Optics

Interview with Lene Hau, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard. Hau recounts her childhood in Denmark and her early interests in science, and she describes her education at the University of Aarhus. She describes her studies in math and physics and her determination to build something meaningful for experimentation. Hau describes her interest in using lasers to cool down atoms during her postdoctoral work at Harvard and at the Rowland Institute, and she describes the opportunities that led to her full-time work at Rowland. She describes her collaboration with Jene Golovchenko and the impact of the discovery of Bose-Einstein condensation in 1995. Hau details the experiments that initially slowed down and then ultimately stop light in a Bose-Einstein condensate. She explains her decision to join the Harvard faculty and she surveys some of the practical applications of her research. Hau describes her research in nanoscale systems and her interest in applying her research to create more energy efficient systems with the explicit goal of addressing climate change. She describes some of the difficulties and systemic biases that women have to deal with in the sciences, particularly when they achieve prominence. At the end of the interview, Hau explains her interest to promote diversity in physics and particularly to encourage students who are the first in their generation to go to college.

Interview with Arthur Eisenkraft, Professor of Physics, Distinguished Professor of Science Education, and Director of the Center of Science and Math in Context (COSMIC) at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He explains the origins of COSMIC and its role in his transition from high school to university teaching, and he discusses his current focus on the Wipro Science Education Fellowship Program. Eisenkraft surveys current trends in science pedagogy, and he reflects on the value of UMass Boston’s diverse student population for his research. He recounts his upbringing in Queens, his strong public school education, and his decision to go to Stony Brook for college where he started to think about education in scientific terms. Eisenkraft discusses his experience with the Peace Corps in Nepal before returning to Stony Brook for graduate school to work under Cliff Swartz on Fourier optics. He discusses his PhD research at NYU in science education and he explains his decision to pursue high school teaching. Eisenkraft surveys his advisory work for the National Research Council and how the NAEP Frameworks Project started. He explains his strategic partnership with Toshiba, and he describes the feedback mechanisms that inform his research. At the end of the interview, Eisenkraft frames teaching as a means to learning, and he conveys his interest in watching how higher education plans to combat systemic racism in the future.

Interview with Alice White, Professor and Chair of Mechanical Engineering at Boston University. She recounts her childhood as the daughter of a Bell Labs physicist and her early interests in learning how things work, and she explains her decision to attend Middlebury College. White describes her formative fellowship at Bell Labs and her graduate research in physics at Harvard, where Mike Tinkham supervised her research. She describes being hired by Bob Dynes at MTS in Bell Labs for her postdoctoral research in low temperature physics and she discusses her subsequent work with John Poate on ion implantation. White explains her increasing involvement in optics and the significance of this work during the "dot com" boom and she narrates the reorganization and breakup of Bell. She describes the opportunities that led to her faculty appointment at BU, and she describes working at the interface between mechanical engineering and physics. White describes creating the Multiscale Laser Lithography Lab and her overlapping research interests with biologists, and she reflects on some of the advantages at BU of operating in the shadows of MIT and Harvard. She discusses her tenure as department chair and her research on 3D printing for cardiac repairs. At the end of the interview, White reflects on working at Bell Labs at the height of American power and ingenuity, she emphasizes the importance of encouraging her students to take scientific risks, and she indicates that her future research will be devoted to climate change.

This is an interview with Roger Stuewer, Professor Emeritus, History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Stuewer recounts his childhood in rural Wisconsin, and he discusses his undergraduate work in physics education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the formative course in optics taught by Ed Miller. He describes his service in the U.S. Army and his deployment to Germany in the mid-1950s, and the opportunities provided by the GI Bill to further his education. He discusses his brief career teaching high school math and physics before he was offered an instructor job in physics at Heidelberg College. Stuewer describes the circumstances leading to his return to Wisconsin to pursue a graduate degree in the history of science, where he was advised by Erwin Hiebert and where he was deeply influenced by Heinz Barschall. He describes his fascination with Arthur Holly Compton and the Compton Effect which was the subject of his dissertation, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at Minnesota. Stuewer recounts his efforts to build the history of science and technology program there, and the opportunities he was afforded with a joint appointment in the physics department. He describes some of the major methodological and historiographical debates in the field over the course of his career, including competing ideas of whether the history of physics should be pursued at the conceptual level or have as its focus social phenomena. Stuewer discusses the major impact of Thomas Kuhn and he explains his decision to take a faculty position at Boston University before returning to Minnesota for the rest of his career, where he subsequently focused on the history of nuclear physics. He describes his motivations for creating a symposium on this topic, where Han Bethe delivered introductory remarks, and he explains his longstanding interest in John Hasbrouck Van Vleck. Stuewer describes his advisory work for AIP’s history program, and how his work as an editor for the American Journal of Physics provided him a unique vantage point of the field. At the end of the interview, Stuewer reflects on what his scholarship has taught him about how humankind makes sense of the physical world.  

In this interview Nicolas Gisin discusses topics such as: his family and educational background; University of Geneva; Constantin Piron; Gerard Emch; University of Rochester; optics and quanum optics; Abner Shimony; Alphatronix; Guisan at the University of Geneva Group of Applied Physics (GAP); John Bell; Alain Aspect; Jean-Claude Zambrini; quantum cryptography; optical fibers.

Fugate discusses his childhood; early interest in electronics and science; undergraduate education at Case Institute of Technology; Ph.D. in Physics from University of Iowa in 1970; employment at Wright Patterson AFB first as research physicist (1970-1972) and optics group leader (1972-1979); transfer to Kirtland AFB in 1979 as research physicist in optics and technical director of the Starfire Optical Range until 1995; since 1995, senior scientist for atmospheric compensation at Kirtland AFB; comments on graduate training and making transition to military research. Early research on lasers and laser detection; Involvement in adaptive optice (AO) research in early 1980s; AO research as part of Strategic Defense Initiative; role of JASON group; types of research done; effects of classification; competition in AO between Starfire and Lincoln Labs; acquisition of new facilities including 1.5 and 3.5 telescopes. Design features of the 3.5-meter telescope is discussed. Discussion of the declassification process of AO in the early 1990s. Current and future work in AO described by Fugate as well as future role of Starfire Optical Range.

This interview discusses Fastie's career as a physicist, beginning with a position as research assistant at the Johns Hopkins University Physics Department (1941-45), as a research physicist at Leeds and Northrop (1945-51) and later as a research contract director and research scientist at Johns Hopkins (1951-68). After covering his family background and education, the discussion details Fastie's contact with A.H. Pfund and R.W. Wood, including many anecdotal recollections regarding the classified work of Pfund and Wood during WWII; and his interest in instrumentation as reflected in his work with Echelle gratings and spectrographs.  Other topics discussed include:  Baltimore city during 1920s; undergraduate and graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University;  physical optics; spectrum analysis; infrared gas analysis; pyrometry; Eschelle gratings; Leeds and Northrup; Applied Physics Laboratory (APL); National Defense Research Committee (NDRC); John Sanderson; J.A. Bearden; John Charles Hubbard; G.H. Dieke; John Strong; and George Harrison, among others.

Topics discussed include: family background, education at Duke University, graduate work at Princeton University with Don Hamilton, Ruby Sherr and Eugene Wigner, his work at General Electric with Roland Schmidt, Walter Harrison, and Gerry Mahan, magnetic breakdown, optical absorption spectrum of impurities and solids, teaching at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Rochester, electron scattering, involvement with the American Vacuum Society (AVS), his work at Pacific Northwest National Labratory, and his work at Xerox with Chip Holt and Sudendu Rai.

Overview of JASON; background to JASON involvement; reasons for joining; relationship to Los Alamos effort. Primary interest in anti-ballistic missile (ABM) issues; work on optical processes; relationship to his own work in physics. Assesses JASON contribution; its critical function view as central. Work on electronic "barrier" for Vietnam, ballistic missile defense, and anti-submarine warfare.

In this interview, James Gilbert Baker discusses: his family and childhood; William Marshall Bullitt; Harlow Shapley; University of Louisville; Walter L. Moore; American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO); Richard Prager; Harvard University; Bart Bok; Otto Struve; A. Pannekoek; Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin; Ted Sterne; Don Menzel; E. Bright Wilson; Leon Campbell; Lawrence Aller; Rudolph Langer; Henry Norris Russell; S. Chandrasekhar; Joe Boyce; George Harrison; optics; Leo Goldberg; Harvard Society of Fellows; Ivan A. Getting; atomic bomb; Lise Meitner; Niels Bohr; R. W. Wood; aerial photography; Ted Dunham; Fred Whipple.