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Interview with John D. Roberts
Get PDFInterview in seven sessions, February-May 1985, with John D. Roberts, Institute Professor of Chemistry (now emeritus) in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
Family background, early education, Los Angeles; Caltech open houses in early 1930s. Studies chemistry, UCLA (BA 1941). Graduate work Penn State University with F. Whitmore; return to UCLA, war-related research; theoretical organic chemistry with S. Winstein (PhD 1944). 1945, NRC Fellowship, Harvard; R. B. Woodward. Assistant professorship MIT; recollections of A. Cope, A. A. Morton; L. Pauling's theory of molecular resonance; molecular orbital theory of R. S. Mulliken. Research on carbonium ions, carbon cations with R. Mazur; dispute with S. Winstein. Consultant at DuPont, starting 1950.
Guggenheim, Caltech, 1952; joins chemistry faculty 1953. H. Lucas, L. Pauling, other colleagues. Guggenheim to England. J. H. Sturdivant, V. Schomaker, D. Semenow, G. Whitesides. Election (1956) to NAS; heads chemistry section; NAS response to W. Shockley and R. Lewontin affairs. NSF chemistry advisory panel (1957-1962); Mohole Seismological Drilling Project; faculty salaries.
Writes Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1959), Basic Principles of Organic Chemistry (1964); W. A. Benjamin; collaboration with M. B. Caserio on Basic Principles of Organic Chemistry; writes Modern Organic Chemistry.
NMR at Caltech; construction of NMR spectrometer lab; carbon-13 experiments; work of F. Wiegert, K. Kanamori; E. Swift, division chairman; H. McConnell; JDR as division chairman (1963-1968); faculty changes, role of H. Gray; construction of Noyes Laboratories; G. Hammond, acting chairman. Recollections of L. DuBridge and R. Bacher. L. Pauling and anti-nuclear movement. J. Baldeschwieler's chairmanship (1973-1978); presidencies of R. Christy (1977-1978) and M. L. Goldberger (1978-1987).
JDR as provost (1980-1983). Caltech administration 1970s and 1980s; R. Vogt as provost. L. E. Hood, biotechnology at Caltech. Computer scientists I. Sutherland, C. Mead. S. Wolfram, Symbolic Manipulation Program. JDR chairs Athenaeum Board; R. Ireland's role in upgrading Athenaeum. JDR's honors and awards
Interview with Wesley L. Hershey
Get PDFAn interview in two sessions in May 1979 with Wesley L. Hershey, former executive secretary of the Caltech Y. He earned a degree from Yale Divinity School in 1946, became executive secretary of the Caltech YMCA (as it was then called) that year, and served in that position until his retirement in 1976.
He comments on his longstanding interest in the student YMCA movement, beginning with his undergraduate years at Berkeley. Recalls his arrival at Caltech and the importance of the YMCA there; Robert A. Millikan’s support; Millikan’s religious bent and involvement with Pasadena’s Neighborhood Church. C. Schwieso, the Y’s early executive secretary; history of Freshman Camp. The Y’s role in making students feel at home; the stress that incoming students experience; Dr. Kenneth Eels as Caltech’s first institute psychologist. Establishment of the Y’s Leaders of America program. Decline in student activism and volunteerism.
He discusses his interest in working with people in “encounter sessions.” Recalls the founding of Athenaeum luncheon forums and Friends of the Y. Concludes with comments on the value of volunteerism and group interaction, and on the Caltech Y’s evolution as a liberal, even secular, organization
Interview with Norman H. Horowitz
Get PDFInterview, 1984, with Norman Horowitz, professor of biology emeritus and former chairman of the Biology Division (1977-1980), who arrived at Caltech as a graduate student in 1936. Recollections of Thomas Hunt Morgan; embryologist Albert Tyler, with whom he did his PhD; Caltech's marine biological station at Corona del Mar. Comments on Biology Division in the late 1930s: Calvin Bridges on Drosophila salivary chromosomes; Frits Went and James Bonner in plant physiology; Henry Borsook on thermodynamics of biological compounds. Importance of genetics at Caltech. NRC fellowship, 1939, at Stanford and meeting George W. Beadle; recollections of Beadle, and Beadle's 1941 talk at Caltech on his and Edward Tatum's work on Neurospora. Horowitz returns to Stanford as postdoc in Beadle and Tatum's lab, compiling evidence for the "one gene, one enzyme" theory. Returns to Caltech in 1946 as senior research fellow with Beadle, who came as division chairman. Instrumental in getting Max Delbrück back to Caltech from Vanderbilt University. Lee DuBridge arrives as Caltech's president in 1946. 1954 work with Boris Ephrussi on Drosophila tyrosinase in Paris. Becomes chief of bioscience section, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 1965. Comments on history of Mars observations and ideas about microbial life on Mars at time of first Viking (Mars) launch, 1975. Designs Viking instruments with George Hobby and Jerry Hubbard. Comments on Roy Cameron's search for bacteria in dry valleys of Antarctica and on spacecraft sterilization. Later work with Neurospora, Aspergillus, and Penicillium on water and iron requirements. Comments on Robert Sinsheimer, his predecessor as Biology Division chairman, and on presidencies of DuBridge, Harold Brown, and Marvin L. Goldberger. Comments on current trends in Biology Division, and on the book he is writing about the search for life on Mars, and his conviction that Earth is the only place in the solar system that supports life
Interview with William A. Fowler
Get PDFInterview conducted in eight sessions between May 1983 and May 1984 with Willy Fowler, Nobel laureate and Institute Professor of Physics, emeritus. In a career in nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics that spanned more that sixty years, Fowler was primarily concerned with nucleosynthesis--that is, the creation of the heavy elements by the fusion of the nuclei of lighter elements. In 1957, with Fred Hoyle and Geoffrey and Margaret Burbidge, Fowler coauthored the seminal paper "Synthesis of the Elements in the Stars," now known as B2FH. In it, they showed that all the elements from carbon to uranium could be produced by nuclear processes in stars starting only with the light elements produced in the Big Bang. In the interview, Fowler discusses his early education as a physicist at Ohio State; his work with Charles C. and Tommy Lauritsen at Caltech's Kellogg Radiation Laboratory; the history of nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics at Caltech; and the evolution of nucleosynthesis. There are recollections of many of his mentors and colleagues, including Robert A. Millikan, Hans Bethe, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Lauritsens, Fred Hoyle, the Burbidges, Jesse Greenstein, A. G. W. Cameron, Richard P. Feynman, and H. P. Robertson. A 1986 Supplement contains an interview on Fowler's work for the Naval Bureau of Ordnance and the Manhattan Project during the Second World War
Interview with J. Harold Wayland
Get PDFAn interview in six sessions, December 1983–January 1985, with J. Harold Wayland, professor emeritus of engineering science in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr. Wayland received a BS in physics and mathematics from the University of Idaho, 1931, and became a graduate student at Caltech in 1933, earning his PhD in 1937. After graduation he taught at the University of Redlands while working at Caltech as a research fellow with H. Bateman until 1941. Joins Naval Ordnance Laboratory as head of the magnetic model section for degaussing ships; War Research Fellow at Caltech 1944-45; heads Navy’s Underwater Ordnance Division. In 1949, joins Caltech’s faculty as associate professor of applied mechanics, becoming professor of engineering science in 1963; emeritus in 1979.
He describes his early education and graduate work at Caltech under R. A. Millikan; courses with W. R. Smythe, F. Zwicky, M. Ward, and W. V. Houston; teaching mathematics; research with O. Beeck. Fellowship, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen; work with G. Placzek and M. Knisely; interest in rheology. On return, teaches physics at the University of Redlands meanwhile working with Bateman. Recalls his work at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and torpedo development for the Navy.
Discusses streaming birefringence; microcirculation and its application to various fields; Japan’s contribution; evolution of Caltech’s engineering division and the Institute as a whole; his invention of the precision animal table and intravital microscope. Involvement with the Athenaeum. Friendship with Sidney Weinbaum; Weinbaum’s trial.
In the last two sessions, conducted by his daughter Ann, he reminisces about growing up in Boise, Idaho; living conditions as a Caltech graduate student. Further comments on Copenhagen, colleagues there, meeting Niels Bohr, and his career at the University of Redlands
Interview with Joseph B. Koepfli
Get PDFAn interview in four sessions, October and November 1983, with Joseph B. Koepfli, research associate in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (1932-1971). Dr. Koepfli received a BA and MA from Stanford and a D.Phil. from Oxford (1928).
In this wide-ranging interview he talks about his scientific work on isoquinoline alkaloids, plant physiology, and antimalarial drugs; his time at Oxford in the Dyson-Perrins laboratories; his arrival at and subsequent impressions of Caltech; and his extensive career as a scientific consultant to the U. S. government in various capacities.
Along the way, he recalls many Caltech and other scientific colleagues, particularly Linus Pauling and Pauling’s political troubles. He details his work as science advisor to the State Department in the early1950s and the opposition he encountered from ideologues of the McCarthy era. Later he chaired a NATO task force on science and technology; he ended his public career in the 1960s, as a member of UNESCO’s National Commission. He concludes the interview with comments on the establishment of the Koepfli Fund for Caltech and the importance of providing a broad education in the humanities for young scientists
Interview with Frank Oppenheimer
Get PDFThe younger brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Friedman Oppenheimer was born in 1912 in New York City. After graduating as a bachelor of science in physics from Johns Hopkins in 1933, Oppenheimer traveled to Europe where he studied at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and Florence's Istitudo di Arceti from 1933-35. He then entered the California Institute of Technology from where he received his doctoral degree in physics in 1939. Before joining his brother in Los Alamos in 1943, Oppenheimer held positions at Stanford, Berkeley's Radiation Laboratory and the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Following the War, Oppenheimer returned to Berkeley but then moved to the University of Minnesota where he embarked on studies of cosmic radiation. His research ended abruptly in 1949 after he was required to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities regarding his communist activities as a graduate student at Caltech. Not until 1961 did he return to university life at the University of Colorado. There he developed a variety of innovative teaching techniques, many of which were later incorporated in his design of the Exploratorium in San Francisco where Oppenheimer served as director. He died in Sausalito, California, in 1985.
Conducted at the Exploratorium, this interview focuses on Oppenheimer's years at the California Institute of Technology. Oppenheimer describes his work on beta- and gamma-ray spectroscopy and reminisces about C. C. Lauritsen, his supervisor. He recollects the relationships he formed while working at Caltech's Kellogg Laboratory, including his memories of Willy Fowler, Richard and Ruth Tolman, Hsue-Shen Tsien, Robert Millikan, Henry Borsook, Thomas Hunt Morgan, Fritz Zwicky and Frank Malina. He also discusses his time at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and his recollections of Peter L. Kapitsa, John D. Cockcroft, Ernest T. S. Walton, George Gamow and Ernest Rutherford. In addition to a discussion of Oppenheimer's communist activities in pre-war Pasadena, he recounts his memories of fascism while he was studying in Florence in 1935
Interview with Sidney Weinbaum
Get PDFAn interview in August 1985 with Sidney Weinbaum, Caltech PhD (1933), a mathematician who was a research fellow in Linus Pauling’s laboratory in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in the 1930s and worked from 1946 to 1949 with Pol Duwez at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1950, Weinbaum was arrested for perjury (regarding his alleged membership in the Communist Party) and for “abetting” Party activities. He was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. In this interview, he recalls his childhood in the Ukraine; his undergraduate years at Caltech (1922-1924); and his work for Pauling. He recalls various friends in the Caltech community, his interests in chess and music, his political activism. He discusses his war work for Bendix Aviation and Curtiss-Wright Research Laboratory; his return to Pasadena after the war to work for JPL; his interrogation by the FBI; his arrest and trial; the support or lack of it from various friends and Caltech faculty; his life in prison; and his release and subsequent happy life with his second wife, Betty
Interview with Charles Newton
Get PDFAn interview in two sessions, January 1983, with Charles Newton, lecturer in English, emeritus, in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Mr. Newton graduated from the University of Chicago (PhB 1933). During World War II, headed public relations at MIT Radiation Laboratory, under directorship of Lee A. Dubridge, who subsequently became Caltech’s president (1946-1969). In 1947, Mr. Newton came west to Caltech at Dubridge’s invitation, assuming the title of assistant to the president. Here he worked mainly in public relations, publications, and fund-raising for the institute, notably helping to run the 1958 development campaign, which raised $18 million and added eighteen new buildings to the campus. He resigned as assistant to the president in 1966 and became a full-time lecturer in English in the humanities division, becoming emeritus in 1975.
In this wide-ranging interview, he discusses his college days at Chicago; his early career in advertising and writing for radio; his friendship with Chicago classmate Louis Ridenour, which led to the appointment at the Rad Lab. He recalls his Rad Lab days and the offer to come to Caltech as Dubridge’s assistant. Campus atmosphere in the postwar period. Relationships with the trustees. 1958 development campaign. Nature of the undergraduate student body. DuBridge as fund-raiser; contrast between the administrations of R. A. Millikan, Dubridge, and Harold Brown. Faculty opposition to nuclear test ban. Caltech’s attrition rate. Teaching humanities; evolution of the humanities division. The interview concludes with a number of amusing anecdotes
Interview with Linus Pauling
Get PDFInterview in 1984 with Linus Pauling, professor of chemistry emeritus. He recalls his instructorship in quantitative analysis at Oregon Agricultural College at age 18. To Caltech for graduate study, 1922. As preparation, Arthur Amos Noyes sent him proof sheets of Noyes's new book, Chemical Principles. Studied X-ray crystallography with Roscoe G. Dickinson. Gave seminar on Debye-Huckel theory of electrolytic solutions for visiting P. J. W. Debye. Recollections of Noyes (then chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering), Dickinson, and Ralph W. G. Wyckoff. Discusses X-ray crystallography and its history. Recollections of Gilbert N. Lewis, Caltech's rivalry with Berkeley. Paper with Richard C. Tolman on residual entropy of crystals; recalls courses with Tolman. Offer of professorship at Harvard in 1929 and MIT c. 1930. Death of Noyes (1936) and Pauling's appointment as chairman of chemistry division (1937). Remarks on Biology Division and advent of Thomas Hunt Morgan (1928). Work on hemoglobin in mid-1930s. Remarks on Karl Landsteiner and immunology. Lectures on "complementariness" as basis of biological specificity; paper with Max Delbruck. Projected book on the molecular basis of biological specificity, to be called The Nature of Life. Recollections of Albert Tyler and George W. Beadle. Comments on relations with Warren Weaver and Rockefeller Foundation. Discusses work on protein structure and discovery of alpha helix. Discusses his reasons for leaving Caltech in 1963 and the attitude of Caltech president Lee DuBridge and John Roberts, then chair of the chemistry division. Recalls his resignation of division chairmanship in 1957; attitude of trustees toward his politics; his efforts to raise money to defend colleague Sidney Weinbaum. Recalls being badgered by Lawrence Spivak on Meet the Press in 1950s. Comments on quantum mechanical theory of resonance and the chemical bond. Comments on Center for Study of Democratic Institutions