209 research outputs found
Sort by
Interview with Edward W. Hughes
Get PDFAn interview in November 1979, with Edward W. Hughes, senior research associate in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. BS, Cornell, 1924; PhD, 1935. 1938, becomes research fellow at Caltech, working with Linus Pauling; teaches war-training courses. Postwar work for Shell Development Company; returns to Caltech as research associate in 1946.
He recalls the early days of crystallography in the U.S.; his good fortune to work with Sir Lawrence Bragg while still at Cornell; later work at Caltech with Pauling; defense of alpha helix before the Royal Society. Leeds lectureship. Discusses Pauling’s part in the eventual discovery of DNA structure; Pauling’s sponsorship of 1957 U.N. petition against nuclear testing. Recalls arrival of women as graduate students at Caltech. He concludes with remarks on his current writing, on his wife’s secretarial work for Pauling and as head of Chem Wives; and his participation on the chemistry division’s safety committee
Interview with Edward Hutchings, Jr.
Get PDFA wide-ranging interview in three sessions, May 1984, with Edward Hutchings, Jr., longtime director of Caltech publications and editor of Engineering & Science (now Caltech Magazine) from 1948 to 1979. He recalls his early years working for several magazines in New York City, including The Literary Digest, The New Yorker, Collier’s, Business Week, and Look.
He was recruited in 1948 by Charles Newton, assistant to President Lee A. DuBridge, to edit Engineering & Science, then primarily an alumni magazine; and he recalls the many improvements he initiated, such as running articles on the latest research in the various divisions, encouraging faculty and students to write for the magazine, and ensuring that the scientific material would be accessible to laymen. He comments on such leading contributors as DuBridge, Robert Sharp, Arie Haagen-Smit, Arthur Galston, Earnest Watson, and Elting Morison.
He joined the Division of the Humanities as lecturer in journalism in 1952 and taught this course until his retirement in 1987, focusing it on The California Tech, the student newspaper. Wide-ranging discussion of campus doings throughout his career, including the trials of Sidney Weinbaum and H. S. Tsien; the controversy surrounding Linus Pauling; the relative apathy of the student body (except for smog protests organized by student leader Joe Rhodes); the admission of women; the incursion of the social sciences into the humanities division. Contrasts the presidencies of DuBridge, Harold Brown, and Marvin (Murph) Goldberger. Various influential articles in E&S are discussed
Interview with Francis H. Clauser
Get PDFAn interview in March 1983 with Francis H. Clauser, Clark B. Millikan Professor of Engineering, emeritus, and chairman of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science from 1969 to 1974. He recalls his arrival at Caltech in 1969 to head the engineering division; discusses the broadening of Caltech’s engineering option during the 1960s, including a shift toward fundamental research and an increase in the size of the faculty and the graduate program, enabled in part by a generous Ford Foundation grant. Comments on the current state of the division, with numerous retirements coming up and the opportunity for new hires. Recalls the establishment of the Environmental Quality Laboratory and the applied physics option. Discusses the development of computer science at Caltech and his efforts to build up communications science by recruiting John Pierce from Bell Labs. Comments on Caltech’s contributions to earthquake engineering. He concludes the interview by discussing his initiation of the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholars Program
Interview with Arthur L. Klein
Get PDFInterview in four sessions, February 1979 and April 1982, with Arthur L. ("Maj") Klein, who entered Throop College, the predecessor of the California Institute of Technology, in 1916. When R. A. Millikan arrived as the institute's head, Klein decided to change his major from mechanical engineering to physics in order to work with him, earning his bachelor's degree in 1921 and a PhD in 1925. He stayed on as a research fellow in physics and soon become involved in the activities of the new Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at Caltech (GALCIT), along with Clark B. Millikan and the aircraft designer Arthur E. Raymond. He became an assistant professor of aeronautics in 1929. Klein designed much of GALCIT's 10-foot-diameter wind tunnel, which went into operation in 1929, and he later helped design the Southern California Cooperative Wind Tunnel (1945), which was financed by five Southern California aircraft companies and operated by Caltech. Klein was also responsible for many aspects of the design and testing of important aircraft, including Douglas Aircraft's DC series. He had begun consulting for Douglas Aircraft in 1932; by 1937, he was spending half his time there and half at Caltech, and this arrangement continued until his 1968 retirement from Caltech as a full professor in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science
Interview with Milton S. Plesset
Get PDFInterview in 1981 with Milton S. Plesset (1908-1991), Professor of Engineering Science, Emeritus. Begins with Plesset's decision to study physics at the U. of Pittsburgh; PhD in physics at Yale [1932] on Dirac electron theory. Postdoctoral fellowship brings him to Caltech that year to work under P. Epstein. Recalls giving theoretical physics seminar which Einstein attended on day of Long Beach earthquake [March 10, 1933]; records story of Einstein and B. Gutenberg in conversation and unaware of the quaking. Importance of J. R. Oppenheimer to American theoretical physics in early 1930s; his early collaboration with Oppenheimer on Dirac electron theory. R. A. Millikan's interest in this work in connection with cosmic rays. Year spent in Copenhagen at Niels Bohr Institute as National Research Council fellow [1933-1934]. Returns to U.S. to teach at U. of Rochester; meets L. A. DuBridge there. Returns to California 1941 to do wartime work at Douglas Aircraft Co.; beginning of interest in fluid mechanics. Sent by Douglas to Europe following German surrender to investigate German rocketry [1945]. Return to Pasadena to work on torpedo hydrodynamics at Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS). Hired at Caltech [1948] as associate professor of applied mechanics; begins research in hydrodynamics and cavitation. Serves on Air Force Science Advisory Board (started by T. von Kármán). Recalls McCarthy era at Caltech; cases of H-S. Tsien, Oppenheimer. Interest in nuclear energy leads to 1959 advisory appointment to California Atomic Energy Development and Radiation Protection Program; also membership on Advisory Committee on Reactor Safety for U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; discussion of nuclear safety in connection with Three Mile Island reactor incident. Becomes professor of engineering science [1963]. In closing notes special admiration for Epstein, along with Oppenheimer and R. Tolman; cultural value of Epstein's "stammtisch.
Interview with Hans W. Liepmann
Get PDFAn interview in three sessions, March 10 and 12, 1982, and March 30, 1983, with Hans W. Liepmann, director (1970-1985) of Caltech’s Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories (GALCIT), in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr. Liepmann received his PhD from the University of Zürich in 1938 and came to Caltech the following year as a research fellow to work with Theodore von Kármán, director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, as GALCIT was then known.
He recalls his early education in Berlin during World War I, postwar inflation, and the rise of the Nazis; his family’s move to Istanbul in 1933; his studies at the University of Istanbul with Richard von Mises and Harry Dember; Prague’s German University; and Zürich with Edgar Meyer, Gregor Wentzel, and Richard Bär. Recalls his arrival at Caltech and his various GALCIT colleagues, particularly von Kármán and successor Clark Millikan. Comments on GALCIT’s relationship with U.S. aircraft industry during World War II; on Robert Millikan; on his work on turbulence, transonic flow, shockwave boundary interaction; on changes in GALCIT over the years; on teaching at Caltech and the difference between science education in the U.S. and Western Europe. Recalls the controversial deportation of Hsue-shen Tsien. Comments on consulting with Douglas Aircraft Company, on founding of the applied mathematics department, and on his ongoing unhappiness with Caltech’s direction, particularly its move toward the social sciences
Interview with Robert F. Bacher
Get PDFAn interview in ten sessions, 1981 and 1983, with Robert F. Bacher, chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy (1949-1962), Caltech's first provost (1962-1969), and professor of physics, emeritus. He recalls his education at the University of Michigan and graduate work in physics at Harvard (1926-27) and Michigan, where he got to know J. R. Oppenheimer and the European physicists who joined the faculty and/or came for the summer sessions in physics: Goudsmit, Uhlenbeck, Fermi, Bohr, Ehrenfest, Dirac and others. Recalls postdoc year at Caltech (1930-31) working on atomic spectra; Oppenheimer's lectures; Millikan's cosmic-ray work. Spends 1931-1932 at MIT working with John Slater; Chadwick's discovery of the neutron. Spends the next two years as a postdoc at Michigan, working with Goudsmit. Instructorship at Columbia, 1934; association with I. I. Rabi. Moves to Cornell in 1935; recollections of Hans Bethe; cyclotron work on neutron energies.
Early 1941, joins the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, of which Lee DuBridge was director. Recalls start of Manhattan Engineer District; contacts with J. R. Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves. Joins Los Alamos in June 1943 as head of experimental physics division; recollections of bomb work. Returns to Cornell in January 1946. Postwar development of high-energy physics; Acheson-Lilienthal Report on international control of atomic energy. Establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission, fall 1946; he becomes a commissioner; moves to Washington, D.C. Recalls weapons testing in the Pacific and the development of nuclear reactors.
In 1949, he becomes chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy at Caltech. Called back to Washington to testify at Hickenlooper hearings; warns the British about Klaus Fuchs. Discusses the postwar buildup of physics at Caltech; comments on the mathematics and astronomy departments. Debate over tactical vs. strategic nuclear weapons. Service on President's Science Advisory Committee; the McCarthy era; comments on his service as Caltech provost. Comments on establishment of Fermilab; participation in the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. Recalls advent of Harold Brown as Caltech president in 1969; comments on reorganization of NASA contract with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Comments on current setup of Caltech's Faculty Board and on his own activities since his retirement
Interview with Frank Press
Get PDFThe following interview was conducted with Dr. Frank Press on April 15, 1983, at the National Academy of Sciences, as part of the Caltech Archives' Oral History Project. Dr. Press was director of Caltech's Seismological Laboratory from 1957 to 1965. In 1965 he left Caltech to head the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1977 to 1981, he was science adviser to President Jimmy Carter, and from 1981 to 1993 served as president of the National Academy of Sciences and chairman of the National Research Council. Since 1993, Dr. Press has been a visiting professor at Cornell, Caltech, Stanford, and Indiana University, and he is currently a principal of the Washington Advisory Group. In this interview, he recalls his work with Maurice Ewing at Columbia's Lamont Geological Observatory; his directorship of Caltech's Seismological Laboratory and colleagues Charles Richter, Beno Gutenberg, and Hugo Benioff; his work on the free oscillations of the earth; and his part in establishing the worldwide network of seismographs for the detection of nuclear weapons testing
Interview with Alan R. Sweezy
Get PDFAn interview in two sessions in February-March 1982 with Alan R. Sweezy, professor of economics in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Professor Sweezy joined Caltech's humanities faculty in 1949, after having taught for several years at Williams College. He did his undergraduate and graduate work at Harvard. During the Depression, before joining the faculty at Williams, he worked in Washington helping to set up the new Social Security System, and later at the Federal Reserve Board. His interests in economic development led him to studies of population growth, and in the late 1960s he became active in Planned Parenthood, becoming national chairman in 1972. Along with Professor Harrison Brown, Sweezy was instrumental in launching Caltech's Population Program in 1970, sponsored by the Agency for International Development (AID). The program worked closely with the American Universities Field Staff to collect and analyze data on population growth and population policy in underdeveloped countries, and several influential conferences were held at Caltech in the early 1970s on these issues. In this interview, Sweezy recalls the genesis of the program and its demise in 1974, which he attributes largely to a change of focus in the humanities division. By then the division had shifted to a narrower and more mathematically oriented brand of social sciences; macroeconomics, with its larger studies of population, resource utilization, fiscal policy, etc., gave way to microeconomics. He also comments on the wide interests of his colleagues on the faculty and on the changes in the student body over the years
Interview with Jesse L. Greenstein
Get PDFInterview in three sessions in 1982 with Jesse L. Greenstein, DuBridge Professor of Astrophysics, emeritus. Greenstein discusses his early career at the Yerkes Observatory of the University of Chicago, under Otto Struve (1937-1948), and his arrival at Caltech in 1948 to build an astronomy department in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. He discusses the early partnership between Caltech and the Carnegie Institution of Washington in running Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories, the interactions between observational astronomy and theoretical astrophysics, and the rise of radio astronomy. Besides his discussion of his work on stellar composition, the interview contains his recollections of such twentieth-century pioneers of astronomy and astrophysics as Struve, Grote Reber, Gerard Kuiper, Edwin Hubble, Fritz Zwicky, Walter Baade, Rudolph Minkowski, H. P. Robertson, Richard Tolman, and Fred Hoyle--and of various Caltech principals including Lee DuBridge, Earnest Watson, Arnold Beckman, and Robert Christy. He also discusses his service in the 1960s as chairman of Caltech's Faculty Board and member of its Aims and Goals Committee. He speculates about the scarcity of women astronomers and the difficulties they face. In an addendum to his interview, he discusses in more technical detail latter-day changes in instrumentation, the impact of new and improved detectors, and their contributions to his work on white dwarfs