University of Chicago

In this interview Richard Garwin discusses topics such as: his parents, growing up in Cleveland, education, Case Institute of Technology (Case Western Reserve University), Leon Lederman, muons, cyclotron,  University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi, nuclear reactors, coincidence circuits.This interview is part of a collection of interviews on the life and work of Richard Garwin. To see all associated interviews, click here.

In this interview Harold Agnew discusses topics such as: Richard Garwin, University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, nuclear weapons, IBM.This interview is part of a collection of interviews on the life and work of Richard Garwin. To see all associated interviews, click here.

In this interview Lois Garwin discusses topics such as: how she and husband Richard Garwin met, Richard Garwin in school, growing up in Cleveland, Judaism and antisemitism, Richard Garwin's parents, University of Chicago, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the hydrogen bomb, Jay Keyworth, IBM, the Garwin children.This interview is part of a collection of interviews on the life and work of Richard Garwin. To see all associated interviews, click here. 

Undergraduate at University of Pittsburgh, B.A., 1916; instructorship in physics at University of Kentucky; teaching mathematics at Mercer University, Georgia; graduate thesis at University of Chicago with Dempster. Discouraging experiences with American Physical Society (APS), beginning 1916; invited to 1929 Des Moines meeting by Paul Klopsteg to discuss role of teachers in APS; invited to head group; Glen Warner, Klopsteg, States and S. L. Redman meeting in Chicago, 1930; preparation for and confrontation at Cleveland meeting of APS. Homer L. Dodge and Harold W. Webb; formation of American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), Floyd Richtmyer and Karl Compton; beginning of joint meetings between APS and AAPT (1933). AAPT became founding member of AIP. The AAPT journal; development of bylaws and policies of AAPT; election of Frederic Palmer as president, 1933; David L. Webster's presidency. Effect of AAPT on teaching profession. The Orsted medal; the Taylor Memorial Fund.

In this interview Harold Agnew discusses topics such as: his time at the University of Chicago and Enrico Fermi; Columbia University; John Manley; George Weil; Los Alamos during World War II; Seth Neddermeyer; J. Robert Oppenheimer; George Kistiakowsky; Luis Alvarez; Bill Penny; National Science Foundation scholarship; nuclear physics; Laura Fermi; Richard Garwin; Don Hornig; General Atomics; Freddie de Hoffmann; Ed Creutz.

Postgraduate work at University of Chicago; early work in spectroscopy using the Fabry-Perot interferometer; studies of e/m and hydrogen fine structure. Study at Universität München with Arnold Sommerfeld and the development in electron spin research in the 1930s; work with and impressions of Werner Heisenberg and others. Later work in solid state; interest in quantum statistics and its relation to statistics of ensemble. Discussion of major problems in modern physics; teaching methods and responsibilities, administration and research, solid state developments.

Marcela Carena, Distinguished Scientist and head of the Theory Division at Fermilab, is interviewed by David Zierler. Carena describes her dual position as professor of physics and member of the Fermi and Kavli Institutes at the University of Chicago and she surveys the many areas of Higgs physics in which she is currently working. She recounts her family’s Italian and Spanish heritage and her upbringing in Buenos Aires and the opportunities she pursued as she became interested in science. Carena describes her undergraduate education at Instituto Balseiro where she developed an appreciation for the interplay of theory and experimental high energy physics. She explains her decision to remain for graduate school where she worked with Roberto Peccei and she describes her research at DESY in Germany and her focus on supersymmetry and sphalerons. Marcela describes the importance of meeting Bill Bardeen during her postdoctoral appointment at Purdue and her subsequent research at the Max Planck Institute where she was focused on the LEP collider at CERN. She explains her decision to move to CERN full time and she conveys the impact of the SSC cancellation from the vantage point of CERN. Carena describes the opportunities that led to her staff position at Fermilab where she continued to develop her interests in supersymmetry and Higgs physics. She conveys the impact of the shutdown of the Tevatron and she describes the emotional component of the discovery of the Higgs. Carena explains why her focus on dark matter and electroweak baryogenesis are natural extensions from the Higgs discovery, and she wonders what it will look like if and when we come to understand what dark matter is. She reflects on what has, and has not, been seen at the LHC over the past decade, and she discusses both the scientific and political value in Fermilab supporting an International Relations Directorate. At the end of the interview, Carena describes her recent interests in quantum information and why quantum computers may yield new insights on the early universe, she conveys her pride in Fermilab’s leading efforts to promote diversity and inclusivity in science, and she explains why there is cause for optimism in the quest to understand dark matter. 

Arrival in the U.S. in 1930; comparison of social, scientific, general intellectual climates in U.S and Europe; early interest in nuclear physics, relationship with graduate students; beta decay, compound nucleus model, Breit-Wigner formula, early shell model; review articles by Bethe; relation of early meson theory to nuclear physics; nuclear forces; charge independence; journal literature of physics ca. 1937; effectiveness of group-theoretic models in nuclear physics; effectiveness of quantum mechanics for nuclear physics; significant early experimental discoveries in nuclear physics: neutron, deutron, artificial radioactivity; fission, shell model of Mayer and Jensen; rotational levels in nuclei; the specialization of physics; effect of World War II on nuclear physics research; work at Chicago; conferences after the war; branching off of high-energy physics from nuclear physics; work personally regarded as interesting.

History of the development of the modern Chinese university system, the organization of Xinan Lianda from three separate universities: Beida, Qinghua, Nankai, Lianda’s administrative organization and contributions of the various separate faculties in physics and math, Chinese educational system improved by return of Chinese students who studied abroad; comparison of Chinese and American systems of university education; Yang’s family history, education of Yang’s father in China and Ph.D. in mathematics at University of Chicago, father’s influenced on his studies, Yang’s early life and education during war with Japan, his physics education in China, Ph.D. at University of Chicago, change from experimental thesis using Van de Graaff accelerator with Allison to theoretical work with Teller, Yang’s contemporaries, his impressions of current Chinese graduate students.

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: Guido Beck, Richard Becker, Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Harald Bohr, Niels Henrik David Bohr, Max Born, Gregory Breit, Burrau, Constantin Caratheodory, Geoffrey Chew, Arthur Compton, Richard Courant, Charles Galton Darwin, Peter Josef William Debye, David Mathias Dennison, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Dopel, Drude (Paul's son), Paul Drude, Paul Ehrenfest, Albert Einstein, Walter M. Elsasser, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, John Stuart Foster, Ralph Fowler, James Franck, Walther Gerlach, Walter Gordon, Hans August Georg Grimm, Wilhelm Hanle, G. H. Hardy, Karl Ferdinand Herzfeld, David Hilbert, Helmut Honl, Heinz Hopf, Friedrich Hund, Ernst Pascual Jordan, Oskar Benjamin Klein, Walter Kossel, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Adolph Kratzer, Ralph de Laer Kronig, Rudolf Walther Ladenburg, Alfred Lande, Wilhelm Lenz, Frederic Lindemann (Viscount Cherwell), Mrs. Maar, Majorana (father), Ettore Majorana, Fritz Noether, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Franca Pauli, Wolfgang Pauli, Robert Wichard Pohl, Arthur Pringsheim, Ramanujan, A. Rosenthal, Adalbert Wojciech Rubinowicz, Carl Runge, R. Sauer, Erwin Schrodiner, Selmeyer, Hermann Senftleben, John Clarke Slater, Arnold Sommerfeld, Johannes Stark, Otto Stern, Tllmien, B. L. van der Waerden, John Hasbrouck Van Vleck, Woldemar Voigt, John Von Neumann, A. Voss, Victor Frederick Weisskopf, H. Welker, Gregor Wentzel, Wilhelm Wien, Eugene Paul Wigner; Como Conference, Kapitsa Club, Kobenhavns Universitet, Solvay Congress (1927), Solvay Congress (1962), Universitat GGottingen, Universitat Leipzig, Universitat Munchen, and University of Chicago.