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Interview with Don L. Anderson
Full text linkAn interview in three sessions with Don L. Anderson, Eleanor and John R. McMillan Professor of Geophysics. Integrating seismology, solid state physics and geochemistry, Anderson is recognized for his work on the origin, evolution, structure and composition of Earth and other planets. He is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and has won numerous awards including the National Medal of Science (1998), the Crafoord Prize (1998) and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1988).
Conducted by Shirley Cohen, the interview covers many aspects of Anderson's personal and professional life from his childhood onwards. Session 1 includes discussion of Anderson's education in Maryland and his early interest in geology. He reminisces about his time in the air force, including his research on the properties of polar ice, as well as his subsequent work for Chevron. Anderson also discusses the circumstances enabling him to come to Caltech and the difficult living conditions in California; he recalls his graduate work with Frank Press and reminisces about Caltech faculty, including Arden Albee, Robert Sharp, C. Hewitt Dix, Charles Richter, and Gerald Wasserburg. The second session continues with Anderson's various appointments at the institute and the culture of the Seismology Laboratory in the San Rafael hills. He discusses his work on floating anisotropic plates and other geophysical research, as well as the attempt to maintain the collegial atmosphere of the seismo lab with its move to campus. The final session includes further reminiscences of Charles Richter and Anderson's attempt to understand the Earth's mantle with respect to geochemistry and helium 3; and recent research in surface geology, bathymetry, and plate boundaries. The interview concludes with the events surrounding the Crafoord Prize and the President's medal, along with Anderson's research philosophy and the importance of Caltech seismology
Interview with Lee F. Browne
Full text linkInterview in one session, June 14, 1999, with Lee F. Browne, Lecturer in Education, emeritus. Browne served as Director of Secondary School Relations and Special Student Programs at Caltech from 1970 until 1990. The interview briefly covers Browne's youth in the 1920s in North Carolina, his natural curiosity, and the importance of his education to his family; his time at Storer College prep school in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Failure to be admitted to Duke University and lack of permission to live on campus at Michigan State for race reasons discourages him. He then applies to West Virginia State College, graduates in biology and chemistry. Details about service in World War II in desegregated division of the U.S. navy. He moves to Los Angeles as teaching assistant at UCLA, then eventually gets permanent job at Valley Junior College and buys house in Pasadena, then Altadena. Change to secondary school teaching in chemistry, first at Muir High School, then Blair High School in Pasadena. Remarks about bussing in Pasadena in the 1970s. Teaching the children of Caltech faculty. He tells about his recruitment to Caltech and a general mandate to get good students, beginning around 1970. Survey of the programs he started, including summer classes; problems of recruiting and funding good students from minority backgrounds. Comments on race relations on campus. Notes change in direction of minority recruitment activity during the late 1980s to 1990, leading to his retirement. Concludes with an assessment of Caltech's success or lack thereof in getting and keeping African-American and Latino students
Interview with Felix H. Boehm
Full text linkAn oral history interview in three sessions in 1999 with Felix Hans Boehm, Caltech Research Fellow, 1953-1958, and Professor of Physics, 1958-1995 (emeritus 1995- ). Born in Basel, Switzerland, and educated at the University of Geneva and the ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) in Zurich (diploma, 1948; PhD, 1951, in physics), Boehm recounts first coming to the US to Columbia University in 1952 to work in nuclear physics under C. S. Wu. In July 1953 he arrives at Caltech as postdoc; associations with physicists J. DuMond in Bridge Laboratory and C. C. Lauritsen and the Kellogg Lab group. Experimental work in 1950s and 1960s on aspects of nuclear structure and particle behavior, especially parity violation. Interaction with R. Feynman and M. Gell-Mann on parity violation in nonleptonic processes. He takes leave to Europe: Heidelberg 1957-58 and Copenhagen 1965-1966; meets R. Mössbauer and helps bring him to Caltech (1960-1964), where he receives Nobel Prize (1961). Reminiscences of Niels Bohr. At Caltech begins collaboration with P. Vogel (1970); developing interest in neutrino oscillations; neutrino mass and search for dark matter. Visits to Aspen Center for Physics; collaborations with French (Laue Langevin Institute, Grenoble) and Swiss scientists (Paul Scherrer Institute, Zurich) on neutrino detection; experiment set up in Gotthard Tunnel. Work at Caltech on double beta decay; building of time-projection chamber (TPC); attempts to set up neutrino detector near San Onofre nuclear plant scuttled by environmentalists; lab eventually built in Palo Verde, Arizona. Comments on Caltech presidents and future of Caltech
Interview with Leon T. Silver
Full text linkInterview in six sessions, in December 1994-January 1995 and February 2000, conducted by Shirley K. Cohen with Leon T. Silver, W. M. Keck Foundation Professor for Resource Geology, emeritus, at Caltech. This lengthy interview begins with discussion of family background in Russia and Poland, youth in New York and Connecticut, and beginning of higher education at Colorado School of Mines, 1942. Recalls participation in navy V-12 program at U. of Colorado; degree in civil engineering and entry into Naval Civil Engineer Corps; decision to resume work in geology at U. of New Mexico after discharge in 1946; master's degree 1948; entry into PhD program in geology at Caltech, fall 1948. Recalls Caltech geology division in 1948; its history and personnel to that time. Changes following WWII: Robert P. Sharp becomes chairman; recruitment of Harrison Brown to Caltech; beginning of geochemistry studies; Silver assigned to Brown's group; group members Samuel Epstein, Clair Patterson and Charles McKinney; Patterson's work on age of the Earth. Funding for new state-of-the-art geochemistry labs; McKinney builds new mass spectrometers. Interlude concerning personal history. Continues on work with Harrison Brown group, 1950s; recruitment of Gerald Wasserburg, 1955; appointments of Clarence Allen and Frank Press. Silver's work on radiogenic lead systems. Beginnings of planetary science at Caltech; Brown's study of meteorites; appointment of Bruce Murray. Decision to choose planetary science over marine sciences; subsequent loss of Frank Press. US decision to put a man on the moon; proposals to NASA to do lunar-sample analysis; Caltech dominates first lunar science conference (Houston, January 1970); Silver's training of Apollo astronauts in geology, especially Harrison "Jack" Schmitt (Caltech BS, 1957). Recalls 1971 San Fernando earthquake's impact on geology. Describes Grand Canyon trips for Caltech Associates and trustees involving Eugene Shoemaker and Silver; other alumni trips; establishing the R. P. Sharp divisional chair. Notes work outside of Caltech: USGS, NASA, Geological Society of America, National Research Council. Election to National Academy of Sciences, 1974; other awards. Comments on Caltech presidents DuBridge, Brown, Goldberger, Everhart; provosts Bacher, Christy, Vogt. Remarks on LIGO [Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] and projects of special status. Comments on geology division chairmen. In final session, Silver describes expedition with Gene Shoemaker to find Indian Sipapu [hole where the Hopi people emerged onto Earth] on the Little Colorado River; description of geological feature housing Sipapu; obtaining and bringing sample of Sipapu water back to Caltech's geology division
Interview with Richard J. Bing
Full text linkInterview in two sessions, June 11 and 29, 1998, with Richard J. Bing, MD, Director, Cardiology and Intramural Medicine, Huntington Memorial Hospital, and Visiting Associate in Biomedical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Chemistry at Caltech, 1970-2010.
Richard J. Bing was born in Nürnberg, Germany. He relates the story of his family and their origins, his early love of music, and his medical education in Frankfurt, Vienna, and Munich in the 1930s during the rise of the Third Reich. A period of study in Denmark at the Carlsberg Biological Institute enables him to meet Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindbergh; he forms lasting relationships with both. After a first trip to New York to Rockefeller Institute to learn Carrel's surgical techniques, he returns to New York and permanently to the US [1937]. His diverse medical career takes him from New York (Rockefeller, Columbia, New York University) to Johns Hopkins, then Alabama, then Washington University in St. Louis, followed by Wayne State University--all of which he recalls in sequence. During this time he demonstrates catheterization of the heart and works on cardiac metabolism. He resigns from Wayne State to take a position at the Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, California, in 1969.
In California, Bing relates, he developed interest in microcirculation and collaborated with Caltech scientist Harold Wayland; collaborations with Michael Hoffmann, Sunney Chan; friendships with Max Delbrück, John Allman. Research support from JPL; relations with director William Pickering; other research funding. There follows discussion of his second career as a composer, the importance of music in his life, and the performance of his musical works. The interview concludes with his views on the state of the medical profession
Interview with Barry C. Barish
Full text linkInterview in five sessions, May-July 1998, with Barry C. Barish, Linde Professor of Physics emeritus and director of LIGO [Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory] 1994-2005.
Recalls undergraduate education, Berkeley; graduate work on Lawrence Radiation Laboratory cyclotron; postdoc work on bevatron. Meets Alvin Tollestrup, comes to Caltech as postdoc, 1963. At Brookhaven National Laboratory. At Stanford Linear Accelerator Center with Henry Kendall, Richard Taylor, and Jerome Friedman. With Frank Sciulli, proposes neutrino experiment for Fermilab; work on tau leptons at SLAC. Move to Cornell.
Discusses history of magnetic monopoles and his work on monopoles at Caltech in 1980s. Discusses history of SSC [Superconducting Super Collider]; problems with Standard Model of Particle Physics; Aspen conferences to plan SSC; selection of Texas site. Involvement of Samuel C. C. Ting. Devises SSC experiment, with W. J. Willis. SSC's defeat in Congress (1993). Discusses his work in Italy on monopoles, in Gran Sasso tunnel. MACRO [Monopole Astrophysics Cosmic Ray Observatory] detector.
Discusses history of LIGO. Bar detector experiments of Joseph Weber. Initial meetings at Caltech. Hiring of Ronald W. P. Drever. Rochus E. (Robbie) Vogt as head, 1987. Disastrous technical review and project review, 1992-93. He takes project over from Vogt in February 1994. Discusses problems he encountered and lack of evolution between 1989 and 1994. Discusses LIGO's technical difficulties and evolution of its organizational structure. LIGO Laboratory and LIGO (construction) Project. Establishment of LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Comments on Caltech; disinclination to serve on committees, enjoyment of teaching. Recollections of Richard Feynman. Influence of Tollestrup and Taylor
Interview with Alvin V. Tollestrup
Full text linkAn interview in two sessions, September and December 1994, with Alvin V. Tollestrup, who joined the Caltech faculty as a research fellow in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy in 1950. Dr. Tollestrup received a BS in engineering from the University of Utah (1944) and after a stint in the U.S. Navy became a physics graduate student at Caltech (PhD 1950), working with William A. Fowler and Charles C. Lauritsen in the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory. He became assistant professor of physics in 1953, associate professor in 1958, and full professor in 1962. In 1977, he joined the staff of Fermilab, where he had spent the preceding two years on sabbatical developing the superconducting magnets for the Energy Doubler/Saver machine that became the Tevatron. There he also played a key role in creating the CDF [Collider Detector at Fermilab], work leading to the 1995 discovery of the top quark.
In this interview, he discusses his early interest in science, his wartime radar work, and his career at Caltech, where he helped develop the Caltech synchrotron and later conducted important and innovative experiments, including the photoproduction of pions. He recalls his 1957-58 sabbatical at CERN, helping to plan and execute the first experiment at its 600-MeV cyclotron, on pion decay. He discusses the history of particle accelerators, and particularly of Fermilab’s Tevatron, noting the contributions of laboratory director Robert R. Wilson and his successor, Leon Lederman; the competition with Brookhaven National Laboratory’s ISABELLE project, and the search for the top quark. He concludes by commenting on the future prospects for high-energy physics
Interview with James J. Morgan
Full text linkInterview in 1999 with James J. Morgan, Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Environmental Engineering Science, emeritus. Born in New York City to Irish immigrant parents, Morgan was raised in County Monaghan, Ireland, during the Depression. He studied civil engineering at Manhattan College, received a master's degree from the University of Michigan in environmental health engineering with C. J. Velz (1956), and after three years as an instructor at the University of Illinois took his PhD at Harvard in 1964 with the water chemist Werner Stumm. Morgan came to Caltech in 1965 to join the environmental engineering science program in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, where he worked on manganese chemistry in water and the use of polyelectrolytes in water treatment. Recollections of colleagues Jack McKee, Sheldon Friedlander, Norman Brooks, and the early years of the environmental engineering science program. In 1966 he became first editor of the American Chemical Society's journal Environmental Science and Technology. Recalls stint on Caltech's Freshman Admissions Committee and as dean of students in the early 1970s. Coauthored Aquatic Chemistry with Werner Stumm. Comments on his consulting for industry and government in the 1970s. Becomes vice president for student affairs (1980-1989). Recalls postdocs and students, including François Morel, James Pankow, Alan Stone, Howard Liljestrand, Yigal Erel, Windsor Sung. Awarded 1999 Stockholm Water Prize jointly with Werner Stumm (d. April 1999). In an epilogue to this interview, Morgan describes his trip to Stockholm to accept the award on behalf of Stumm and himself and his receipt that year of the Clarke Prize of the National Water Research Institute
Interview with Robert P. Sharp (II)
Full text linkThis interview in two sessions in 1998 with Robert P. Sharp, Sharp Professor of Geology emeritus, begins with an account of his institution in 1984 of student field trips to Hawaii to study volcanism up close (Project Pahoehoe), thanks to the financial support of H. Dudley Wright. Recollections of alumni geology field trips that Sharp conducted over the previous two decades to Hawaii, Alaska, Yellowstone, Utah, Death Valley, Pennsylvania, New England, and Iceland, to bring alumni closer to Caltech. Discussion of the field course he has taught at Caltech since his retirement in 1979 (Geology of the Southwestern United States). Discussion of the evolution of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech: early influence of J. C. Merriam on R. A. Millikan; evaluation of J. P. Buwalda's long chairmanship of the division; recollections of Beno Gutenberg; recollections of Chester Stock. Stock's work in vertebrate paleontology; the decision to phase out vertebrate paleontology after Stock's death in 1950; sale in 1957 of the fossil collections to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. Recollections of the contributions of Stock's colleagues Eustace Furlong and William Otto. The interview concludes with a discussion of the new field of geobiology and the interest in ancient DNA and possible role of the division in such investigations
Interview with Terry Cole
Full text linkInterview in three sessions, October 1996, with Terry Cole, senior faculty associate in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and senior member of the technical staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Cole earned his BS in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1954 and his PhD from Caltech in 1958 under Don Yost, on magnetic resonance. The following year he moved to the Ford Scientific Research Laboratory, in Dearborn, Michigan, where he rose to head the departments of chemistry and chemical engineering. In 1980 he joined JPL's Energy & Technology Applications branch; in 1982 he became JPL's chief technologist, and he was instrumental in establishing JPL's Microdevices Laboratory and its Center for Space Microelectronic Technology. Interview includes recollections of Lew Allen's directorship of JPL and a discussion of the origins of the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) program