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Volume 47 (2015), Number 2 History Newsletter & Volume 47 (2015), Number 2 Voices of the Past Reimagined By Amanda Nelson, Associate Archivist, Niels Bohr Library & Archives For more than 50 years, AIP has interviewed audio excerpts, with the ability to search key browsing functions, including: “Topics and preserved the stories of outstanding the full text of all transcripts; and it lists the discussed in this interview”; institutions, physical scientists, most of them Member newest available transcripts and a selection subjects, and people mentioned in the in- Society members. From 2007 to 2013 with of audio excerpts. terview, which allows users to see a list of the help of two National Endowment for the other interviews discussing a chosen topic; Humanities (NEH) grants, the Niels Bohr Li- Transcript pages now integrate with the rest and “Related images”—up to five images brary and Archives placed over 1,000 of the of the history web pages with easy access to from ESVA related to the interview. 1,500 oral history interview tran- scripts in our collection online. The search results page gives us- This initiative made interviews ers all the information on an in- with luminaries like Niels Bohr, terview, a photo (if available), Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, and the beginning of the abstract. Richard Feynman, and hundreds Results are shown in order of rel- of others globally available. evance. The search results page also allows users to filter searches In 2014, our transcripts were using the institutions and subjects; viewed over 130,000 times and this ability to refine searches saves used in a variety of research proj- time for more efficient research. ects and published works. This past year we’ve been hard at work upgrad- our other collections, including the Emilio Experience how history comes alive through ing the web pages and adding new features, Segrè Visual Archives (ESVA); features ex- the words of those who have dedicated their thus making it easier than ever before to pandable tabs with background information lives to advancing the physical sciences. browse and search the transcripts. We wel- about the transcript, including disclaimer We invite you to spend some time perus- come you to use the new website and to information, preferred citation, abstract, ing this resource and hope that you find it keep coming back, as more interviews con- and whether an audio excerpt is avail- useful and inspiring. Please note, with these tinue to be added as they become available. able; and makes searching and browsing updates the URLs for the interviews have the entire transcript collection easy, with changed, so make sure to update any book- AIP’s new oral history home page enables prominent functions at the top/right of ev- marks you have to them. For any questions visitors to efficiently browse transcript and ery page. Transcript pages now also display or comments, please email [email protected]. In this issue... Voices of the Past Reimagined � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1 Visit from National History Day Competitors � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 9 Dualities Worth Knowing in the History of Physics� � � � � � � � � � � � 2 Niels Bohr Library & Archives Director Joe Anderson Retires � � � � � �11 A Profile in American Innovation: A Lyne Starling Trimble New Digital Repository for Books and Manuscripts � � � � � � � � � � �12 Science Heritage Public Lecture � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 2 Additions to NBLA �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �12 Recording the History of Mauna Kea Astronomy � � � � � � � � � � � � � 3 Projects Underway by the Postdoctoral Historian � � � � � � � � � � � �13 Recent Grants in Aid �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 4 History of Uranium Mining: The Last Brown Bag Talk of 2014 �� � � � � �14 Scholarly Visitors to the Center for History of Physics �� � � � � � � � � � 6 Teacher’s Workshop Report: Telling the Stories of Women and Through Worlds and Words: The Reception of the ‘Great Debate’ in Early African Americans in Physics �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �14 20th-Century American Popular Science and Science-Fi Literature � � 6 American Institute of Physics Launches Centennial Exhibit on Shaping a Middle Ground: Emergence of the AGU Committee on the Theory of General Relativity� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �16 Environmental Quality, 1970-1974 �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 7 The Role of Space Exploration in Cold War Diplomacy� � � � � � � � � �18 Charles Galton Darwin and the Statistical Conservation of Energy� � � � 7 Documentation Preserved � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �20 The Beginnings of a Scientific Peak: Post WWII Sun-Earth Connection Research in Boulder, Colorado � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 8 Cover Image: The Niels Bohr Library & Archives Oral Histories page found Stealing the Rift, Missing Fracture Zones and Magnetic Anomalies� � � � 9 at www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories� AIP Member Societies: Acoustical Society of America • American Association of Physicists in Medicine • American Association of Physics Teachers • American Astronomical Society • American Crystallographic Association • American Meteorological Society • American Physical Society • AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing • The Optical Society • The Society of Rheology Dualities Worth Knowing in the History of Physics By Leonardo Colletti, University of Trento, Italy Physics, like most academic disciplines, is essary concepts and experiences. Neverthe- plurality of interpretations and/or a syn- ever growing. Pressed by competition and less, I see university courses in the History thesis. These dualities include contrasts by the fast pace of discoveries, physicists of Physics as an opportunity to preserve a between Galileo and Bacon, Newtonian- work in ever-specializing subfields, com- background unity of the discipline and to ism and mechanicism, Popper and Kuhn, pelled by investors and patrons to focus emphasize its deep cultural connections. and instrumentalism and realism before on technological advancements. A conse- and after quantum mechanics. I describe quence of this is that the cultural content of History of Physics is an opportunity to physics concepts as “semantic-increment physics is at risk of being forgotten: a major keep physics connected with history, phi- generators,” i.e., as structures of thought enterprise of humanity to understand the losophy, art, and all that is usually meant able to add meaning also when used met- universe, physics seems unable to say any- by “culture.” I consider a few historical aphorically outside their technical ground. thing concerning the meaning of existence. themes indispensable for the cultural for- mation of physicists. I present them in the This didactic approach, through dualities, What can be done to rectify this tendency? form of dualities, i.e., polarities of thought highlights the cultural issue at stake and Unfortunately, the to-do list for a young which exhaust most of each argument, al- helps students remember these critical as- physicist-to-be is already packed with nec- though without excluding, of course, a pects of physics. (See Good’s article, p. 6.) A Profile in American Innovation: A Lyne Starling Trimble Science Heritage Public Lecture By Greg Good, Director, Center for History of Physics Heritage Lecture, given by Dr. Lillian Hod- phase-change memory. deson, a well-known historian of the phys- ical sciences. Hoddeson was awarded the Hoddeson traced Ovshinsky’s unorthodox 2012 Abraham Pais Prize “for her leadership methods to his upbringing. He was born and contributions to writing the history of in Akron, Ohio, in 1922, where his mother 20th-century physics, her pioneering stud- and father had settled after emigrating from ies of American research labs—particularly Lithuania and Belarus. His father collected Bell Labs, Los Alamos, and Fermilab—and scrap metal from factories, and Stan’s first her perceptive biography of John Bardeen.” jobs in his teens were as a tool maker and machinist. His ideas came from materials Hoddeson spoke movingly of the enthusi- and processes. He was always at home in astically unconventional scientist and entre- industrial settings. preneur, Stanford Ovshinsky, whose biogra- phy she is currently writing. Ovshinsky was During World War II, Ovshinsky conceived important in establishing the investigation of his first successful invention, a high- of amorphous and disordered materials, but speed, center-drive lathe, while working in he was not bound by disciplinary identifica- tool shops for the rubber industry. He estab- tion. Hoddeson quoted Richard Zallen (pro- lished his first company, a machine shop, fessor emeritus of physics, Virginia Tech) as to develop this lathe, patent it, and sell it. Stanford R. Ovshinsky (1922–2012), August 2005. saying, “What Stan does is not science. It’s In the 1950s, he directed research for the Photographed by Glenn Triest for Style magazine. more interesting than science.” Hupp Motor Company and broadened his Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. interests to include machine intelligence Hoddeson described Ovshinsky’s intuitive and cybernetics. He and his brother found- Stanford Ovshinsky was an American sci- and visual approach, his willingness to forge ed another company, General Automation, entist who approached invention with in- ahead with trials and experiments based on with this general interest, which they com- tuition and drive. He founded
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