Education in chemistry and physics at Washington State University in early 1930s; graduate studies and work on cyclotron under E. O. Lawrence at University of California, Berkeley from 1935-1939; investigations into products of neutron irradiation of uranium; identification of transuranic element 93 with Edwin McMillan; scientific activities at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at Carnegie Institution of Washington; work on enrichment of uranium for nuclear submarine project at the Naval Research Laboratory; describes information channels between scientists and government officials during World War II and his perspective on the use of the atomic bomb; continued work at Carnegie by investigating biosynthesis of E. coli using radioactive tracers; as director of Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory conducted organic geochemical investigations of amino acid decay in Mercenaria mercenaria; co-editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research; reflections of his editorship of Science.

Family background; early interest in physics; chance meeting with Enrico Fermi in youth and early friendship with Emilio Segrè; enrolling in physics at University of Rome; recollections of Orso M. Corbino; 1931 Rome Conference on Nuclear Physics; 1934 visit to Cambridge with Segrè; transition from spectroscopy to nuclear physics work at Rome; reaction to discovery of neutron; Ettore Majorana's work; slow neutron experiments; Fermi's approach toward theory and experiment; failure to discover fission; break-up of Rome group; 1936 trip to America; construction of two accelerators at Rome; 1939 trip to America; decision to discontinue fission experiments at Rome; usefulness of Hans A. Bethe's review articles; style of Rome group; physics elsewhere in Italy during 1930s; contacts with physicists outside Rome during 1930s; Italian physics during the war; postwar concern with elementary particles; recollections of Fermi in postwar period; work considered personally satisfying. Also prominently mentioned are: Herbert Anderson, Gilberto Bernardini, Torkild Bjerge, Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Niels Henrik David Bohr, James Chadwick, Conversi, Otto Robert Frisch, George Gamow, Ettore Majorana, Pancini, Oreste Piccioni, George Placzek, Franco D. Rasetti, Westcott; Accademia Nazionale (Italy), Cavendish Laboratory, Columbia University, Conference on Nuclear Physics (1931 : Rome, Italy), Istituto superiore di sanità, and University of California at Berkeley, CA.

Part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics oral history collection, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with ca. 100 atomic and quantum physicists. Subjects discuss their family backgrounds, how they became interested in physics, their educations, people who influenced them, their careers including social influences on the conditions of research, and the state of atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics during the period in which they worked. Discussions of scientific matters relate to work that was done between approximately 1900 and 1930, with an emphasis on the discovery and interpretations of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Also prominently mentioned are: James Jeans, Ernest Rutherford; Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, and University of London.

Family background; undergraduate and graduate studies at Princeton University: electrical engineering 1921, graduate research on ionization of argon and HC1, spectroscopic interests (MA 1924, PhD 1925); developmental research as engineer for American Telephone and Telegraph Laboratories (1921–1923); National Research Council Fellow at Harvard University (1925–1927); Bartol Research Foundation Fellow (1927–1929), research on impact of protons on atoms and molecules. Assistant professor at Cornell University (1929–1931), high voltage X—ray research, visit to Cavendish Laboratory; founding Director of the American Institute of Physics (AIP 1931–1957): discussions on the origins, nature and funding of AIP; early associations with the Chemical Foundation and American Chemical Society; history of selected AIP journals; public relations to promote physics; impact of Depression on physics; Depression and post J,JW II studies on physics man—power and industries Also mentioned at length are E..P. Adams, Karl Compton, Charles D. Ellis, Paul D. Foote, Alfred Loomis, Donald Mueller, Robert Mullikan, George B. Pegram, Floyd Richtmyer, Henry N. Russell, Harry D. Smyth, John T. Tate.