Brooklyn College

Interviewed by
David Zierler
Interview date
Location
Videoconference
Abstract

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Michael Anastasio, Director Emeritus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  Anastasio recounts his childhood in suburban Washington DC and he describes his early intellectual pursuits in math and science.  He discusses his undergraduate experience at Johns Hopkins, where his original plan was to learn enough physics to teach it at the college level.  He explains his decision to pursue a graduate degree at Stony Brook, where he worked under the direction of Tom Kuo in the nuclear theory group on the effective interaction in many body systems. Anastasio describes his postdoctoral research in Europe, where he worked on the meson exchange theory for the nuclear force.  He discusses his year at Brooklyn College, and he describes that circumstances leading to his work at Livermore Lab.  Anastasio recounts his work on nuclear weapons stockpile issues in the “B Division,” and how Cold War security policy affected the laboratory’s mission and focus.  He explains his increasing responsibilities as a division leader and then associate director at Livermore, and he discusses his work as scientific advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs.  Anastasio explains the impact of September 11 at Livermore, and he describes his tenure as director, where he was focused on maintaining the long-term viability of the lab.  He describes the circumstances surrounding his decision to become director of Los Alamos and he reflects on the differences and similarities of the challenges of this new position.  At the end of the interview, Anastasio describes the ongoing relevance of the research at Los Alamos in both nuclear weapons and basic science.

Interviewed by
Tom Lassman
Interview date
Location
Stamford, Connecticut
Abstract

Topics dicussed include: family background; early education; undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College; work at Frankford Arsenal Research Laboratory; gradute work at University of Pennsylvania; research on internal friction of metals with Tom Read; American Machine Foundry; Fred Seitz; Morehead Patterson; Rodney Gott; Carter Burgess; Walter Bedell Smith; Kennecott; Center for Science and Technology Policy at New York University and later moved to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; university and industry relations; Fusfeld Group.

Interviewed by
Babak Ashrafi
Interview date
Location
Rochester, New York
Abstract

Topics discussed include: her early education and family background, education, first job, expermental work, work at Columbia University, study at the University of Chicago, PhD research, teaching at Brooklyn College, Bell Laboratory, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, DNA, Charles Duke, Art Epstein, GTE, Rochester Univeristy, J. R. Schrieffer, William Shockley, Sylvania Electric Products, Inc., Victor Weisskopf and the Xerox Corporation.

Interviewed by
Paul Henriksen
Interview date
Location
Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Abstract

Born in Russia 1921, moved to New York 1922; Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (physics); Purdue University (Ph.D.), 1942- 1949; works teaching military students, 1943-1945; cyclotron and beta ray spectroscopy projects (related to Manhattan Project); Karl Lark-Horovitz as blanket-adviser; semiconductor project with Ron Smith; spreading resistance measurements; Edward Teller, John Bardeen, William Shockley; the self-transistor effect (Bell Laboratories); third electrode work by Seymour Benzer, 1949; semiconductor project; comments on Lark-Horovitz. Also prominently mentioned are: Joseph A. Becker, Walter Houser Brattain, Bill Fan, Arthur Ginsburg, Vivian Annabelle Johnson, Bernard Kurrelmeyer, Robert Green Sachs, Isidor Walerstein, Hubert J. Yearian; American Physical Society, Brooklyn College, Manhattan Project, and United States Army Signal Corps. Interview conducted as part of the International Project in the History of Solid State Physics.