees. Some of us were discussing the other day, how is considered Argentina and its university, and other American universities related with the economy. And from the point of view of the economy, Harvard [University] considered different countries. Countries developed, countries underdeveloped, and countries in development. Plus Argentina, which did not fall in any of these categories.

Levin:

In any of the categories.

Vila:

The Argentine development is good because the country is different from others. If you think the brain of the Argentines is not very bad, this is due to two very important things. If a baby boy in the first age gets good nutrition, he has a good development of the brain. This is one. In Argentina, there is enough food for those who work, even if it is important or not important work. In Argentina it is possible to eat well. Second is the origin. This development of the brain is also inheritable. If a person has parents with good development of the brain and able to get good feeding, he will obtain also good development of the brain. This is why the Argentines do not fall in these categories, due to the mind power of its populations.

Levin:

In any of those categories.

Vila:

Yes. Because when a country is underdeveloped, it will continue in not developing, unless it breaks this cycle. Of the feeding of people and consequently of the brains.

Levin:

And the nutrition.

Vila:

In Argentina generally it is good, although there are appearing some indications of poverty in belts around the big cities, places named “Villas Miseria.”

Levin:

So, but that, wouldn’t that place Argentina in the development category because it has that?

Vila:

No, maybe sometime in the category of development. It depends on what things are you looking at.

Levin:

Interesting.

Vila:

When I was trying to build some optical systems, I went to Puerto Belgrano, where there is an optical shop. Why? Because at that time, all the navies needed the optical system in the submarines, in the destroyers, to measure distance with telemeters. It was a very nice optical shop of the Navy. I said to them, “Well, you can build for me these lenses.” They said, “Yes, you have to write in.” Then came the other part of Argentina, the bureaucracy: “Well you have to write me a note and ask for the budget and approve the budget” and so forth. I wanted the optical system not all those things. I have problems with bureaucracy.

Levin:

Not all the paperwork.

Vila:

I started to go around Buenos Aires to all the places where they could have the optical glasses, and I bought the different types of glass. And I measured them in an instrument, you know, a refractometer, an instrument to measure the refraction index and the spectrum. And I measured all the glasses I had. And then I made a computation. I have the optical engineering books there. [Outside noise drowns them out] At the same time, my helper, I had a helper who was a technician. And I bought a book of optics for the technician. And during several months, we studied one hour in the lab after working hours. We studied optics. By the way, if you want somebody to do those things, and he would like to do all those things, you have to teach them. We studied in a book, Optique sans Formules by Charles Florian, published in 1949.

Levin:

So tell me about Marie Tharp’s map. You were talking off tape about how she wanted to put something. Marie Tharp, her map that she drew of the South American sea floor, the continent, she put something on that map.

Vila:

Well I arrived that day there and she was drawing. She said, “Fernando, from where do you come from?” I said “From here,” pointing at a place on the map. And she put the F —

Levin:

Right where Mendoza is.

Vila:

— Yes. “I’m saying this is not for Fernando, it’s for Fundador Cognac.” So I used to make a joke.

Levin:

So if you look at Marie’s map now, you can see that F where —

Vila:

— Yes. There by the river Mendoza at the foot of the Andes Mountains. I do remember everything of those days.

Levin:

That’s interesting. It’s an interesting thing that she did that.

Vila:

It is very fine. Nobody will see it among the thousands of numbers on the map.

Levin:

One last question that I have is in terms of the scientists that came down to Argentina. For instance, Ewing came down to Argentina to work, and worked with the Argentines.

Vila:

Well, several people were invited to embark on the Vema and go to Lamont. One was, I don’t know where he is now. [Dionisio] Valenzuela, he worked at the Lamont in seismology. And he was working with very much dedication. He had to make many computations. Many, many computations. I was going to the Watson Laboratory. I don’t know if you know what is the Watson Laboratory is or was.

Levin:

Watson?

Vila:

The Watson Laboratory had a computer. IBM 650, which has a cylinder and which enters the programs and the numbers. As long as the cylinder rotates. And in some way, it picks up the things and sends the work to the computer, and the computer makes the computation, and sends the result to the same cylinder, and puts the result over there. Its output was in punched cards. And then you put the set of punched cards inside the machine and the results are printed.

To enter into the computer, a person should know first how to work the machine to punch cards. The punched cards I still have now — over there back there. Punch cards. Still I keep them. You put them — the cards — in the machine and the machine reads the flow chart of instructions and data. You have to learn what this is, a flow chart. A flow chart, enter the data, make the arithmetic computations, make the multiplications for it, and so on. The computer gives the results in punched cards. IBM 650. An elephant, that machine. The one I have now at home is many times more powerful.

Levin:

Your laptop.

Vila:

In my briefcase, is a Texas Instrument Laptop 1 which is thousands more powerful than IBM 650.

Levin:

Okay. But in terms of visiting, visits of scientists such as Ewing and others to Argentina to work with, in Argentina.

Vila:

No. Well, there was no development of that. It could be very nice. It could be very nice to bring them to work with us, but what happened is the reverse, that many of us went to work with them. Like [Alberto] Lonardi.

Levin:

Alberto.

Vila:

Alberto. Do you know him?

Levin:

I’ve talked with him. But in terms, so, when Ewing and others came to Argentina during the International Geophysical Year, this was an isolated event. It was very rare.

Vila:

Maybe. Maybe. There were works made in conjunction with the oil company and the Hydrographic Office. They made all the works in the south of the country. Mainly magnetic research.

Levin:

Which countries, mostly just Americans coming, or were some Europeans coming in too? Russians?

Vila:

Argentina. I may say we have very little interest in foreign scientists. They came after the second war and I had in my lab one person whose profession he said he was an electronic engineer. At that time the chemists were having problems with pH meters. You know what are pH meters? And those problems were related with very scarce knowledge about how to handle the knobs because the glass electrode is like a galvanic pile of very, very, very light internal resistance. If the acids of the hands in the knobs makes conductivity on the two knobs then you are putting in parallel a resistance. And this then makes a short circuit and changes the result. Then it is in the cleanliness and design of the knobs. It’s very simple to make a knob. The problem is insulation.

Levin:

Here you’re drawing.

Vila:

Yes, what I did was to use the best insulated material and I made a knob like that. A knob with very few insulating substances.

Levin:

It’s coming down as a tube.

Vila:

Like that, you see.

Levin:

Diagonal lines.

Vila:

Very small, this section. Very simple. The knob should be considered having as much insulation as possible.

Levin:

So do you think that the fact of IGY [International Geophysical Year] — [Cross talk and background noise].

Vila:

And this man learned from myself how to make knobs as I designed it and started a shop in town to fix pH meters.

Levin:

So do you think the International Geophysical Year had an impact on the Argentine science?

Vila:

During the International Geophysical Year we had a commission for International Geophysical Year. And we obtained funds which were distributed by the scientists themselves to make the work. So we followed the recommendations for the International Geophysical Year and we made our projects.

Levin:

Based on recommendations.

Vila:

On the international recommendations.

Levin:

International. Interesting. But since then, has it had? What was the impact? Was there any? The continuation in years later?

Vila:

There are. There are continuations, but I am not able to say how it is everywhere, because there are so many — There are many institutes in Argentina.

Levin:

More so now? More so [cross talk].

Vila:

I lost track of how many there are now.

Levin:

Yes, but.

Vila:

In a moment I knew how many there were because I was the president of the Committee of Oceanography. We had during some time a Committee of Oceanography of which I was the president. I was the secretary first. Then later sometime I was the acting president. So I knew everybody who worked in oceanography.

Levin:

Okay.

Vila:

And I was four years director of the Oceanographic Institute of Bahia Blanca, Instituto Argentina de Oceanografia.