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In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Marvin Weinstein, Chief Science Officer of Quantum Insights, and emeritus physicist of SLAC. Weinstein describes the origins of Quantum Insights in partnership with David Horn and the development of a data mining algorithm called Dynamic Quantum Clustering (DQC). He recounts his upbringing in Brooklyn, his early interests in physics, and his undergraduate education at Columbia. He describes the big issues in physics at the time, including the two-neutrino experiment, and he explains his decision to remain at Columbia for his PhD to study under Gerald Feinberg. Weinstein explains how he became a postdoctoral student at the Institute of Advanced Study with the endorsement of T.D. Lee to work with Roger Dashen on K13 lepton decays. He describes his subsequent faculty appointments at Yeshiva University and then NYU, and he discusses the opportunities that led to him joining the theory group at SLAC. Weinstein describes his work on PCAC and the Higgs mechanism, and he explains how DQC originated from his interests in quantum mechanics. He explains his subsequent work in lattice field theory and then core and condensed matter physics, and he describes the changing budgetary environment at SLAC over the course of his career. At the end of the interview, Weinstein conveys optimism that his focus on the health industry will demonstrate that the adoption of DQC and its ability to analyze data will lead to better health outcomes across a spectrum of ailments.

Interview with Roger Blandford, the Luke Blossom Professor at the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University and Professor of Physics at SLAC. He discusses his current work developing alternate understandings of the Event Horizon Telescope image, on fast radio bursts, and on the notion that handedness has astrophysical origins. Blandford describes the history of cosmology as a respectable discipline within physics, and he credits the rise of VLBI in the 1960s and 1970s for demonstrating the evidence of black holes. He recounts his childhood in England, his early interests in science, and his education at Cambridge, where his thesis research on accretion discs and radio sources was supervised by Martin Rees. Blandford discusses his postdoctoral work on astrophysical particle acceleration and plasma and QED processes in pulsars and a formative visit to the Institute for Advanced Study and to Berkeley. He describes his initial impressions of Caltech where he joined the faculty and where he worked closely with Roman Znajek, and he explains the distinctions between radio jets and relativistic jets. Blandford explains his reasons for moving to Stanford to set up the Kavli Institute and he describes his involvement with the Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey. At the end of the interview, Blandford contends that the most exciting developments in the field have been on exoplanet research, why the possibilities in astrobiology give him cause for optimism, and why the concept that astronomical discovery arrives as “logically unscripted” resonates with him.

Interview with Bruno Coppi, Professor of Physics Emeritus at MIT. Coppi recounts his childhood in Lombardi, Italy. He discusses his early interests in nuclear engineering and his graduate work in Milan on neutron transport theory. He explains the opportunities that led to his postgraduate appointment at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and his subsequent work at Stanford for his postdoctoral research in collision-less plasma. Coppi discusses his work at the Institute for Advanced Study where he interacted closely with Freeman Dyson, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at MIT where he could work with Bruno Rossi. He describes his collaborations in the Soviet Union with nuclear physicists, and he explains the sequencing of the Alcator program to the Ignitor program. Coppi describes the changes inherent in the AEC’s transformation into the DOE, and he explains the import of the Voyager 2 space mission. He describes his current interest in spontaneously rotating plasma and he reflects on why science is a humbling profession, even for geniuses. At the end of the interview, Coppi explains why the role of angular momentum remains profoundly mysterious, and why he is optimistic that he will continue to make contributions to the understanding of burning plasmas.