San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection
Zoom Backgrounds from the Archives
Zoom Backgrounds from the Archives
The Emilio Segrè Visual Archives presents favorite images as backgrounds!
We’re all spending more time on our computers these days in video chats for class, work, and the good old chinwag with friends and family. If you need a new virtual background, don’t fear! Our staff has chosen some of our favorite images from the Emilio Segrè Visual Archives and made them available, sized to fit perfectly in your video chat tool of choice (Zoom, Teams, etc.). If you are a teacher, you could even use one of these backgrounds to introduce a topic! Download below:
Palomar Observatory
Palomar Observatory: the huge dome on Palomar Mountain 65 miles north of San Diego City, housed the world's largest telescope (1948-1993). The giant 200-inch mirror enables scientists to explore an area one billion light years away. The observatory is accessed via the scenic 'highway to the stars' through San Diego's backcountry.
Image information: Palomar Observatory H4
Horace Crane and the Machine
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
Horace Crane stands in front of equipment, 1948. Crane was the inventor of the University of Michigan's electron synchrotron. His research also provided evidence that neutrinos existed.
Image information: Crane Horace F3
Searching for Quasars
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection
Searching for quasars with a radio telescope rolling on a railroad track, in Australia, a scene from 'The Violent Universe' on Public Broadcast Laboratory.
Image information: Telescopes F23
Crystal Oven
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Herbert Matare
Germanium chochralski crystal oven in operation at Intermetall, the first European company with a production program for semiconductor diodes and transistors, founded in 1952 by Herbert Matare and businessman Jakob Michael.
Image information: Intermetall F11
Optical Illusion
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
Edwin H. Land prepares to demonstrate an optical illusion before an audience in Shriver Hall, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Land contributed to color theory and the optics field and co-founded the Polaroid corporation, which produced an instant camera based on his design in 1948.
Image information: Land Edwin F1
Van de Graaf Particle Accelerator
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Bromley Collection
The first MP (Emperor) tandem Van de Graaff [particle] Accelerator installed in the A.W. Wright Nuclear Structure Laboratory at Yale University in 1965. In the foreground, from the left: Charles Bockelman, Henry Shay, Allan Bromley, and George Holland.
Image information: Bromley David Allan F10
X-Ray Tube Moving Party
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Fankuchen Collection
Isidor Fankuchen and others (unidentified) move x-ray tubes from the laboratory. Frankuchen was known for his work in crystallography.
Image information: Fankuchen Isidor F7
Hedwig Kohn Boards a Train
AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives, gift of Dr. Wilhelm Tappe, Kohn Photo Collection
Hedwig Kohn boarding a mountain railway train. After being fired from the physics department at Breslau University (now the University of Wroclaw) during World War II for being Jewish, she obtained a visa from the United States. She spent the majority of her career in the US at Wellesley College, where she established a flame spectroscopy research lab.
Image information: Kohn Hedwig D14
Group Portrait at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen
AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Margrethe Bohr Collection
Group portrait of George Gamow, Charles Lauritsen, Niels Bohr, Ebbe Rasmussen, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, and Oskar Klein sitting at the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen.
Image information: Bohr Niels E1
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