University of California, San Diego

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews N. David Mermin, Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University. Mermin recounts his childhood in New Haven and his undergraduate work at Harvard, where he worked with Andrew Gleason and did his senior thesis on the Jordan Curve Theorem. Mermin describes his thesis work with on superconductivity with Paul Martin and the turn of luck that led to his fellowship at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. He explains why his most formative physics education occurred during his time in Birmingham and describes many of his most important collaborations as a professor at Cornell. Mermin explains his delight in pursuing obscure areas of research in physics and why he is interested in the relationship between problems in quantum foundations and the nature of scientific knowledge. In the last portion of the interview, Mermin shares his view on the various categories that comprise scientific breakthrough. 

Early contacts with Maria Goeppert Mayer, collaborations with her on uranium explosives for Los Alamos at Columbia University and on stability of neutrons at University of Chicago Nuclear Institute, reflections on meeting with Joseph Mayer while she was terminally ill. Also prominently mentioned is: University of California at San Diego.

Family background; education at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institution, New York University (Richard Courant); works as engineer at Republic Aviation while a graduate student in mathematics at Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics; Ph.D. thesis on rolling up of von Karman vortex sheet (Kurt Otto Friedrichs). To Convair, 1954; Atlas development program (Hans Friedrich); origins of the University of California, San Diego; moved up to General Dynamics Research & Development division, 1958; organizing and filming the Convair Lecture Series (von Karman, George Gamow). Enters government committee work (von Karman, Courant); transition to Department of Defense; the Kennedy administration (Robert McNamara, Herbert York, Harold Brown); member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). Takes position as vice-president at North American Aviation; leaves as a result of Bobby Baker scandal, 1964. Starts non-defense division of Rand Corporation. Commercial contact with scientists in Soviet Union. Defense Science Board Task Force on High-Energy Lasers. Project 137 (Eugene Wigner, John Wheeler, Oscar Morgenstern, Marvin Goldberger); Project Bassoon (Nick Christofilos); A. G. Hill, James McCormack; origins of JASON (Charles Townes, Goldberger).

In this interview, Klaus Hasselmann discusses topics such as: his family background and how he became interested in physics; getting his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Fluid Dynamics and Gottingen University; Walter Tollmien; University of California, San Diego Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics; Scripps Institute of Oceanography; Walter Munk; Norman Barber; John Miles; Hugh Bradner; George Backus; Klaus Wyrtki; Carl Eckart; Charles David Keeling; researching storms in the south pacific including Hawaii; Frank Snodgrass; Gordon Groves; measuring waves in the North Sea; becoming director of the newly formed Department of Theoretical Geophysics at the University of Hamburg; Donald Menzel; the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology; North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Wolfgang Sell; Art Maxwell; Dirk Olbers; Heinz-Hermann Essen; Peter Muller; wave dynamics; Global Atmospheric Research Programme (GARP); Reimar Lust; Kirk Bryan; World Climate Research Programme; European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF); Lennart Bengtsson; El Nino predictions; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); carbon dioxide emissions; Hans Hinzpeter; plasma physics; quantum field theory.

Family background; education (Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley in 1950); academic affiliations. Experience at University of California at San Diego, and consultantship to the weapons laboratory at Los Alamos with Kenneth Watson leading to Project 137 (John Wheeler) which later became JASON; Brueckner's reasons for leaving JASON in 1966. Organization, collaboration and policy of JASON; significance and selection of projects; technical advice; preponderance of theoretical physicists in JASON; uniqueness and impact of JASON; other consultantships and advisory involvements.

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.