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Attended seminar at Bristol on algebraic topology; geometry and quantum mechanics; philosophy of Heraclitus, Aristotle, Democritus, Parmenides, Zeno’s paradox – atoms and motion; molecular biology and quantum mechanics; publication of Causality and Chance in Modern Physics; necessity and contingency; correspondence with Charles Biederman; evolution of art; Impressionism and quantum mechanics; Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity; Biederman and Krishnamurti’s views on societal conditioning.

This interview describes Bainbridge’s return to Harvard after his time in Los Alamos. His first task was the construction of a new cyclotron. He also helped to get the Physics Department back into prominence, attracting and retaining (or not) colleagues who had been doing war work. Examples of the former are Purcell and Ramsey and of the latter, R. R. Wilson. Bainbridge describes his time as department chairman, setting up the Loeb Lectureship which persists to this day. A notable event of the 1950s is the ordeal of Wendell Furry, a colleague who was called up before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Harvard and Furry’s colleagues stood by him but his life was unalterably changed.