Princeton University

This interview was conducted as part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics project, which includes tapes ard transcricts of oral history interviews conducted with ca. 100 atomic and quantusl 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, arid 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: Richard Becker, Niels Henrik David Bohr, Max Born, Gregory Breit, Richard Courarit, Paul Adren Maurice Dirac, Freeman Dyson, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Ferdinand Georg Frobenius, Werner Heisenberg, Walter Heitler, David Hubert, Friedrich Hund, Ernst Pascual Jordan, Max Theodor Felix von Laue, Fritz London, Herman Francis Mark, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Wolfgang Pauli, Michael Polanyi, Ratz, Riemer, Erwin Schroedinger, G. Schur, Leo Szilard, John Neumann, Victor Frederick Weisskopf, Hermann Weyl, Wigner (Eugene’s father), Enos E. Witmer; Berlin Technische Hochschule, Princeton University, and Universitaet Goettingen.

Youth and early education; undergraduate years at Caltech, 1924-1929; influence of Arthur A. Noyes, Linus Pauling; graduate training and molecular beam work at Princeton University with Karl Compton, Edward U. Condon, Robert Van de Graaff, 1929-1932. National Research Council Fellow at University of California at Berkeley, 1932-1934; at Radiation Laboratory with Ernest O. Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer; on Berkeley staff as teacher and working on cyclotrons, nuclear physics and radiochemistry, 1934-1940. War work at MIT, Underwater Sound Laboratory at San Diego, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1940-1945; Trinity Test. Postwar career at Berkeley working on accelerators; Nobel Prize, 1951. Also includes "Impressions of Trinity Test," 2 pp. Also prominently mentioned is: Jesse William Monroe DuMond.

Youth and early education; undergraduate years at Caltech, 1924-1929; influence of Arthur A. Noyes, Linus Pauling; graduate training and molecular beam work at Princeton University with Karl Compton, Edward U. Condon, Robert Van de Graaff, 1929-1932. National Research Council Fellow at University of California at Berkeley, 1932-1934; at Radiation Laboratory with Ernest O. Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer; on Berkeley staff as teacher and working on cyclotrons, nuclear physics and radiochemistry, 1934-1940. War work at MIT, Underwater Sound Laboratory at San Diego, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1940-1945; Trinity Test. Postwar career at Berkeley working on accelerators; Nobel Prize, 1951. Also includes "Impressions of Trinity Test," 2 pp. Also prominently mentioned is: Jesse William Monroe DuMond.

Youth and early education; undergraduate years at Caltech, 1924-1929; influence of Arthur A. Noyes, Linus Pauling; graduate training and molecular beam work at Princeton University with Karl Compton, Edward U. Condon, Robert Van de Graaff, 1929-1932. National Research Council Fellow at University of California at Berkeley, 1932-1934; at Radiation Laboratory with Ernest O. Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer; on Berkeley staff as teacher and working on cyclotrons, nuclear physics and radiochemistry, 1934-1940. War work at MIT, Underwater Sound Laboratory at San Diego, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1940-1945; Trinity Test. Postwar career at Berkeley working on accelerators; Nobel Prize, 1951. Also includes "Impressions of Trinity Test," 2 pp. Also prominently mentioned is: Jesse William Monroe DuMond.

Youth and early education; undergraduate years at Caltech, 1924-1929; influence of Arthur A. Noyes, Linus Pauling; graduate training and molecular beam work at Princeton University with Karl Compton, Edward U. Condon, Robert Van de Graaff, 1929-1932. National Research Council Fellow at University of California at Berkeley, 1932-1934; at Radiation Laboratory with Ernest O. Lawrence, J. Robert Oppenheimer; on Berkeley staff as teacher and working on cyclotrons, nuclear physics and radiochemistry, 1934-1940. War work at MIT, Underwater Sound Laboratory at San Diego, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, 1940-1945; Trinity Test. Postwar career at Berkeley working on accelerators; Nobel Prize, 1951. Also includes "Impressions of Trinity Test," 2 pp. Also prominently mentioned is: Jesse William Monroe DuMond.

This interview covers the education and professional career of physicist Joseph Giordmaine, who spent his professional career at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey (1961-1988), NEC laboratories, Princeton, New Jersey (1988-1998) and Princeton University (1998-2005). Giordmaine earned his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Toronto, and his Ph.D. in physics at Columbia, studying masers under Charles Townes. Most of his research was related to lasers and non-linear optics, with particular focus on phase matching, optical parametric generation, picosecond correlation light duration measurements, and non-linear properties of liquids. Recollections of people include Charles Townes, Ali Javan, Willard "Bill" Boyle, Arno Penzias, and Kumar Patel. For detail on Giordmaine's early laser work, this oral history can be read in conjunction with an oral history Giordmaine did for the Center for the History of Physics in 1985 as part of the laser history project.

In this interview E. A. Frieman discusses topics such as: being a member of JASON; Princeton University; John Wheeler; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Ken Watson; Keith Brueckner, Murph Goldberger; Francis Low; Geoff Chew; Lyman Spitzer; Charles Townes; Project Matterhorn; Edward Teller; Stanford Research Institute (SRI); Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); Herbert York; Dick Garwin; Department of Defense; Department of Energy; Stan Flatte; Strategic Defense Initiative.

Early education in Kentucky and at Phillips Exeter Academy. World War II service in Navy. College. Graduate work in theoretical nuclear physics at Princeton. David Bohm and J. A. Wheeler. Participation in the crash hydrogen bomb program. Post-doctorate at the University of Indiana. Fulbright year at Heisenberg's Institute. Research year at Los Alamos, 1957-1958. Teaching at Brandeis. Administrative positions at University of California, Irvine and New Mexico Institute of Mining Technology. Subsequent positions at the University of Maryland and biomedical start-up company. APS Education Officer, Director of American Institute of Physics, 1987-1993.

Early education in Kentucky and at Phillips Exeter Academy. World War II service in Navy. College. Graduate work in theoretical nuclear physics at Princeton. David Bohm and J. A. Wheeler. Participation in the crash hydrogen bomb program. Post-doctorate at the University of Indiana. Fulbright year at Heisenberg's Institute. Research year at Los Alamos, 1957-1958. Teaching at Brandeis. Administrative positions at University of California, Irvine and New Mexico Institute of Mining Technology. Subsequent positions at the University of Maryland and biomedical start-up company. APS Education Officer, Director of American Institute of Physics, 1987-1993.

Career of George B. Field, theoretical astrophysicist and administrator of astronomical research at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Discussions of education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton and Harvard Universities, interest in cosmological problems; possible detection of hot intergalactic matter in 1964; colleagues at University of California at Berkeley; views on popularizing science; reactions to Sputnik launch in 1957; funding of research from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); views on the manned space program; effects of Vietnam War on NASA and astronomical research; involvement with the Space Telescope; views of the Space Shuttle; extensive committee work for NASA; astronomical research under NASA; work at SAO; new programs at SAO, such as x-ray astronomy and the Multiple Mirror Telescope; service on the Jesse Greenstein and Allan Bromley survey committees of astronomy and physics; and his view of the universe. Also prominently mentioned are: Kinsey Anderson, Stuart C. Bowyer, Jim Bradley, Tony Calio, Riccardo Giacconi, Thomas Gold, Leo Goldberg, John Hagen, Noel Hinners, Fred Hoyle, Frank Martin, John Earl Naugle, Al Opp, Edward Mills Purcell, Martin Schwarzschild, Dennis William Sciama, Henry Smith, Sylvia Favior Smith, Lyman Spitzer, George Steiner, Frank Sulloway, Pat Thaddeus, James Van Allen, Fred Whipple; American Science and Engineering, Inc., Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Congregational Church, Harvard College Observatory, Harvard University Society of Junior Fellows, High Energy Astronomy Observatory, Lick Observatory, National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) Astronomy Survey Committee, National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) Greenstein Committee, National Science Foundation (U.S.), New York Times, Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, Princeton University Matterhorn Project, Project Apollo, Skylab, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Multiple Mirror Telescope, Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, Space Shuttle, United States Naval Ordnance Laboratory, United States Office of Management and Budget, United States Office of Naval Research, University of California at Berkeley, and Viking (Rocket).