Pulsars

This is an interview with Claire Max, Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, and Director of University of California Observatories. Max recounts her childhood in Manhattan, and she describes the formative influence of her father’s work in science on her blossoming academic interests. She describes her undergraduate education at Radcliffe where she pursued a degree in astronomy, and the opportunities leading to her graduate degree at Princeton where she studied pulsars under the direction of Francis Perkins. Max discusses her postdoctoral research at Berkeley working with Allan Kaufman and her subsequent work at Livermore Lab on laser plasma interactions, and where she did formative work developing laser guide stars for adaptive optics in astronomy. She describes her entrée into the JASON advisory group, and what it was like as the first woman to become a JASON. Max explains her decision to join the faculty at Santa Cruz, the opportunities leading to her directorship of the Observatory, and her interest in leading research in extrasolar planets. She reflects on some of the budgetary and administrative challenges she has faced at the Observatory, and she discusses some of the characteristics that her most successful graduate students have shared over the years. At the end of the interview, Max discusses the controversy over the Thirty Meter Telescope site in Hawaii, she explains why promoting diversity in the field is personally important to her, and why future advances in galaxy merger research are so promising.

Interview with Lev Gindilis, Russian astronomer and a pioneer of modern SETI research. Leonid Gurvits translated this interview in real-time. Gindilis discusses his studies in optical astronomy at Moscow State University. He describes how the work of his friend Nikolai Kardashev inspired him to switch his area of focus and join the radio astronomy department. Gindilis recounts helping to build the RATAN 600 telescope, as well as his work organizing meetings on SETI topics, including the First Soviet-American Conference on Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence in 1971. Gindilis reflects on the philosophical aspects of extraterrestrial communication, such as the question of mutual understanding. He discusses Kardashev’s investigations into CTA-21 and CTA-102 and the importance of the discovery of variability. The interview concludes with Gindilis’ reflections on international collaboration in SETI research and the effects of the Cold War.

Interview with Russell Alan Hulse, American physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. This is a four-part interview, and Hulse is joined by his wife, Jeanne Kuhlman, throughout. Kristen Frederick-Frost and Roger Sherman (Curators, Division of Medicine and Science, National Museum of American History) were also present for this interview. Part 1 covers Hulse’s childhood in the Bronx, his family life, and his early interest in science. Hulse discusses skipping a few grades in elementary school and being accepted at the Bronx High School of Science. He describes his time as a physics major at Cooper Union and his graduate studies at University of Massachusetts, where he studied radio astronomy with Joe Taylor. Hulse talks about his early experience with computers, programming, and his growing technical expertise. In Part 2, Hulse and Kuhlman discuss their relationship over the years and their common interest in science. Hulse goes into detail about his time at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, working on scientific computer modeling.  He also talks about his consulting work after earning the Nobel Prize. Part 3 of the interview covers Hulse’s time at UMass, building the radio astronomy program. He also discusses his work leading to the discovery of the binary pulsar. Part 4 focuses on Hulse’s outreach efforts, such as working with local public libraries and schools to promote science education, as well as his work at the University of Texas.

The interviewee has not given permission for this interview to be shared at this time. Transcripts will be updated as they become available to the public. For any questions about this policy, please contact [email protected].

In this interview, Peter Nanos discusses: family background and childhood in New Hampshire; decision to study at the Naval Academy; fraternal culture at the Academy; experience as a Trident Scholar working with Ralph Goodwin; Ph.D. at Princeton as part of the Burke Program; working in Bob Dicke’s gravity group on the first large-scale measurement of the polarization of the microwave background; work on the timing of the crab nebula pulsar; thesis advisor Dave Wilkinson; getting feedback on his thesis pre-publication from Bob Wilson; working with Captain Al Skolnick on the Navy High Energy Laser Program to demonstrate the ability to down supersonic aircraft with the Mid-Infrared Chemical Laser (MIRACL); decision to stay with the Navy as an engineering duty officer (ED); various assignments as ED, including on the USS America; involvement in Operation El Dorado Canyon (1986 U.S. bombing of Libya); effects of Reagan’s increased military spending; power of nuclear deterrence in reducing worldwide war fatalities; work with and promotion to director of Naval Strategic Systems Programs (SSP); use of the first GPS; START Treaty; work with Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA); Drell commission to determine safety of the Trident II D5 missile; creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration; director position at Los Alamos; response to reports of “lost” nuclear material; explanation of laboratory shut down; position as associate director at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA); creation of R&D Enterprise at DTRA; investments in nuclear detection technology; experiences running exercises; work with the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins; and post-retirement consulting work. Toward the end of the interview, Nanos reflects on demanding technical excellence and on the value of his training and study of physics, “the liberal arts of STEM.” 

Interview with Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy at Williams College. Pasachoff discusses his childhood in New York City and his early interests in astronomy, telescopes and math. He recalls participating in a summer math program at Berkeley after his high school graduation, before he enrolled at Harvard as an undergrad. He recounts being invited to partake in observational research at Sacramento Peak Observatory, where he worked with Jacques Beckers and Bob Noyes. Pasachoff then explains his decision to continue at Harvard for his graduate studies, where Bob Noyes became his thesis advisor. He remembers finishing his PhD while also working at the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory, doing radio astronomy work. Pasachoff discusses the events that led to his postdoc at Caltech, and his subsequent move to Williams College. Throughout the interview, Pasachoff remembers many of the solar eclipses he has observed and his research surrounding them. He also discusses the many textbooks he has written over the years. 

Interview with Robert M. Wald, Charles H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago, where he also has appointments with the Kadanoff Center and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. Wald recounts his childhood in New York, he describes the tragedy of losing his parents in an airplane crash when he very young, and he explains the ongoing legacy of his father Abraham Wald who was a prominent professor of statistics at Columbia. He describes his high school education at Stuyvesant and his decision to pursue a physics degree at Columbia, where he became close with Alan Sachs, who supervised him at Nevis Laboratory. Wald explains his decision to focus on general relativity for graduate school and his interest in working with John Wheeler at Princeton. He describes the excitement surrounding recent advances in approaching astrophysics through relativity, the significance of the discovery of pulsars and the field of black hole uniqueness, and he discusses his postdoctoral research with Charles Misner at the University of Maryland. Wald describes the impact of Saul Teukolsky’s discovery of a variable Weyl tensor component that satisfied a decoupled equation, and he explains the circumstances leading to his faculty position at Chicago, where he was motivated to work with Bob Geroch. He reflects on the experience writing Space, Time, and Gravity, the advances in black hole collapse research, and he explains why he felt the field needed another textbook which motivated him to write General Relativity. Wald discusses his work on the Hawking Effect and his long-term interest in quantum field theory, and he explains the influence of Chandrasekhar on his research. He describes his contributions to the LIGO collaboration, and he explains what is significant about the Event Horizon Telescope’s ability to capture an image of a black hole. Wald explains the state of gravitational radiation research and the accelerating universe, he prognosticates on what advances might allow for a unification of gravity and the Standard Model, and he explains why dark energy is apparently a cosmological constant. At the end of the interview, Wald discusses his recent work on the gravitational memory effect and, looking to the future, he explains his interest to continue working to understand the S-matrix in quantum electrodynamics.

Interview with Saul Teukolsky, Hans A. Bethe Professor of Physics and Astrophysics at Cornell and Robinson Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics at Caltech. Teukolsky recounts his childhood born in a Jewish family in South Africa, and he explains the tensions between his parents’ politics, who were accepting of apartheid, and his own views which rejected this as a national injustice. He describes his undergraduate education at the University of Witwatersrand and the impact of the Feynman Lectures on his intellectual development. Teukolsky explains his interest in pursuing general relativity for graduate school, and he discusses the circumstances leading to his enrollment at Caltech, where he studied Newman-Penrose equations and perturbations of the Kerr metric under the direction of Kip Thorne. He discusses his year-long postdoctoral research position at Caltech and his subsequent decision to join the faculty at Cornell, where he developed the gravitational theory program. Teukolsky explains the significance of the Hulse-Taylor discovery at Arecibo on general relativity, and he describes the early impact of computers on advancing GR research and specifically on numerical relativity which he worked on with Bill Press. He discusses the rise of computational astrophysics, and he surveys his interests in pedagogical issues in physics and his early involvement in LIGO and the LISA collaboration. At the end of the interview, Teukolsky explains how he has tried to communicate astrophysical concepts to broad audiences, and he expresses optimism that massive advances in computational abilities will continue to drive forward fundamental advances in the field.

In this interview, Joseph Taylor, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, recounts his upbringing in and around Philadelphia, and the centrality of Quakerism throughout his childhood. He describes his undergraduate experience at Haverford, where he developed his interest in physics and in experimental radio astronomy specifically. Taylor discusses his graduate work at Harvard, and why the mid-1960s was an exciting time for radio astronomy, and he describes his thesis research under the direction of Alan Maxwell on observing radio galaxies and quasars to create two-dimensional maps. Taylor describes the impact of the discovery of pulsars, just as he was completing graduate school, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at the University of Massachusetts to start the Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory. He describes the fundamental advances in pulsar research in the 1970s, and he recounts his early and soon to be significant interactions with Russell Hulse, and he describes the logistical challenges of setting up research at the Arecibo Observatory. Taylor describes the intellectual origins of discovering gravitational radiation, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at Princeton which centered around its strength in gravitational physics. He discusses the long period of time between his research and the Nobel Prize for which he was recognized, and he discusses the impact of the prize on his life and his research. Taylor discusses his tenure as Dean of Faculty at Princeton, and in the last part of the interview, he describes his current and recent interests in WMAP, and why he welcomes the strides his field has taken toward greater diversity.  

An account of the discovery of the Crab Nebula Pulsar by Michael Disney and John Cocke. Meeting Cocke at University of Arizona; international pulsar debate leads to their hunt for the Crab Nebula. Their first observation on an old 36-inch Newtonian telescope at Kitt Peak; trying to find the Southern Proceeding Star; Bob McAllister, Don Taylor and his Multiscalar. Announcement of, and reactions to, the discovery. Comments on events that led to Disney's choice of astronomy; comments on science (equated it with big game hunting) and scientists.