History of Physics Newsletter, A Forum of the American Physical Society, Volume IX, No.2, Feb. 2004

From the Chair

Celebrating Our Heritage (lead article)

By Michael Riordan, Forum Chair

In late January I received my copy of the winter Newsletter of History of Science Society and was very pleased to notice an announcement of the Abraham Pais Award among its listings of grants, fellowships and prizes. After two years of hard work by our dedicated Award Committee, word is finally going out to history and physics colleagues about this award “for outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics.” And it is fittingly named in honor of Bram Pais, a great physicist and a noted historian of physics who truly embodies the international spirit of both fields; his spirit will endure in the annual granting of this Award. We now await with great anticipation the submission of nominations for this Award and the naming of its inaugural winner.

It gives me great satisfaction to have served on the Forum’s Award Committee while the Pais Award was becoming a reality. I think we all looked forward to the regular conference calls, usually an hour but sometimes longer, during which we discussed and debated the next steps in establishing the Award, building its endowment, and finalizing the details of how winners are to be determined. This was committee work at its finest, with everyone making major contributions. It would take too many words to enumerate their contributions here, but let me repeat once more their names: Ben Bederson, our indefatigable Chair; Steven Brush; Gloria Lubkin; Harry Lustig; myself; Roger Stuewer; and Spencer Weart representing the American Institute of Physics, which cosponsors the Pais Award with the American Physical Society. We have also received excellent support throughout from the APS development team of Darlene Logan and Sarah Davis.

Fundraising efforts are continuing under the leadership of Harry Lustig, who has assumed the Chair of the Award Committee from Ben, who now has his hands full editing the Forum’s Newsletter. Our goal is eventually to increase the endowment to $200,000, so that the Pais Award can be elevated to the level of a full APS Prize. Thanks to a generous grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, engineered with the aid of Fred Seitz, the endowment now stands at over $130,000, not including a matching Lounsbery grant of $13,000. We urge you to consider adding to this growing endowment in your donation plans.

 During the past year, the Forum has inaugurated one more effort at recognizing important contributions to the history of physics by establishing the Historic Physics Sites Committee at the instigation of Alan Chodos and Judy Franz. As part of the APS activities that will occur during the World Year of Physics 2005, they hope to begin identifying and publicizing U.S. locations and institutions at which major advances occurred in the history of physics. The HPS Committee has been established to advise the APS staff regarding the standards, policies and procedures to be followed in determining and recognizing the most important sites. In naming members of this Committee, I aimed for both geographical and disciplinary diversity. A very distinguished panel has agreed to serve and been confirmed by the Forum Executive Committee: Gordon Baym of the University of Illinois, Sidney Drell of SLAC, Mildred Dresselhaus of MIT, Gerald Holton of Harvard University, and John Rigden of Washington University. They should begin their meetings and deliberations soon.

In both these efforts to celebrate our physics heritage, we must strive to do more than just congratulate our colleagues and institutions for their outstanding achievements. I have always thought that the history of physics is a powerful teaching tool — and at many levels of the educational process. The stories of physics achievements and how they came about serve not only to help communicate the content of our field to those outside it; they also help illustrate how physics is such an integral part of the wider cultural milieu of modernity. Nothing has underscored this connection better than Neal Lane’s article, “Ben Franklin, Civic Scientist,” in the October 2003 issue of Physics Today.  It was Franklin’s experiments on electricity and his international scientific recognition that gained him instant acceptance into French society and its ruling circles — access that proved crucial in gaining France’s financial and military support during the American Revolution.

As I step down from the Chair of this Forum, therefore, I urge my successors, my fellow Executive Committee members and the entire Forum membership to keep this educational purpose in mind as the Pais Award (or, hopefully, Prize) and Historic Physics Sites initiative become realities. There is a danger that these worthy efforts may become yet another case of what newspaper reporters call “inside baseball,” serving only to congratulate our colleagues for jobs well done while the educational possibilities are largely ignored. As the ultimate “meaning” of these important initiatives will be established during their first few years of existence, we cannot relax just yet.

Michael Riordan Forum Chair

      Forum Election [boxed item]

      Forum elections information is contained in this Newsletter. A complete list of candidates along with their biographies and candidate statements is included. Voting however is performed either on the web or by separate mail. By now those with email addresses will have received the ballot, along with the same biographic and candidate statements appearing in this Newsletter. Those without email addresses or incorrect ones should have received mail ballots. Deadline for receipt of ballots is March 26.

Editor’s Note

Abraham Pais Award

Michael Riordan, in his lead piece in this issue, discusses the circumstances surrounding our success in creating the new History of Physics Award, named after Abraham Pais. I would like to add only one item to this discussion. The funds we raised for the Award were almost completely contributed by physicists, and not by others with deep pockets.(There is a notable exception, Mr. Sam Ballen, who contributed generously as a person dedicated to the history of science, and several Foundations also contributed substantially). The initial major impetus for achieving our goal was a double contribution by John and Elizabeth Armstrong, who gave us both an outright grant and an equal matching amount, which stimulated further giving. Virginia Trimble aided significantly in meeting the matching requirement. There were other important amounts contributed by many of our colleagues, too numerous to mention here. I would however like to point out that as of this writing we have received gifts from no fewer than 70 people, almost everyone of them members of our forum. The complete list of donors at the time of this writing is presented in a separate section of this Newsletter.

Changing of the Guard

As is inevitable from time to time, two stalwarts of our Forum are ending their respective tenures of FHP service. I am taking over as Editor of our Newsletter with this issue from Bill Evenson, with Michael Riordan serving in a newly created position as Associate Editor, and Ken Ford is ending his service as Secretary-Treasurer of the Forum.

Bill Evenson (PhD Iowa State University) began his scientific career as a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. Since that time he has held many academic positions, mainly at Brigham Young University, ranging from Assistant Professor in 1970 up to Dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1991. He is currently retiring from  his position at BYU as Professor of Physics, to become Professor of Physics and Associate Dean of Science and Health at Utah Valley State College. He was Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Constanz in 1991. His activities in our Forum include Program Committee member and Chair 1995-97, Nominating Committee 1998-2001, Secretary-Treasurer 1998-2001, as well as Editor of the FHP Newsletter from Vol. VII No.1, Fall 1997 through Vol. IX No.1, Fall 2003. I am sure you can all recognize his splendid performance in this position simply by perusing the various issues of the Newsletter which have appeared under his editorship.

Kenneth W. Ford (Ph D Princeton U) began his scientific career at Los Alamos in 1950, as a Research Assistant. He then held academic positions at Princeton, Brandeis, University of California Irvine and Boston University, then serving as President, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, followed by a stint as Executive Vice President of the University of Maryland System , followed by several other positions in industry and at the American Physical Society, culminating finally as Executive Director and CEO of the American Institute of Physics from 1987-93. Upon his retirement from AIP, he served in several educational positions and finally served as FHP Secretary-Treasurer, from 2002-2004. In between he held numerous other part time and voluntary positions. He is a Fellow of APS. While he claims that his role as Secretary Treasurer was mainly a routine one, I can personally vouch for the fact that his service went well beyond this, and that he has been a solid, invaluable flywheel, keeping FHP running smoothly despite some tendency for it to lurch, from time to time. He leaves FHP in sound fiscal and operational positions

Both Bill Evenson and Ken Ford merit our heartfelt and enthusiastic thanks for their exemplary service on behalf of our Forum.

Invitation to our Members

This Newsletter is meant to be an outlet for the distribution of information to Forum members on all aspects of the history of physics. Our membership, about 3,000 strong, is an invaluable resource for the field. We are happy to offer this venue as a platform for any member whose personal memories and observations are of possible interest to our readers, and I would like you to therefore consider this as an invitation to send in whatever items you think might be worth presenting. In addition the Editor would greatly appreciate being alerted to articles and books in the history of physics, personal and institutional histories, memoirs, and any other works in physics history that would be worth calling to our readers’ attention.

History of Physics NEWSLETTER [boxed item]

The History of Physics Newsletter is published twice yearly by the Forum on History of Physics of the American Physical Society. It is distributed free to all members of the Forum. The Forum also has reciprocal arrangements with History of Science Society, Philosphy of Science Association, and the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science. Nonmembers who wish to receive the Newsletter should make a donation to the Forum of $5 per year (+$3 additional for airmail. Each 3-year volume consists of six issues.

Editor

Benjamin Bederson

Physics Department

New York University

4 Washington Place

New York , NY 10003

ben.bederson@nyu.edu

(212) 998 7695

Associate Editor

Michael Riordan

Institute of Particle Physics

University of California

Santa Cruz, CA 95064

michael@scipp.ucsc.edu

(831) 459 5687

Forum News

Web version vs. paper version of FHP Newsletter:

We have received about half a dozen responses to our inquiry in the Fall 2003 FHP Newsletter inviting your opinions concerning whether to offer our Newsletter exclusively electronically or whether to continue mailing  a paper version to all members in addition to the electronic version. No member expressed the latter opinion. This question  will be considered at the meeting of the FHP Executive Committee during the April APS meeting; its decision will be relayed to our membership expeditiously. Considerable financial saving will result if a paper version is mailed only to those members who request it. Please write the Editor if you still wish to voice your opinion on this issue.

Forum Business and Executive Committee Meetings

The annual Forum Business Meeting will be held at the “April” APS meeting in Denver, CO (actually May 1-4, 2004). The time and place will be posted on the FHP web site. The Forum Executive Committee will also meet at the “April” APS meeting. This meeting is for members of the Executive Committee and guests.

Forum Program for March and April Meetings.

March Meeting

March 22-26, 2004

Montreal Canada

Session D5 - The History of Physics in Canada: Some Highlights.
INVITED session, Monday afternoon, March 22
524AB, Parlays des Congres   

Chair: Robert Romer

[D5.001] Harriet Brooks: Canada’s First Woman Physicist

Geoffrey Rayner-Canham (Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, Memorial University) (in cooperation with Marelene Rayner-Canham)

During those early halcyon days of the study of radioactivity, one young Canadian woman, Harriet Brooks, joined Ernest Rutherford’s group as his first research student. Later, she joined J.J. Thomson’s group in Cambridge and, finally, Marie Curie’s group in Paris. During her short research career, she made several important contributions to science. She investigated the nature of ‘emanation’ from radium; discovered that radioactive substances could undergo successive decay; and first reported the recoil of the radioactive atom. Much of this research was published under her name alone though Rutherford made extensive reference to her discoveries in his Bakerian lecture of 1904.

Brooks life is of interest not only in what she accomplished, but also in the challenges she faced as a pioneering woman scientist in the early part of the twentieth century. In the presentation we will blend the account of her life and work with the societal context. This work was accomplished jointly with Marelene F. Rayner-Canham.

[D5.002] McLennan, Allen and Misener : Low temperature physics at Toronto in 1920-1936 and the discovery of superfluidity.

Allan Griffin (Department of Physics, University of Toronto)

John C. McLennan was the dominating force in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto from 1900-1932. During this period, with great energy and enthusiasm, he built up the Department into a major research laboratory and stimulated many Canadians to do graduate work in physics . With a graduate student Gordon Shrum, McLennan was successful in producing liquid Helium in 1923, the second place outside of Leiden. During the next decade, fundamental work on superconductors and liquid Helium was carried out at Toronto. Besides celebrating the career of McLennan, I will discuss the work of Jack Allen and Don Misener, two of the most famous graduates of this lab in the early 1930s. Misener's rotating cylinder experiment in 1935 measuring the abrupt decrease in the viscosity below the transition gave the first evidence that He II did not behave like a classical fluid. Misener went on to Cambridge University in 1936 for his Ph.D. and joined up with Allen, who had gone there in 1935 as a research fellow. Working together, they observed superfluid flow in thin capillaries in late 1937. New information will be presented on the detailed chronology of events which led to this seminal discovery, and its relation to the independent work of Peter Kapitza in Moscow. I will also speculate on why Allen did not share the Physics Nobel Prize awarded to Kapitza 40 years later.

[D5.003] Gerhard Herzberg and 'The Temple of Science'

Boris P. Stoicheff (Department of Physics, University of Toronto)

By age thirty, Herzberg had attained international status as one of the pioneers of molecular spectroscopy, but he was not wanted in his homeland Germany. In 1935 he found a safe haven at the University of Saskatchewan in the Canadian prairies. With his decade of research there and publication of two of his classic volumes on Molecular Spectra and Molecular Structure, spectroscopy blossomed in Canada. After an interlude of three years at Yerkes Observatory he accepted the challenge offered by the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC) to establish a major laboratory in Ottawa, which in time became one of his and Canada's crowning achievements. In 1971 Herzberg became one of the few physicists (following Rutherford and Debye) to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Along with his preeminent research on the spectra of free radicals, his Spectroscopy Laboratory was highly acclaimed in the Nobel Citation: "the only institutions which have previously played such a role were the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen". A review of Herzberg's many accomplishments in physics, chemistry, and astrophysics will include seminal contributions of Canadians in spectroscopy, as well as a brief history of the NRCC in its golden age.

[D5.004] Brockhouse and others: Neutron Scattering and Condensed Matter Physics at Chalk River Labs

Eric Svensson (National Research Council Canada, Steacie Institute Neutron Program, Chalk River Laboratories, Stn. 18. Chalk River, ON, K0J 1J0 Canada)

Bertram Brockhouse, in brilliant, pioneering work carried out during the period 1950-1962 at Chalk River Laboratories, laid the foundation for the field of inelastic neutron scattering. Bert invented/developed an abundance of new instrumentation (most notably the Triple Axis Crystal Spectrometer) and techniques (most notably the Constant-Q Method) and he and his collaborators carried out a truly impressive number of ground breaking measurements. These included the first determination of phonon dispersion curves (in aluminum in 1955, with Alec Stewart), the first determination of a magnon dispersion curve (in magnetite in 1958), the first measurements of phonons in semiconductors, alkali halides and several other metals, the first measurements of magnons in a metal (cobalt), and the first observation of a Kohn anomaly. Bert Brockhouse was a great scientist with an amazing intuition, but, as he regularly emphasized, the terrific atmosphere for scientific research at Chalk River Labs as well as the outstanding technical support staff and facilities were essential ingredients of his success. He also had unlimited access to, in succession, the NRX and NRU reactors which were, when they were commissioned (in 1947 and 1957) and for several years thereafter, the best research reactors in the world. Bert’s accomplishments were ultimately recognized by the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics, which he shared with Clifford Shull of the United States, Cliff having laid the foundation for the field of elastic neutron scattering. My presentation will focus strongly on the work of Brockhouse, but I will also cover several highlights from the Chalk River program of neutron scattering studies on liquid helium, started in 1952 by Dave Henshaw and Don Hurst. (Don Hurst was the person who hired Bert Brockhouse and charged him with “finding something interesting to do with neutrons”.) The helium program, now running almost continuously for half a century, has been a major focus of my own research. One of its most notable achievements was the first convincing experimental demonstration (in 1982) that there was a substantial Bose-Einstein Condensate in superfluid helium, with the condensate fraction estimated to be approximately 13% at a temperature of 1 K.

 Session H6 - The History of Physics in Industrial Laboratories.
INVITED session, Tuesday morning, March 23
516AB, Palais des Congres

Chair:  Chetan Nayak

[H6.001] From X-Rays to MRI: Physics in GE

Roland W. Schmitt (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

The GE Research Laboratory, founded in 1900, became the first laboratory of scientific research in U.S. industry. William Coolidge, a physicist, joined the laboratory in 1905 and produced two advances of immense importance. The first, ductile tungsten, is still the heart of every incandescent light bulb. The second, the "Coolidge" X-Ray tube, remains an essential tool of modern medicine. In the process, Coolidge explored two main approaches of physics in industry. One addresses a commercial problem or opportunity (better light bulbs) and finds interesting physics. The other explores interesting physics (X-rays) and creates a commercial opportunity. This paper addresses the mix of these approaches during GE's years as an "electric" (and therefore physics-based) company. Episodes include the following: the work of Irving Langmuir (1932 Nobel laureate in chemistry, but as much physicist as chemist); the post-World War II "golden age of industrial physics" when the endless frontier offered opportunities from nuclear power to diamond making to superconductivity; the Nobel-prize winning work of Ivar Giaever; and interdisciplinary efforts that enabled GE to become a world business leader in two medical diagnostic technologies it did not invent: computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. I will speculate on whether this mix of problem-driven and opportunity-driven effort is as relevant to the 21st century as it was to the 20th.

[H6.002] The Rise of Basic Research at the Bell Labs: Young Turks and Younger Turks

Philip Anderson (Princeton University)

ABSTRACT

Even before World War II, a certain amount of fundamental physics research came out of the Bell Labs. Already in the 20's, before the Labs were five years old, the discoveries of electron diffraction by Davisson and Germer, and of thermal noise by Johnson and Nyquist, had come as byproducts of wide-ranging technological studies. By the late '30's, there was a small group of broadly-trained scientists who formed a nucleus around which the "young Turks" in management --J B Fisk, M J Kelly, W Shockley, perhaps others--formed the postwar physical research department, comprising at first perhaps 50 people with a mandate to do exploratory but "relevant" research. This talk will discuss how some of the generation of postwar hires, with the cooperation of enlightened managers like W O Baker and A H White, further tested and enlarged their freedom to do basic, curiosity-driven research in an academic atmosphere. I call this group, consisting of individuals like B T Matthias, G H Wannier, R G Shulman, P A Wolff, myself , and a number of others, the "younger Turks".

[H6.003] The History of Physics at IBM T.J. Watson Laboratories

Allen Fowler (IBM)

Session N7 - Monolayers and Multilayers: Agnes Pockels and Katharine Blodgett.
INVITED session, Wednesday morning, March 24
516C, Palais des Congres

Chair: Ya Yee C. Lee

[N7.001] Agnes Pockels: Life, Letters and Papers

Christiane A. Helm (Institut fur Physik, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Universitat, 17489 Greifswald, Germany)

Agnes Pockels (1862 – 1935) was a German woman, whose studies pioneered surface science. She was born in malaria infected North Italy while her father served in the Austrian army. Because he suffered adverse health effects, the family moved in1871 to Braunschweig (North Germany). There, Pockels went to high school. She was interested in science, but formal training was not available for girls. She took on the role of household manager and nurse as her parents' health deteriorated further. Her diary illustrates the difficulties she faced in trying to maintain her own health, the health of her parents and her scientific research at the same time. When Pockels was 18 or 19, she designed a ring tensiometer. Additionally, she found a new method to introduce water-insoluble compounds to the water surface by dissolving them in an organic solvent, and applying drops of the solution. Her surface film balance technique from 1882 is the basis for the method later developed by Langmuir. Since her experimental work was highly original and in a new field, she failed to get it recognized in her own country. When she was 28, she wrote to Lord Rayleigh, since she had read about his recent experiments in surface physics. Rayleigh was so impressed with her experimental methods and results that he had her letter translated from German and published it in Nature (1891). She continued her research on surface films, interactions of solutions and contact angles (more papers, 3 in Nature). Still, she did all experiments at home. With the death of her brother in 1913 and the onset of the war, she retired into private life. Thus she was surprised when she was awarded in her late 60ies with a honorary doctorate by the TU Braunschweig (1932) and the annual prize of the German Colloid Society (1931).

[N7.002] 100 Years of Monolayers at the Air/Water Interface: Agnes Pockel’s Scientific Legacy

Charles Knobler (Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569)

The experimental methods for the preparation and study of monolayers at the air/water interface devised by Agnes Pockels just over 100 years ago remain fundamental tools for monolayer research. From the standpoint of physics, they have provided an entry to a unique world of two dimensions that continues to attract interest; they and have led to applications in materials and biology. I will draw from recent experiments that show the continuing impact of Pockel’s work in what continues to be a lively area of science.

[N7.003] Katharine B. Blodgett: Aunt, Friend and Physicist

Katharine Gebbie (National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Katharine Blodgett was the Blodgett of Langmuir-Blodgett films. She was the first woman scientist to join the General Electric Company research staff, the first woman to obtain a doctorate from the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, and the first industrial scientist to win the Garvan Medal. She was also my aunt. This talk about her life will include many personal anecdotes and a clip from a 1939 film on Surface Science, the first in the Nobel Science Series made by the American Institute of Motion Pictures. The clip begins with Irving Langmuir demonstrating the behavior of his amphiphilic monolayers at the air-water interface, and then goes on to introduce Katharine Blodgett, who shows the transfer of films from the air-water interface to a solid substrate.

[N7.004] 70 Years of Built-Up Films: Katharine Blodgett's Scientific Legacy

Daniel Schwartz (Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Colorado at Boulder)

While working at the General Electric Research Laboratories in 1934, Katharine Blodgett published a brief account (in JACS) of her success at transferring layers of fatty acids from the water surface to a glass plate layer-by-layer; creating what was arguably the first rationally-designed nanostructured material. These structures would come bear her name along with that of her mentor, Irving Langmuir. Although various commercial applications have been proposed, ranging from anti-reflection coatings to soft X-ray monochromators, Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films have never truly found their way into the marketplace in a significant way. Nevertheless, the scientific interest in LB films remains strong after 70 years because the technique offers a controlled method for building supermolecular assemblies with well-defined molecular arrangement and orientation. LB films have proven extremely useful as a research tool in order to explore fundamental interactions of amphiphilic molecules, chemical reactions in confined geometries, and to create model systems to calibrate and challenge new experimental techniques. From a statistical physics standpoint, LB films offer the possibility of studying the evolution of structure and phase transitions as a molecular system evolves from two to three dimensions. LB methods are also frequently used to create model biological membranes of known composition as well as molecular (or nanoparticle) layers for studies of potential nanoscale optoelectronic devices.

April Meeting

May 1-4 2004

Denver Colorado

Session V8 - Science Advising.
FOCUS session, Tuesday morning, May 04
Governor's Square 17, Adam's Mark Hotel

Chair: Joel Primack

[V8.001 Science and Technology Advice to the President

D. Allan Bromley (Yale University)

Now that a decade has passed it is possible to review more objectively my term as The Assistant to President George H. W. Bush for Science and Technology. This talk will focus on some of the accomplishments and failures that characterized this 1989-1993 period. Prominent among the accomplishments was an unprecedented level of communication and cooperation achieved among some twenty agencies supporting Samp;T, the formal statement of US technology policy and extensive expansion of international cooperation; among the failures was our underutilization of the unique resource offered by PCAST. Let me note, however, that it was both a privilege and pleasure to be a member of George H.W. Bush’s senior staff; he understood the importance of science and technology and provided strong support for it.

[V8.002] Presidential Science Advising from the Atomic Bomb to SDI

Gregg Herken (University of California)

The relationship between American presidents and science has always been surprisingly idiosyncratic. Chief executives from Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan have adopted very different approaches to dealing with the scientific community. The early history of presidential science advising is the story of a few energetic individuals who sought to influence government policy when there was no established method for scientists to approach the White House. President Eisenhower created such a channel in 1957 with the President’s Science Advisory Committee [PSAC]. Under Ike, advising the president became for the first time a systematic and formal enterprise for scientists. But the decades after Sputnik witnesses a steady waning of the importance of the president’s scientists. This decline was accelerated by the Vietnam war and controversies over anti-ballistic missile defense and the supersonic transport, culminating in the abolition of PSAC by the Nixon administration in 1973. To some observers, science advising reached its nadir a decade later, with President Reagan's announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The advent of "Star Wars" demonstrated the influence of a small, select group of politically-active scientists: a consultative process reminiscent of the ad hoc situation pre-PSAC.

[V8.004] On Advising Congress and the President

Jack H. Gibbons

I devoted two decades trying to enable improved access to science and technology issues for elected policymakers, and to bringing trained scientists and engineers into government. After 13 years as Director of OTA and more than five years serving the President as Science and Technology Advisor I can confirm Victor Hugo's observation that "Science says the first word on everything and the last word on nothing." There are strong similarities, but also major differences in the functions of advisor to the Congress vs. advisor to the President. These differences will be discussed by examples; lessons learned will be drawn. The potential contribution from Samp;T analysis/advice to all branches of government is much greater than currently exists. Our community can be more helpful by heeding lessons learned, participating in and reinforcing first-rate analyses, and countering the efforts of those who attempt to make political gains out of purposeful distortions of scientific consensus. Mark Twain once observed that "a lie can travel halfway around the world before truth can put on its shoes." In matters of Samp;T policy our community needs to learn how to put on our shoes more promptly.

[V8.005] The Congressional Science Fellow Program and Other Efforts to Help Congress and the Public Make Wiser Decisions on Technology

Joel Primack (University of California, Santa Cruz)

For thirty years the AAAS Congressional Science and Technology Fellow Program, with which the APS program is affiliated, has been bringing scientists and engineers to work on the staffs of Congress. During the same period, many independent technology policy groups at universities, professional societies including the APS, and non-profit organizations have prepared excellent reports. But despite these efforts, U.S. science and technology policy is often terrible! For example, the current Administration contends that there is not enough scientific evidence of global warming to actually begin to do something to slow the growth in fossil fuel use, but there is plenty of evidence to support deploying a missile defense system now, and we need to be ready to test new generations of nuclear weapons. We scientists must develop a bigger public constituency for good decisions. We need to present, not only sound recommendations backed up by convincing studies, but also wise moral leadership.

Mossbauer Spectroscopy: Various Historical Perspectives

INVITED session, Tuesday morning, May 04
Governor's Square 15, Adam's Mark Hotel
Chair: Catherine Westfall

[W5.001] Early Days and the Beginnings of the Iron Age
John P. Schiffer (Physics Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439)

Work related to the Mössbauer effect will be covered in the period from 1959-60 when the effect was first reported and the original experiments were confirmed. These were followed by the discovery, toward the end of 1959, of a very large effect in 57Fe. The following months saw a period of intense activity as the implications of the discovery were followed up. As many as 5 Letters were published in a single issue of Physical Review Letters, with a turn around time of 2-3 weeks between submission and publication. In the first few months of 1960 a large variety of new physics topics were explored, from hyperfine fields and chemical shifts to relativistic and gravitational effects. [EOB]


[W5.002] The First International; Mossbauer Conference.
Hans Frauenfelder (Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Rudolf Mössbauer’s pioneering paper was published in the Zeitschrift fur Physik in 1958. He once said that he chose this journal because he hoped that nobody would read it so he could pursue his work without competition. He was wrong. It was read mainly in the US and competition rapidly increased. The field developed so fast that the first international conference took place already in June 1960 at the University of Illinois. Less than six weeks passed between the invitations by phone and the conference, every one came, and the proceedings were published equally fast. The sessions went from 0830 to past midnight. This conference has been followed by many others, but the excitement of the first conference has not been forgotten.


[W5.003] One Part Nuclear, One Part Solid State: Fifty Years of Mössbauer Spectroscopy
Catherine Westfall (Argonne National Laboratory)

Starting in 1955 Rudolf Mössbauer conducted experiments that would demonstrate in the next three years that an atomic nucleus in a crystal does not recoil when it emits a gamma ray and provides the entire emitted energy to the gamma ray. The resonance spectroscopy made possible by this discovery led to fifty years of scientific explorations in a wide variety of fields including nuclear and solid state physics, chemistry, and geology. At the current time, Mössbauer spectroscopy is a vital part of science programs, both in many laboratories and at world-class light sources, such as Argonnes Advanced Photon Source. This paper will focus on the history of multidisciplinary Mössbauer research at Argonne National Laboratory and particularly on the interaction between nuclear and condensed matter physicists. This was necessary because of the ultra-high energy resolution of the Mössbauer resonance with its ability to resolve hyperfine interactions between the nuclear moments (nuclear charge distribution, the nuclear magnetic moment, and nuclear quadrupole moment) and corresponding solid state properties (electron charge distribution at the nucleus, magnetic field at the nucleus, and electric field gradient at the nucleus.) Understanding and exploiting Mössbauer spectroscopy therefore required work at the intersection of nuclear and solid state physics and the skills and knowledge of both specialties. The paper will start with the discovery and confirmation of the Mössbauer effect. Then it will outline early important experiments, such as the use of Mössbauer spectroscopy to confirm Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and give an overview of the rapid expansion of this research tool, first with the use of Fe57 and later with the use of other isotopes. In particular the paper will focus on Argonnes cutting-edge Mössbauer work on transuranics. This work built on the resources and expertise first developed at the laboratory during WWII and brought together not only nuclear and condensed matter physicists, but also chemists, material scientists, and others.


[W5.004] Mössbauer Relaxation Phenomena: Spin Fluctuations in the Later Iron Age
Hollis Wickman (National Science Foundation)

The Mössbauer isomer shift, quadrupole interaction, and magnetic hyperfine interaction may each be subject to fluctuations due to various origins: electronic relaxation, atom diffusion, valence fluctuations, etc. In 1963-64, Afanas'ev and Kagan noted that magnetic hyperfine structure might be expected due to slow electronic relaxation in paramagnetic materials. A formal expression for the line shape was derived, but no spectra were computed to illustrate expected effects. Also at this time, a part of my thesis at Berkeley involved Mössbauer and magnetic resonance studies of the small iron storage protein ferrichrome A, which crystallizes with iron in natural magnetic dilution, reducing electronic relaxation rates, leading to line broadening and, ultimately at low temperatures, to spectral features reminiscent of those seen previously in magnetically ordered materials. Using a rate equation approach from the motional narrowing problem in NMR, I was able to simulate the Mössbauer 'relaxation spectra' of ferrichrome A and related materials. Thereafter, many theoretical analyses and spectral simulations followed, dealing with essentially all cases of fluctuating nuclear environments. Of particular interest were papers of Blume and collaborators, 1965-68. The current presentation reprises some modest 'first' observations and analyses of relaxation effects, by the author and collaborators, at Berkeley and Bell Labs, during the "Later Iron Age", ca. 1963 to 1968. They include the first "molecular ferromagnet", and crystal field level crossing and anti crossing spectral effects. Some of these phenomena relate to current areas such as single molecule magnets.

Session S14 - History of Physics.
ORAL session, Monday afternoon, May 03
Plaza Court 3, Adam's Mark Hotel

Chair: Nina Byers

[S14.001] Germany's Failure to Achieve an Atomic Bomb in World War II: Bad Science, Good Intentions or Neither?

Harry Lustig (City College of New York, emeritus)

This is a progress report on a project to find a definitive answer to the disputed question why the Germans did not succeed in building an atomic bomb. The most extreme answers among those that have been put forward are, on the one hand, that Werner Heisenberg did not understand the difference between a nuclear reactor and a bomb and, on the other, that German scientists dragged their feet because they wanted to deny this weapon of mass destruction to Hitler. From an examination of a number of the German scientific reports on their Uranium Project and of other sources, it seems evident that any early idea of a bomb being a run-away reactor was soon replaced by the realization that a bomb required fast neutrons and close to pure uranium 235. As for the hypothesis that the scruples of German scientists played a significant role in preventing a German atomic bomb, the available records appear to negate that explanation as well. Rather, the minuscule resources devoted to the project, the lack of German industrial capacity, the poorly organized and decentralized organization of the research, and the modus operandi of researchers, including Heisenberg, of simultaneously pursuing other interests, doomed the prospect of getting a bomb.

[S14.002] Bonebrake Theological Seminary - Most Secret A-Bomb Project Site

Katherine R. Sopka, Elisabeth M. Sopka (FOCAS - Four Corners Analytic Sciences)

In late 1943, a small number of nuclear scientists was urgently assembled in Dayton, Ohio by the U.S. Army Manhattan District Engineers and Monsanto Chemical Company Research Division to set up a top secret research project essential to counteract the German atomic bomb threat. The site chosen was an old stone building built in 1879 by the United Brethren Church in a residential area known locally as the Bonebrake Seminary. Centered on a sizeable open plot, the austere three story building was surrounded by a tall cyclone fence with a narrow gate and a minimal guard post - nothing revealed the site’s intense research activity then or even in the post-WWII Cold War period. Bonebrake scientists would produce the highly radioactive polonium sources for the plutonium (Pu-239) bomb igniter used in August over Nagasaki just before the end of WWII against Japan. The existence of Bonebrake and its research/production work remained classified top secret throughout the Cold War. Only in recent times can any reference be found even to the existence of this project (unlike , for example, Los Alamos or Oak Ridge) and few, if any details, have ever been published. The primary source of information for this paper is Dr. John J. Sopka who was recruited from Princeton University by the Manhattan District in 1943 as physicist for this project.

[S14.003] Early electron-atom scattering and its influence in the development of quantum mechanics

Benjamin Bederson (New York University)

I discuss the role played by atomic collision physics in the early development of quantum mechanics. The most obvious, and dramatic, case was of course the Franck-Hertz experiment, which was what could be categorized as the first energy-loss experiment. This dramatically connected the previously known spectroscopic data, which revealed stationary eigenstates, to the dynamic interactions between particles that nevertheless referred to those same energy states. Not quite as well known, however, was the very early elastic electron-atom collision experiments, eventually leading to the Townsend-Ramsauer effect, that was in effect the first electron interference experiments, directly, or perhaps indirectly, confirming the wave-like properties of electrons. I will review the long, but direct line that led from early classical wave scattering theory, as exemplified in the late 1800's by Rayleigh's analysis of the scattering of plane sound waves by spheres, through the Faxen-Holtsmark and Morse-Allis use of essentially the same formalism, but adapted to non-relativistic wave mechanics. Other examples of early collision experiments will also be discussed.

[S14.004] Newton's diffraction measurements

Michael Nauenberg (University of California Santa Cruz)

This year marks the tercentenary of the publication of Newton's Opticks which contains his celebrated theory and experiments of light and colors as it evolved from the first published version in 1672. It is still fairly unknown, however, that in this book Newton also reported his experiments on diffraction fringes obtained from various "slender" objects placed in a beam of sunlight. These experiments posed an insurmountable difficulty to Newton's corpuscular theory of light, which failed to account for his observations. This failure explains the long delay in the publication of this book. In my talk I will compare Newton's experimental results on diffraction with the predictions of Fresnel's wave theory to demonstrate that his measurements were remarkable accurate. Eventually these measurements paved the way for Young's correct explanation of the diffraction fringes as a wave interference phenomenon.  

[S14.005] THE QUEST FOR OTHER WORLDS

Virginia Trimble (Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD and Univ. of California, Irvine, CA)

In the 4^th century BCE, Epicurus taught that there are an infinite number of worlds like (and unlike) ours, and Aristotle taught that there is only one. Neither hypothesis can currently be falsified. Over the ensuing millennia, the concept of aperoi kosmoi (plurality of worlds, or plenitude) has had four rather different meanings, each with a modern descendent, and all conceivably true. Some interpretations permit direct observation and knowledge of other worlds; some do not. The talk will explore these, ending with a précis of recent searches for planets orbiting other stars.

[S14.006] Karl Popper's Quantum Ghost

William Shields (Virginia Tech)

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