Oral History
Oral History
AIP hosts over 2,000 oral histories dating back to the 1960s, providing unparalleled insights into scientists’ lives and work. Many were conducted by AIP staff members, while others were deposited by outside interviewers. All interviews that are digitized and open to researchers are in our digital repository.
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Focus On: Robert Oppenheimer
Focus On: Robert Oppenheimer
The AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives hosts three interviews with Robert Oppenheimer. The first was conducted in 1960 by journalist Robert Cahn as background for an article he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post on the Trinity atomic bomb test. The second was conducted in 1963 by the philosopher Thomas Kuhn as part of the landmark Sources for History of Quantum Physics project of the early 1960s. The third was conducted on film in 1966 by AIP historian Charles Weiner to provide footage for a documentary on Enrico Fermi.
Focus On: The Superconducting Super Collider
Focus On: The Superconducting Super Collider
In 1987, the United States announced it was going ahead with the most ambitious project ever to be undertaken in high-energy physics: the Superconducting Super Collider. In 1993, Congress voted to terminate construction amid a rising political enthusiasm for budget control, dealing a permanent blow to U.S. status in the field. Michael Riordan has donated a selection of more than 20 interviews that he, Lillian Hoddeson, and Steve Weiss conducted as background research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the SSC’s rise and fall.
Ed Weiler, photo by Bill Ingalls / NASA | Laura Greene, AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection | Center for History of Physics Director Charles Weiner, left, interviews Otto Frisch, 1967, AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives | Roy Schwitters and Hazel O’Leary, AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Physics Today Collection.