On the evening of Wednesday, May 27, we are thrilled to welcome Dava Sobel to our event space in downtown Washington, DC, to present, “At Mme. Curie’s Lab: Radioactivity and a Place for Women in Science.” Sobel is the bestselling author of such highly regarded titles in the history of science as Longitude, Galileo’s Daughter, and The Glass Universe. This month’s lecture, which is part of our Lyne Starling Trimble public event series, is based on her latest book, The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science. To attend in-person, register today!

The AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives has made three interviews with J. Robert Oppenheimer available online after updating earlier access restrictions with support from the Oppenheimer family. Recorded in 1960, 1963, and 1966, these interviews offer a personal, firsthand look at Oppenheimer’s life, his role in major moments like the Manhattan Project, and his thoughts on fellow scientists and the development of physics in the 20^th century.

• Interviewed in 1960 by Robert Cahn: Scanned transcript | Formatted transcript
• Interviewed in 1963 by Thomas Kuhn: Scanned transcript | Formatted transcript | Audio
• Interviewed in 1966 by Charles Weiner: Scanned transcript | Formatted transcript | Video

• The William P. Elliott papers on carbon dioxide and climate change, 1975-1996 are now available online. A geophysicist who engaged with research on climate change, William Elliott’s collection pertains to his work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Air Resources Laboratories. The memoranda, reports, letters, and journals give a glimpse into how scientists understood the changing climate in the 1970s. These include correspondence between NOAA and other organizations—chiefly the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The collection also contains Elliott’s personal diaries/notebooks detailing his research and daily work on carbon dioxide, emissions and climate change. Correspondents include: Lester Machta, David H. Slade, and Wallace Broecker. Also see the online exhibit based on the papers, as well as the podcast episode “Energy Crises and Climate Change in the 1970s.”
• The Sponer Collection (formerly named the Franck Collection) in the AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives has been updated to better reflect its provenance. It is based on Hertha Sponer’s photo album from her time at Göttingen Physics Institute, 1920-1933. James Franck, her supervisor and collaborator, features prominently in the album, as do Max Born, Günther Cario, Paul Ehrenfest, Friedrich Hund, Reinhold Mannkopff, and Otto Oldenberg. As much as possible, the original German captions written by Sponer were retained, with English translations provided in the alternate title field. Look out for a forthcoming Ex Libris Universum blog post with more information.