Eastman Kodak Company

Interviewed by
Joan Bromberg
Interview date
Location
United Technologies Research Center, East Hartford, Connecticut
Abstract

Research and education, 1956 to ca. 1970. Establishment of the electromagnetics group at United Aircraft Research Center, 1958. Inauguration of laser research after the Schawlow-Townes paper appeared. Modulating laser output. Modelocking investigations. Laser work on fusion and gas-dynamic CO2 lasers by other United Technologies groups. Also prominently mentioned are: Nicolaas Bloembergen, Chap Cutler, Edward Danielson, Carl Feyrar, Fork, Bill Glenn, Steve Hanis, Logan E. Hargrove, Hans Heynau, Henry Hoadley, George Housemann, Ippen, Arthur Robert Kantrowitz, Wes Kuhrt, Willis E. Lamb, John Lee, Reiss Meyerand, Al Penny, Peter Persham, Pollack, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Arthur Leonard Schawlow, Marlan Scully, Chuck Shank, Ben Snavely, Charles Hard Townes, Brian Tracy, Caspar Ultec, Hans Weber; Andersen Laboratories, Inc., Avco-Everett Research Laboratory, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Eastman Kodak Co., Pratt and Whitney Aircraft Group, Office of Naval Research of United States Navy, and University of Connecticut.

Interviewed by
Joan Lisa Bromberg
Interview date
Location
University of Southern California
Abstract

Research on nonlinear optics at the University of Michigan, 1961 to 1964, laser education at Berkeley, 1964-1966; color centers, laser damages, and dye lasers at Raytheon, 1966-1973, and medical applications at University of Southern California, after 1973. Experimental laser techniques and their evolution and the institutional context of research at each of these sites. Also prominently mentioned are: John A. Armstrong, Nicolaas Bloembergen, Colin Bowness, William B. Bridges, Tom Deutsch, Richard Dwyer, Peter Alden Franken, Joseph Anthony Giordmaine, Alan Hill, James Hobart, Frank Horrigan, Steve Jarrett, Kleinman, Clarence Luck, Theodore Maiman, Sam McCall, Steve Miller, Roy Paananeu, Al Paiadino, C. Wilbur Peters, Al Poladine, Sergio Porto, Lance Riley, Mike Saiden, Fritz Schafer, Mike Seiden, Peter P. Sorokin, Herman Statz, Carlisle Martin Stickley, Gaby Weinreich; Bell Telephone Laboratories, Conference on Laser and Electro-optical Systems, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, Eastman Kodak Co., Exxon Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company, Metrologic Co., Raytheon Corporation, Spectra-Physics Company, Trion Instruments Company, and University of California at San Diego.

Interviewed by
Spencer Weart
Interview date
Location
Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, California
Abstract

This interview begins with a discussion of Babcock's childhood and youth around Mt. Wilson Observatory, with comments on father (Harold D. Babcock), Walter S. Adams, and Edwin P. Hubble. Also discussed in this interview: education at Caltech, University of California at Berkeley and Lick Observatory (1934-1939), and at Yerkes and MacDonald Observatories; work at MIT and Caltech on World War II hardware; astronomical instrumentation work, especially postwar Mt. Wilson-Palomar diffraction gratings; discovery of magnetic stars and studies of variations; work on solar magnetic fields (with father) and theory of solar cycle; comments on cosmology; discussion of Mt. Wilson and Palomar Observatories since the 1920s, especially under Ira Bowen's and Babcock's directorship (1963); internal administration; staff relations; dealings with Carnegie Institution and Caltech; discussion of Hale Observatories, 1930-1977; role of government funding in astronomy; guest investigators; allocation of telescope time; planning, funding, and construction of the Carnegie Southern Observatory at Las Campanas, 1963-1977. Also prominently mentioned are: Philip Abelson, Ed Ackerman, Carl David Anderson, Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade, Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Vannevar Bush, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Crawford Greenewalt, Jesse Leonard Greenstein, George Ellery Hale, Caryl Haskins, Louis Henyey, Armin O. Leuschner, Nicholas Ulrich Mayall, Charles Edward Kenneth Mees, Paul Merrill, Rudolph Leo Bernhard Minkowski, Edgar Nichols, Elmer Prall, Bruce Rule, Frederick H. Seares, Sinclair Smith, Otto Struve, Charles Hard Townes, George van Biesbroeck, H. A. Wood, Fritz Zwicky; Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Astrophysical Journal, Bausch and Lomb Co., Eastman Kodak Co., Ford Foundation, Hale Observatories, Hale Solar Laboratory, Inyokern Project, Kitt Peak National Observatory, Las Campanas Observatory, Lick Observatory Bulletin, McDonald Observatory, Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, National Science Foundation (U.S.), 48-inch Schmidt Telescope, 100-inch Telescope, 120-inch Telescope, 200-inch Telescope, and University of California at Berkeley, CA.