Cornell University

Marcia Neugebauer discusses her childhood in New York City; mother's education at Vassar; her education at Cornell University in physics and philosophy; applying for jobs and graduate school; Master's at the University of Illinois, working with David Lazarus measuring diffusion in metals; marriage to Gerry Neugebuer; interviewing with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); hired alongside Conway Snyder to study possible use of nuclear reactors for rocket propulsion; competition between the Army and Air Force; learning to work with instrumentation; Space Science Section of JPL; Ray Newburn; solar wind; Russian probes to study solar wind; Mariner 2 mission and subsequent media; Solar Wind Conference; Christopher Russell; Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ASLEP); International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE); Ulysses; leadership role with the American Geophysical Union (AGU); women in sciences and at JPL.

In this interview, Kolumban Hutter discusses topics such as: his work at ETH Zurich; his research in glaciology; graduate degrees at Cornell University in theoretical and applied mechanics; Hans Ziegler; Hans Rothlisberger; Peter Kasser; ice plates; Daniel Vischer; John Nye; John Glen; thermodynamics; Andrew Fowler; Leslie Moreland; International Glaciological Society; hydrodynamics; Richard Sebass; fluid mechanics; physical limnology; visiting professorship at University of Arizona in Tucson; Terry Hughes; ice sheets and shelves; teaching at Darmstadt University of Technology; Ernst Becker; Reinhard Calov; Mary Williams; cold-temperate transition surface (CTS); global climate models; and working at Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

Interview focuses on Sproull’s career at Cornell University, his decision to become Provost, later President, of the University of Rochester, and his efforts to create ‘steeples of excellence’ in physics, notably the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). Sproull discusses LLE’s founding years, including his assessment of Moshe Lubin’s ideas for laser ignition, attempts to raise state, federal, and private funds for LLE, tensions with other departments within the university, and LLE’s relationships with other laser laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore. Sproull considers the advantages and disadvantages of LLE’s approach, on a technical and a political level. He talks about LLE’s place in the community of optics at the university and in the larger Rochester community, and LLE’s role in terms of the National Ignition Facility.

This interview was conducted as part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics project, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with ca. 100 atomic and quantum physicists. Subjects discuss their family backgrounds, how they became interested in physics, their educations, people who influenced them, their careers including social influences on the conditions of research, and the state of atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics during the period in which they worked. Discussions of scientific matters relate to work that was done between approximately 1900 and 1930, with an emphasis on the discovery and interpretations of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Also prominently mentioned are: Niels Henrik David Bohr, Max Born, Gregory Breit, A. C. Crehore, Peter Josef William Debye, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Paul Ehrenfest, R. Fraser, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Hertz, Edwin Crawford Kemble, Earl H. Kennard, Ralph de Laer Kronig, Willis Eugene Lamb, Wilhelm Lenz, Maclaurin, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Wolfgang Pauli, Henry Augustus Rowland, Erwin Schrödinger, John Clarke Slater, Arnold Sommerfeld, Otto Stern, Phillip Subkow, Leo Szilard, John B. Taylord, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, Wilhelm Wien, A. P. Wills; Columbia University, Cornell University, Københavns Universitet, New York City College, Universität Berlin, Universität Gottingen, Universität Hamburg, and Universität Leipzig.

Childhood in Germany and family background — competitive spirit; war years — internment and radar work with Bondi and Hoyle (1942-1945) at Cambridge — development of theory of hearing and steady state theory; at Greenwich (1952-1956) — research on lunar surface and terrestrial dynamics; positions at Harvard and Cornell — involvement with Arecibo; involvement with governmental agencies including NSF and NASA — changes in government funding. A major part of the interview covers the development and reception of the steady date theory.

After surveying Martin Harwit's family background and early education, the interview concentrates on: his graduate education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; his career in physics at Cambridge Unviersity as a NATO Fellow; his time at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as a National Science Foundation Fellow; and, principally, his work at Cornell as assistant and associate professor of astronomoy, professor, and chairman of the Physics department.  While discussing his childhood and education, Harwit addresses the antisemitism he and his family faced in German and in the United States.  This interview covers a broad range of his scientific interest: galaxy and star formations; comets; infrared optics, especially relating to detector technology; infrared astronomy; rocketry; history of philosophy in science; use of balloons in observation; and astronomy education.  Some affliliations discussed include:  John Decker, Herbert Friedman, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle.

After surveying Martin Harwit's family background and early education, the interview concentrates on: his graduate education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; his career in physics at Cambridge Unviersity as a NATO Fellow; his time at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as a National Science Foundation Fellow; and, principally, his work at Cornell as assistant and associate professor of astronomoy, professor, and chairman of the Physics department.  While discussing his childhood and education, Harwit addresses the antisemitism he and his family faced in German and in the United States.  This interview covers a broad range of his scientific interest: galaxy and star formations; comets; infrared optics, especially relating to detector technology; infrared astronomy; rocketry; history of philosophy in science; use of balloons in observation; and astronomy education.  Some affliliations discussed include:  John Decker, Herbert Friedman, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle.

After surveying Martin Harwit's family background and early education, the interview concentrates on: his graduate education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; his career in physics at Cambridge Unviersity as a NATO Fellow; his time at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) as a National Science Foundation Fellow; and, principally, his work at Cornell as assistant and associate professor of astronomoy, professor, and chairman of the Physics department.  While discussing his childhood and education, Harwit addresses the antisemitism he and his family faced in German and in the United States.  This interview covers a broad range of his scientific interest: galaxy and star formations; comets; infrared optics, especially relating to detector technology; infrared astronomy; rocketry; history of philosophy in science; use of balloons in observation; and astronomy education.  Some affliliations discussed include:  John Decker, Herbert Friedman, Thomas Gold, and Fred Hoyle.

Research, mostly with cyclotrons, at Cornell University and the University of California, Berkeley; building Sweden's first cyclotron as part of the new Research Institute for Nuclear Physics in 1937, under Manne Siegbahn's directorship. Background and science interest in electron diffraction; people he met during six months spent in United States; meetings with other European cyclotron builders; characterization of Professor Siegbahn.

Interview covers the development of several branches of theoretical physics from the 1930s through the 1960s; the most extensive discussions deal with topics in quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics as it relates to fission technology, meson field theory, superfluidity and other properties of liquid helium, beta decay and the Universal Fermi Interaction, with particular emphasis on Feynman's work in the reformulation of quantum electrodynamic field equations. Early life in Brooklyn, New York; high school; undergraduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; learning the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics on his own. To Princeton University (John A. Wheeler), 1939; serious preoccupation with problem of self-energy of electron and other problems of quantum field theory; work on uranium isotope separation; Ph.D., 1942. Atomic bomb project, Los Alamos (Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi); test explosion at Alamagordo. After World War II teaches mathematical physics at Cornell University; fundamental ideas in quantum electrodynamics crystalize; publishes "A Space-Time View," 1948; Shelter Island Conference (Lamb shift); Poconos Conferences; relations with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichiro Tomonaga; nature and quality of scientific education in Latin America; industry and science policies. To California Institute of Technology, 1951; problems associated with the nature of superfluid helium; work on the Lamb shift (Bethe, Michel Baranger); work on the law of beta decay and violation of parity (Murray Gell-Mann); biological studies; philosophy of scientific discovery; Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy; masers (Robert Hellwarth, Frank Lee Vernon, Jr.), 1957; Solvay Conference, 1961. Appraisal of current state of quantum electrodynamics; opinion of the National Academy of Science; Nobel Prize, 1965.