Research grants

Post-war career at Caltech, federal funding for research, relationships among Caltech, Jet Propulsion Lab and Office of Naval Research. Work through 1950 in nuclear physics, astrophysics, element synthesis in stars, influence of Bethe, Greenstein; Bowen/Lauritsen seminars, astronomical observations. Fellowship to Cambridge (1954-55), beginning of collaboration with Hoyle and Burbidges; return to Caltech, further work on stellar element synthesis with Burbidges, personalities of G. Burbidge and Hoyle; contemporary views on cosmology.

Early education and career; graduate training at Caltech, with C.C. Lauritsen’s group; collaboration at the Kellogg Lab and structure of Caltech physics department after 1939, Relationships with Oppenheimer and Lauritsen. Fowler’s and Caltech’s war work, Lauritsen’s role in setting up Office of Naval Research for federally funded post-war research.

Early education and career; graduate training at Caltech, with C.C. Lauritsen’s group; collaboration at the Kellogg Lab and structure of Caltech physics department after 1939, Relationships with Oppenheimer and Lauritsen. Fowler’s and Caltech’s war work, Lauritsen’s role in setting up Office of Naval Research for federally funded post-war research.

Chairman of the President's Science Advisory Committee. Science-government relationship; funding of basic research influenced by politics; development of basic research since World War II in physics, astronomy, medicine, geology, environment (Greenhouse Effect), agricultural; difference between funding procedures of Federal government and National Science Foundation. Extensive discussion of space exploration program. DuBridge's role and goals during his second term as PSAC chairman (first term was under President Eisenhower, 1952-1957); discussion of a science cabinet post (as opposed to a science advisor). Functions of PSAC; danger of development of a military-industrial complex. Role of Office of Naval Research in basic research after World War II. Comments on "vested interests;" military and technological enterprises in industry; growing dependence of universities on government money. Social implications of scientific and technological advances.

Comments on parents and teachers; schooling in Rochester; studies at University of Rochester and at Princeton University with comments on faculty and fellow students; thesis collaboration with John Marshall; Victor Weisskopf, M.I.T. and the Radiation Laboratory during war, microwave techniques applied to atomic physics. Return to Princeton after war, Angular Momentum of Radiation; 1957 and the start of cosmology and relativity publications; Eötvös experiment and Mach's principle; discussions of own and others' experimental work; big science; George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, Robert Herman; paper with P. James Peebles Nostrums and Conundrums; National Academy of Sciences; funding in science.

Three years of preparation which led up to achievement, with Ernest T. S. Walton in 1932, of the first artificial transmutation of elements by accelerated protons, and the joyous reactions of his colleagues at the Cavendish Laboratory. With a three month grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, in 1933 visits with Robert Van de Graaff in Boston, Merle Tuve in Washington, Charles Lauritsen in Pasadena and Ernest O. Lawrence in Berkeley. In 1937, on his second American trip, noticed that the "sealing wax and string" at University of California at Berkeley had been replaced by engineering. Effect of influx of German refugee physicists. Rutherford's attitude toward a cyclotron at Cavendish because of Marcus Oliphant's low voltage ion source. Need for higher voltages and benefaction of a quarter million pounds from Lord Austin. Rutherford's complete control of Laboratory, the changing role of Cavendish over time; impact of the discovery of fission in England; effects of the war on nuclear physics and the differences in postwar planning and funding of research. Also prominently mentioned are: Niels Henrik David Bohr, James Chadwick, Ralph Howard Fowler, Petr Kapitsa; Cavendish Laboratory, European Council of Nuclear Research, Dept. of Physics at University of California Berkeley, and University of Oxford.

Starts with a brief overview of early schooling and physics studies at Università di Pavia in the 1940s, and a two-year visit to University of Illinois to work with Frederick Seitz. Building up and organizing solid state physics studies at Gruppo nazionale di struttura dela Materia; collaboration with Italian industry (Olivetti, Segesto); research funding difficulties. Comments on involvement with the Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (J. Ziman and N. Marsh); comments on solid state physics in other European countries. Chiarotti's organizational work in Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche and the European Physical Society is mentioned. Views on the popularization of science in the Italian scientific community.

Carlsberg Breweries income creates the Carlsberg Foundation; Johannes Pedersen chairman for the five member board; meetings on progress and smaller/larger grants to museums and to individuals; limits to size of grants; grant procedures. The establishment of Bohr’s institute (to reestablish international scientific collaboration); relationship between Harald & Niels Bohr and Martin Knudsen (their views on German inclusion in international scientific unions); United States visits 1923, 1933; life at Bohr’s institute and life at Carlsberg.

Early education in physics, University of Chicago 1930’s; high-energy particle counter; discovery of positron; discovery of neutrons; neutron experiments; reminiscences of Berkeley; Foundation support of research; 60-inch cyclotron building cloud chambers; neutron spectroscopy; neutron time-of-flight; magnetic moment of the neutron: transuraniun elements; announcement of fission; Tizard Mission; war research work; building of a betatron; effect of war techniques on post-war research; cyclotron work 1947; impressions of present day nuclear physics 1966.

Early education in physics, University of Chicago 1930’s; high-energy particle counter; discovery of positron; discovery of neutrons; neutron experiments; reminiscences of Berkeley; Foundation support of research; 60-inch cyclotron building cloud chambers; neutron spectroscopy; neutron time-of-flight; magnetic moment of the neutron: transuraniun elements; announcement of fission; Tizard Mission; war research work; building of a betatron; effect of war techniques on post-war research; cyclotron work 1947; impressions of present day nuclear physics 1966.