Interview with Dr. Diane McKnight, professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and currently program director for the Arctic Observing Network at the National Science Foundation. The interview begins with McKnight recounting her childhood with both parents having doctorate degrees, and she discusses the early science influences in her life. McKnight describes her decision to attend MIT for her undergraduate studies and subsequently her graduate studies in engineering, where she worked with Francois Morel. She discusses her engineering classes, campus life at MIT, and the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated field. McKnight then recalls how her early career work at the US Geological Survey led to her work in Antarctica. She shares stories of life at McMurdo Station, meeting Al Gore, and working on the Palmer Station Long Term Ecological Research project (LTER). At the end of the interview, McKnight reflects on how this work influenced her life and what life has been like since.
Interview with Peter L. Bender, Senior Research Associate at the University of Colorado and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) in Boulder. Bender recounts his childhood in New Jersey, he describes his undergraduate focus in math and physics at Rutgers, and he explains his decision to pursue a graduate degree in physics at Princeton to work with Bob Dicke. He discusses his dissertation research on optical pumping of sodium vapor, which was suggested by Dicke as a means of doing precision measurements of atoms. Bender discusses his postdoctoral research at the National Bureau of Standards, where he focused on magnetic fields and he narrates the administrative and national security decisions leading to the creation of JILA in Boulder, where the laboratory would be less vulnerable to nuclear attack. He describes his work on laser distance measurements to the moon and his collaborations with NASA, and he discusses his long-term advisory work for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council. Bender describes the origins of the NASA Astrotech 21 Program and the LISA proposal, he explains his more recent interests in massive black holes, geophysics and earth science, and he explains some of the challenges associated with putting optical clocks in space. At the end of the interview, Bender reflects on the central role of lasers in his research, and he explains the intellectual overlap of his work in astrophysics and earth physics, which literally binds research that is based both in this world and beyond it.
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.
In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Cliff Will, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Florida. He recounts his childhood in Ontario, Canada, and explains his decision to enroll at McMaster University, which was both nearby and offered an excellent physics program. He describes his studies with Bertram Brockhouse and how he developed his skills and interests in theory. Will explains his early impressions of Caltech, and how different California felt in the late 1960s. He describes his graduate research in general relativity under the direction of Kip Thorne, and he explains the significance of his calculation of the n-body equations of motion, which was the first post-Newtonian approximation of general relativity. Will explains the import of recent experimental advances in general relativity and how this advanced theoretical work. He describes his postdoctoral research at the Fermi Institute and his attraction at the concept of working with Chandrasekhar. He explains his decision to join the faculty at Stanford, and the state of the field in general relativity and gravitational radiation in the early 1970s. Will describes the circumstances leading to his work at Washington University and the research he did at the McDonnell Center for Space Sciences. He discusses his service work for the National Research Council and his advisory position on the Stanford-NASA space mission called Gravity Probe-B. Will describes his interest in conveying scientific concepts to the broader public, and the excitement he felt in joining the LIGO collaboration. He discusses his recent research interests at the University of Florida and his ongoing collaborations in France. At the end of the interview, Will reflects on what has been confirmed and improved in the field of general relativity since the time of Einstein.
Brief overview of the history of numerical general circulation models from about 1950-1970, centering on Smagorinsky's group, including Syukuro Manabe, at the U. S. Weather Bureau, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the General Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton. Notes the interactions with weather predictions and climate change concerns, especially carbon dioxide warnings (greenhouse effect).
Deals mainly with DuBridge's professional affiliations starting before World War II as member of National Research Council (NRC). War work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Lab and relations with other groups, e.g., at the British Telecommunication Research Establishment (TRE). President of California Institute of Technology after Robert Millikan. Relationship with military. Establishment and chairmanship of President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC); affiliations with PSAC and other organizations; PSAC's impact on science policy. Work with evolution and funding of Public Television, including James Killian's and Edward Land's roles. Also prominently mentioned are: Robert Andrews Millikan, Richard Milhouse Nixon; California Institute of Technology, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Research Council, National Science Board, National Science Foundation, Project Vista, United States Army Signal Corps, United States Army Atomic Energy Commission, and United States Office of Defense Mobilization.
Career at the University of Rochester, 1934-1940, 1946, with emphasis on the Rochester cyclotron. The cyclotron's funding is covered in particular detail, with the aid of documents from the E. O. Lawrence Papers (Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA). Comments on the Rochester Physics Department and its relations with other institutions, and on biophysical and medical research. Also prominently mentioned are: Hans Albrecht Bethe, Stafford Warren, H. Russell Wilkins; Bell Telephone Laboratories, National Research Council (U.S.) Committee on Mytogenic Radiation, University of California at Berkeley, School of Medicine and Dentistry of University of Rochester, and Washington University.
Part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics oral history collection, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with circa 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: E. F. Barker, Niels Bjerrum, Niels Henrik David Bohr, Walter Colby, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, S. Dushman, Paul Ehrenfest, Kasimir Fajans, Fussell, Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, H.C. Hayes, Werner Heisenberg, Takeo Hori, A.W. Hull, Friedrich Hund, Elmer Samuel Imes, Oskar Benjamin Klein, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Irving Langmuir, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, R.W. Marriott, Matos, Yoshio Nishina, Wolfgang Pauli, Harrison McAllister Randall, Erwin Schrödinger, George Eugène Uhlenbeck; Kbnhavns Universitet, National Research Council, Swarthmore College, University of Michigan.
Part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics oral history collection, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with circa 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: E. F. Barker, Niels Bjerrum, Niels Henrik David Bohr, Walter Colby, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, S. Dushman, Paul Ehrenfest, Kasimir Fajans, Fussell, Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, H.C. Hayes, Werner Heisenberg, Takeo Hori, A.W. Hull, Friedrich Hund, Elmer Samuel Imes, Oskar Benjamin Klein, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Irving Langmuir, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, R.W. Marriott, Matos, Yoshio Nishina, Wolfgang Pauli, Harrison McAllister Randall, Erwin Schrödinger, George Eugène Uhlenbeck; Kbnhavns Universitet, National Research Council, Swarthmore College, University of Michigan.
Part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics oral history collection, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with circa 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: E. F. Barker, Niels Bjerrum, Niels Henrik David Bohr, Walter Colby, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, S. Dushman, Paul Ehrenfest, Kasimir Fajans, Fussell, Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, H.C. Hayes, Werner Heisenberg, Takeo Hori, A.W. Hull, Friedrich Hund, Elmer Samuel Imes, Oskar Benjamin Klein, Hendrik Anthony Kramers, Irving Langmuir, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, R.W. Marriott, Matos, Yoshio Nishina, Wolfgang Pauli, Harrison McAllister Randall, Erwin Schrödinger, George Eugène Uhlenbeck; Kbnhavns Universitet, National Research Council, Swarthmore College, University of Michigan.
