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In this interview, Edward Uhler Condon discusses topics such as: his family background; early education; influence of high school physics teacher, William Howell Williams, 1914-1918, and later teacher at University of California, Berkeley; interval as boy reporter. Undergraduate years at Berkeley, beginning in 1921 in chemistry department; Ph.D. in physics, 1926; association with Fred Weinberg. Discovery of Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics papers; International Education Board fellowship to study quantum mechanics at Göttingen, 1926. Work on Bell Systems technical journal for six months before accepting lectureship at Columbia University; teaching post at Princeton University; Condon and Philip Morse's Quantum Mechanics, result of Columbia and Princeton courses. Relations with University of California; role in persuading Ernest Lawrence to go to Berkeley from Yale University. Recollections of Michigan summer school. Work at Westinghouse on applications of nuclear physics to industry, including completion of Van de Graaff machine, 1937-1940; setting up Westinghouse research fellowships, 1938; Massachusetts Institute of Technology conference on applications of nuclear physics, October 1940; war work on microwave radar. J. Robert Oppenheimer asks Condon to come to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory; tour of Los Alamos with Leslie Groves; reasons for leaving Los Alamos after a few weeks. Work as head of theoretical section of Lawrence's laboratory, August 1943-1945; British scientists. Evaluation of Westinghouse's four million-volt machine. Description of Nimitron, a physical computer, designed for 1939 World's Fair. Discussion of 1928 radioactivity. Reminiscences of Ronald Gurney's later career and his trouble with security. Discussion of postwar events, such as the Quebec Conference, McMahon Act, Moran's book about Winston Churchill. Peacetime development of atomic energy; establishment of the Senate's Special Committee on atomic energy. Directorship of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), 1945-1951. Work on superconductivity; W. Emmanuel Maxwell and John Pelham. Accomplishments at NBS. Hearings in 1948 and 1952 before the Department of Commerce under Truman's loyalty program; Averell Harriman. Director of Research at Corning, 1951. House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, 1954; J. R. Oppenheimer and Bernard Peters; reopening of clearances, loss of Corning position; becomes Corning consultant. Head of Washington University physics department, 1956-1963; Oberlin College, 1962; interest in modernizing teaching; Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), from 1963; editor of Reviews of Modern Physics, 1957-1968; establishment of the National Accelerator Laboratory (Chicago); the UFO story. Comments on his most satisfying and his least satisfying work. Also prominently mentioned are: Raymond T. Birge and Henry Wallace.
In this interview, Edward Uhler Condon discusses topics such as: his family background; early education; influence of high school physics teacher, William Howell Williams, 1914-1918, and later teacher at University of California, Berkeley; interval as boy reporter. Undergraduate years at Berkeley, beginning in 1921 in chemistry department; Ph.D. in physics, 1926; association with Fred Weinberg. Discovery of Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics papers; International Education Board fellowship to study quantum mechanics at Göttingen, 1926. Work on Bell Systems technical journal for six months before accepting lectureship at Columbia University; teaching post at Princeton University; Condon and Philip Morse's Quantum Mechanics, result of Columbia and Princeton courses. Relations with University of California; role in persuading Ernest Lawrence to go to Berkeley from Yale University. Recollections of Michigan summer school. Work at Westinghouse on applications of nuclear physics to industry, including completion of Van de Graaff machine, 1937-1940; setting up Westinghouse research fellowships, 1938; Massachusetts Institute of Technology conference on applications of nuclear physics, October 1940; war work on microwave radar. J. Robert Oppenheimer asks Condon to come to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory; tour of Los Alamos with Leslie Groves; reasons for leaving Los Alamos after a few weeks. Work as head of theoretical section of Lawrence's laboratory, August 1943-1945; British scientists. Evaluation of Westinghouse's four million-volt machine. Description of Nimitron, a physical computer, designed for 1939 World's Fair. Discussion of 1928 radioactivity. Reminiscences of Ronald Gurney's later career and his trouble with security. Discussion of postwar events, such as the Quebec Conference, McMahon Act, Moran's book about Winston Churchill. Peacetime development of atomic energy; establishment of the Senate's Special Committee on atomic energy. Directorship of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), 1945-1951. Work on superconductivity; W. Emmanuel Maxwell and John Pelham. Accomplishments at NBS. Hearings in 1948 and 1952 before the Department of Commerce under Truman's loyalty program; Averell Harriman. Director of Research at Corning, 1951. House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, 1954; J. R. Oppenheimer and Bernard Peters; reopening of clearances, loss of Corning position; becomes Corning consultant. Head of Washington University physics department, 1956-1963; Oberlin College, 1962; interest in modernizing teaching; Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), from 1963; editor of Reviews of Modern Physics, 1957-1968; establishment of the National Accelerator Laboratory (Chicago); the UFO story. Comments on his most satisfying and his least satisfying work. Also prominently mentioned are: Raymond T. Birge and Henry Wallace.
In this interview, Edward Uhler Condon discusses topics such as: his family background; early education; influence of high school physics teacher, William Howell Williams, 1914-1918, and later teacher at University of California, Berkeley; interval as boy reporter. Undergraduate years at Berkeley, beginning in 1921 in chemistry department; Ph.D. in physics, 1926; association with Fred Weinberg. Discovery of Erwin Schrödinger's wave mechanics papers; International Education Board fellowship to study quantum mechanics at Göttingen, 1926. Work on Bell Systems technical journal for six months before accepting lectureship at Columbia University; teaching post at Princeton University; Condon and Philip Morse's Quantum Mechanics, result of Columbia and Princeton courses. Relations with University of California; role in persuading Ernest Lawrence to go to Berkeley from Yale University. Recollections of Michigan summer school. Work at Westinghouse on applications of nuclear physics to industry, including completion of Van de Graaff machine, 1937-1940; setting up Westinghouse research fellowships, 1938; Massachusetts Institute of Technology conference on applications of nuclear physics, October 1940; war work on microwave radar. J. Robert Oppenheimer asks Condon to come to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory; tour of Los Alamos with Leslie Groves; reasons for leaving Los Alamos after a few weeks. Work as head of theoretical section of Lawrence's laboratory, August 1943-1945; British scientists. Evaluation of Westinghouse's four million-volt machine. Description of Nimitron, a physical computer, designed for 1939 World's Fair. Discussion of 1928 radioactivity. Reminiscences of Ronald Gurney's later career and his trouble with security. Discussion of postwar events, such as the Quebec Conference, McMahon Act, Moran's book about Winston Churchill. Peacetime development of atomic energy; establishment of the Senate's Special Committee on atomic energy. Directorship of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), 1945-1951. Work on superconductivity; W. Emmanuel Maxwell and John Pelham. Accomplishments at NBS. Hearings in 1948 and 1952 before the Department of Commerce under Truman's loyalty program; Averell Harriman. Director of Research at Corning, 1951. House Un-American Activities Committee hearing, 1954; J. R. Oppenheimer and Bernard Peters; reopening of clearances, loss of Corning position; becomes Corning consultant. Head of Washington University physics department, 1956-1963; Oberlin College, 1962; interest in modernizing teaching; Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), from 1963; editor of Reviews of Modern Physics, 1957-1968; establishment of the National Accelerator Laboratory (Chicago); the UFO story. Comments on his most satisfying and his least satisfying work. Also prominently mentioned are: Raymond T. Birge and Henry Wallace.
Reminiscences of studies at University of Cambridge and of the 1851 Exhibition Science Scholarship from 1927. Recollections of Ernest Rutherford, work with him on measurement of the energies of the product particles after Cockcroft-Walton, and on transformation effects on deuterium brought by Gilbert N. Lewis from University of California at Berkeley. Working conditions at Cavendish Laboratory; criticism of Rutherford by Advisory Council of the DSIR (Department of Scientific and Industrial research); change in focus at Cavendish after Rutherford's death. Trip to Berkeley in 1938 to study design of 60-inch cyclotron as model for Birmingham cyclotron. Also prominently mentioned are: Francis William Aston, James Chadwick, John Cockcroft, Kerr Grant; Nuffield (Automobile manufacturer), University of Adelaide, University of Birmingham, and University of California at Berkeley.
Family background and childhood in Germany, 1919-1934; emigration to U.S. and undergraduate study and life at Princeton University, 1934-1938. Graduate work at California Institute of Technology, 1938-1942; work with Jesse W. M. DuMond, course load, and importance of his thesis. War work at California Institute of Technology; problems because of enemy alien status; work on firing error indicators. War work at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory: atomic bomb explosion, feelings concerning implications. Research at University of California at Berkeley, 1945-1951: construction of linear accelerator under Luis Alvarez (training, funding, working relationships, work schedules, relationship with other research groups), work on synchrotron, bevatron, Material Testing Accelerator project, neutal meson work and pion work; campus life, teaching responsibilities, textbook writing with Melba Phillips; security measures at Berkeley, 1945-1951: Berkeley's loyalty oath leads to move to Stanford University, 1951. The "Screw Driver" report (with Robert Hofstadter) for the Atomic Energy Commission. Korean War-related work (Felix Bloch, Edward L. Ginzton, Robert Kyhl); rigid politics of physics department; Washington involvement; consultant to the Air Force Science Advisory Board; Hans Bethe, Edward Teller; Bethe's Conference of Experts, 1958; Geneva negotiations, 1959; George Kistiakowski and Isidor I. Rabi; appointment to President's Science Advisory Committee, 1960; Dwight D. Eisenhower. Government support of science; Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC); Joint Committee on Atomic Energy hearings (Ginzton, Varian Associates); avoiding the "Berkeley image" at SLAC. Also prominently mentioned are: Sue Gray Norton Alsalan, Carl David Anderson, Raymond Thayer Birge, Hugh Bradner, Henry Eyring, Don Gow, Alex E. S. Green, William Webster Hansen, Joel Henry Hildebrand, Giulo Lattes, Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Edwin Mattison McMillan, John Francis Neylan, Hans Arnold Panofsky, Ryokishi Sagane, Robert Gordon Sproul, Raymond L. Steinberger, Charles Hard Townes, Watters, Gian Carlo Wick, John Robert Woodyard, Dean E. Wooldridge, Fritz Zwicky; Federation of American Scientists, and Lawrence Radiation.
Family background and childhood in Germany, 1919-1934; emigration to U.S. and undergraduate study and life at Princeton University, 1934-1938. Graduate work at California Institute of Technology, 1938-1942; work with Jesse W. M. DuMond, course load, and importance of his thesis. War work at California Institute of Technology; problems because of enemy alien status; work on firing error indicators. War work at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory: atomic bomb explosion, feelings concerning implications. Research at University of California at Berkeley, 1945-1951: construction of linear accelerator under Luis Alvarez (training, funding, working relationships, work schedules, relationship with other research groups), work on synchrotron, bevatron, Material Testing Accelerator project, neutal meson work and pion work; campus life, teaching responsibilities, textbook writing with Melba Phillips; security measures at Berkeley, 1945-1951: Berkeley's loyalty oath leads to move to Stanford University, 1951. The "Screw Driver" report (with Robert Hofstadter) for the Atomic Energy Commission. Korean War-related work (Felix Bloch, Edward L. Ginzton, Robert Kyhl); rigid politics of physics department; Washington involvement; consultant to the Air Force Science Advisory Board; Hans Bethe, Edward Teller; Bethe's Conference of Experts, 1958; Geneva negotiations, 1959; George Kistiakowski and Isidor I. Rabi; appointment to President's Science Advisory Committee, 1960; Dwight D. Eisenhower. Government support of science; Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC); Joint Committee on Atomic Energy hearings (Ginzton, Varian Associates); avoiding the "Berkeley image" at SLAC. Also prominently mentioned are: Sue Gray Norton Alsalan, Carl David Anderson, Raymond Thayer Birge, Hugh Bradner, Henry Eyring, Don Gow, Alex E. S. Green, William Webster Hansen, Joel Henry Hildebrand, Giulo Lattes, Ernest Orlando Lawrence, Edwin Mattison McMillan, John Francis Neylan, Hans Arnold Panofsky, Ryokishi Sagane, Robert Gordon Sproul, Raymond L. Steinberger, Charles Hard Townes, Watters, Gian Carlo Wick, John Robert Woodyard, Dean E. Wooldridge, Fritz Zwicky; Federation of American Scientists, and Lawrence Radiation.
<p>Then, the project finally got authorized in 1961 — but again after a rather amusing set of coincidences. At that time the Stanford project was sort of known as the Republican project because Eisenhower had proposed it to a Democratic Congress. At that time there was a project that the Democrats wanted in Congress which the Republican administration did not want. This was for the Hanford Reactor to generate power into the electrical net, because it was considered to be socialized electricity by the Republicans, to have power generated by a production reactor. There was also good economic and technical reasons against such a project. It’s a very inefficient reactor, for power generation because of the low temperature at which the Hanford reactor operates. Anyway, the Democrats wanted it and the Republicans didn't.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Stanford linear accelerator was considered to be a Republican proposal, opposed by the Democrats. So after a while the Republicans and Democrats in the Joint Committee essentially said, "If you approve Hanford, then we approve Stanford." So it ended up with both of them getting approved, and it was this entirely political infighting in the Congress which resulted in that last hurdle being passed. However in 1960, we already had very good confidence that it would go, because the three million dollars was fundamentally a signal to us that Congress really meant it but that they wanted to slap Mr. Eisenhower’s wrist for non-consultation.</p>
Family background, early education and interests; undergraduate at Sacramento Junior College and University of California, Berkeley; first independent physics work under Harvey White; graduate work at Berkeley, career choices, joining Ernest Lawrence on cyclotron work; work on ion sources, taking over running of small cyclotron and verifying creation of high energy proton; reactions to discovery of the neutron, developing Geiger counters with Donald Cooksey, announcement of Cockcroft-Walton discovery of artificial disintegration, work on disintegration of lithium; work schedule; work on boron, 1935; comparison of Van de Graaff and cyclotron machines; ideas about p-p scattering, new cloud chamber; financial difficulties; White’s refinement of process for extracting protons; completion of Ph.D. Physical Review paper, 1935; marriage. Postgraduate work at Princeton University, fellowship arranged by Lawrence; setting up Princeton cyclotron, research program, funding of the cyclotron; Princeton atmosphere and colleagues, appointment as assistant professor, 1938; relationship of theory and experiment in nuclear physics, Eugene Wigner’s influence. Research on the tachyon, magnetic monopole, 1973; reactions to Niels Bohr’s new model; its dissolution. WWII work at MIT Radiation Laboratory, 1940-1945; administrative tasks, relationship with the military, with engineers; advisor to Eagle Radur at Alamagordo; reactions to the dropping of atomic bomb. Return to a depleted Princeton Physics Department, rebuilding the cyclotron and the department; government funding of science, consulting projects. Work on the Brookhaven National Laboratory Cosmotron, beginning 1946; White’s variation on the Livingston, Richard Courant and Snyder strong focusing synchrotron. Return to Princeton as professor, proposals and designs for the Princeton-Penn Accelerator (PPA), construction and problems, scientific management of the machine under Harvey White, his philosophy of administration, relationship with the Princeton Physics Department. Budget cuts; government administration of science funding; closing down of PPA.
Family background, early education and interests; undergraduate at Sacramento Junior College and University of California, Berkeley; first independent physics work under Harvey White; graduate work at Berkeley, career choices, joining Ernest Lawrence on cyclotron work; work on ion sources, taking over running of small cyclotron and verifying creation of high energy proton; reactions to discovery of the neutron, developing Geiger counters with Donald Cooksey, announcement of Cockcroft-Walton discovery of artificial disintegration, work on disintegration of lithium; work schedule; work on boron, 1935; comparison of Van de Graaff and cyclotron machines; ideas about p-p scattering, new cloud chamber; financial difficulties; White’s refinement of process for extracting protons; completion of Ph.D. Physical Review paper, 1935; marriage. Postgraduate work at Princeton University, fellowship arranged by Lawrence; setting up Princeton cyclotron, research program, funding of the cyclotron; Princeton atmosphere and colleagues, appointment as assistant professor, 1938; relationship of theory and experiment in nuclear physics, Eugene Wigner’s influence. Research on the tachyon, magnetic monopole, 1973; reactions to Niels Bohr’s new model; its dissolution. WWII work at MIT Radiation Laboratory, 1940-1945; administrative tasks, relationship with the military, with engineers; advisor to Eagle Radur at Alamagordo; reactions to the dropping of atomic bomb. Return to a depleted Princeton Physics Department, rebuilding the cyclotron and the department; government funding of science, consulting projects. Work on the Brookhaven National Laboratory Cosmotron, beginning 1946; White’s variation on the Livingston, Richard Courant and Snyder strong focusing synchrotron. Return to Princeton as professor, proposals and designs for the Princeton-Penn Accelerator (PPA), construction and problems, scientific management of the machine under Harvey White, his philosophy of administration, relationship with the Princeton Physics Department. Budget cuts; government administration of science funding; closing down of PPA.
Family background, early education and interests; undergraduate at Sacramento Junior College and University of California, Berkeley; first independent physics work under Harvey White; graduate work at Berkeley, career choices, joining Ernest Lawrence on cyclotron work; work on ion sources, taking over running of small cyclotron and verifying creation of high energy proton; reactions to discovery of the neutron, developing Geiger counters with Donald Cooksey, announcement of Cockcroft-Walton discovery of artificial disintegration, work on disintegration of lithium; work schedule; work on boron, 1935; comparison of Van de Graaff and cyclotron machines; ideas about p-p scattering, new cloud chamber; financial difficulties; White’s refinement of process for extracting protons; completion of Ph.D. Physical Review paper, 1935; marriage. Postgraduate work at Princeton University, fellowship arranged by Lawrence; setting up Princeton cyclotron, research program, funding of the cyclotron; Princeton atmosphere and colleagues, appointment as assistant professor, 1938; relationship of theory and experiment in nuclear physics, Eugene Wigner’s influence. Research on the tachyon, magnetic monopole, 1973; reactions to Niels Bohr’s new model; its dissolution. WWII work at MIT Radiation Laboratory, 1940-1945; administrative tasks, relationship with the military, with engineers; advisor to Eagle Radur at Alamagordo; reactions to the dropping of atomic bomb. Return to a depleted Princeton Physics Department, rebuilding the cyclotron and the department; government funding of science, consulting projects. Work on the Brookhaven National Laboratory Cosmotron, beginning 1946; White’s variation on the Livingston, Richard Courant and Snyder strong focusing synchrotron. Return to Princeton as professor, proposals and designs for the Princeton-Penn Accelerator (PPA), construction and problems, scientific management of the machine under Harvey White, his philosophy of administration, relationship with the Princeton Physics Department. Budget cuts; government administration of science funding; closing down of PPA.