Recollections of Solvay and Volta Conferences, associations with Franck, Bohr and Mme. Curie; development of AHC’s cosmic ray interest, world cosmic ray expeditions 1931-34, anecdotes and memories of places visited; Compton-Millikan controversy; comments on Century of Progress Exposition 1933; memories of stay at Oxford on AHC’s Eastman Professorship 1934-35, associates at Oxford; recollection of European colleagues Aston, Fermi, Heisenberg and Sommerfeld. About AHC: Chairman of Physics Dept. at Chicago 1940-45, earlier contacts with Chicago, relation to Michelson, widening of philosophical interests, long-term consultant to General Electric Co. (1926-45), consultant to National Cancer Advisory Council and Chicago Tumor Institute. Disappointment in Compton family life, close working relationship between AHC and Betty, relation of physicists’ wives to their husbands’ work; Betty’s assessment of her career.
Indiana University Department of Astronomy, Bloomington, Indiana
Abstract
Early life and education in Manchester; World War I; spectroscopy work at Oxford under Frederick A. Lindemann; visits to Gottingen and Berlin in 1920s; ideas on stellar energy source and stellar structure; work and teaching at Rutgers (1929-1937); World War II research on de-Gaussing, ballistics; moves to Greenwich, then Herstmonceaux observatories; their administration and instruments; solar eclipse work; general relativity theory; return to U.S. Also prominently mentioned are: Herbert Jefcoate Atkinson, Irmin von Holton Atkinson, Mary Kathleen Jane Ashe Atkinson, Niels Henrik David Bohr, John Edward Campbell, Arthur Stanley Eddington, George Gamow, I. O. Griffith, Fritz G. Houtermans, Edwin Powell Hubble, James Hopwood Jeans, H. Spencer Jones, Walther Nernst, Henry Norris Russell, Frederick Soddy, Richard van der Riet Woolley; Aberdeen Proving Ground, Balliol College of University of Oxford, Great Britain Admiralty, Indiana University, Royal Astronomical Society, Royal Greenwich Observatory, United States Proving Ground at Aberdeen, MD Ballistics Research Laboratory, and Universitat Gottingen Observatory.
