Burton Richter Papers, 1952-1999 Collection SLAC002 Archives & History Office SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University
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Guide to Burton Richter Papers, 1952-1999 Collection SLAC002 Archives & History Office SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University Descriptive Summary Title: Burton Richter Papers, 1952-1999 Collection number: SLAC002 Creator: Burton Richter Extent: 141 cubic feet Repository: Stanford University. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Archives & History Office. Administrative Information Access Restrictions: The US government materials are restricted until they are 30 years old; Stanford administrative records are restricted until 20 years old. Portions of this collection are open for research; materials must be requested at least 5 working days in advance of intended use. Unprocessed records are open only to the records creators. Other restrictions on access may apply to records of a sensitive or confidential nature, or to records relating to ongoing research programs and activities. Publication Rights: All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Archivist, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road MS88, Menlo Park CA 94025. Consent is given on behalf of the SLAC Archives and History Office as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright owner, if the material is copyrighted. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/history/rules.shtml and also http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html. Provenance: The following accessions are now part of these processed Burton Richter Papers: 1991-014, 1991-027, 1991-028, 1991-029, 1991-033, 1991-035, 1991-042, 1992-030, 1992-035, 1992-036, 1992-042, 1992-052, 1992-053, 1992-054, 1992-055, 1992-056, 1992-057, 1992-058, 1992-059, 1992-060, 1992-064, 1992-077, 1993-001, 1993-002, 1993-003, 1993-004, 1993-005, 1993-018, 1993-026, 1993-027, 1994-003, 1995-002, 1995-003, 1996-009, 1996-017, 1996-028, 1996-040, 1997-003, 1997-013, 1997-014, 1997-015, 1997-016, 1997-017, 1998-030, 1998-031, 1998-032, 1998-033, 1998-034, 1998-035, 1998-036, 1998-037, 1998-038, 1998-039, 1998-040, 1998-041, 1998-042, 1998-043, 1998-044, 1998-045, 1998-046, 1998-047, 2000-018, 2000-019, 2000-020. These accessions were transferred to the Archives by Richter’s office staff over a period of approximately ten years. Preferred Citation: Office of the Director, Burton Richter Papers. Series title, Subseries title, container number, folder title. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Archives & History Office, Stanford, CA Processed by: Jean Marie Deken, William O’Hanlon, and Laura O’Hara, with assistance from Pennington Ahlstrand, Kelly Chatwell, Bryan Johnson, Jennifer McCann, Fillmeisha Randall, Kathy Restaino, Irene Sanchez, and Mark Walters. This work was supported in part by the Department of Energy contract DE-AC02-76SF00515 and by the Richard Lounsbery Foundation and the Friends of the Center for History of Physics, American Institute of Physics. 1 Biographical Note Burton Richter is the Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences Emeritus at Stanford University and Director Emeritus of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, the Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Woods Environmental Institute Dr. Richter's honors and awards include the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics, the E. O. Lawrence Medal of the U. S. Department of Energy, the 2007 Phillip Hauge Abelson Prize by the AAAS, and the 2011 Fermi Award, a Presidential award for lifetime achievement. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society; Fellow and President (1994) of the American Physical Society; Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Past President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Dr. Richter received his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his career at Stanford in 1956 as a Research Associate in the High-Energy Physics Laboratory. He became a full professor in 1967 and was given an endowed Chair in 1980. He became Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, as it was known then, in 1984 and served in that position until 1999. He retired from the University faculty in 2006. Before becoming SLAC Director his research focused on development of electron-positron colliding-beam systems and the research done with them. As SLAC Director he oversaw the transformation of the laboratory from a single-purpose High-Energy Physics lab to a multiprogram laboratory in HEP, synchrotron-radiation based photon science, and space-based astro-particle physics. After stepping down as Director at SLAC he has focused on energy and climate issues, writing articles and his recent book, Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate and Energy in the 21st Century, winner of the 2011 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book of ‘the Year award. He is a member of the DOE’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Board and chairs its Fuel Cycle subcommittee; the DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Advisory Committee; and the Board of Directors, Litel Instruments. Richter has been a member of the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board; Advisory Committee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory; member of the Board of Directors, Varian Associates and Varian Medical Systems; member of the Director's Council, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; member of the International Committee for Future Accelerators; and chair of the U.S. Liaison Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He has over 300 publications in high- energy physics, accelerators, and colliding beam systems. 2 Selected Chronology 1931 March 22: Born in New York, the elder child of Abraham and Fanny Richter 1952 June: B.S. (Course 8 - Physics), Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1956 September: Ph.D. (Course 8 - Physics), Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1956-1960 Research Associate, High-Energy Physics Laboratory, Stanford University 1960 Married Laurose Becker 1960-1963 Assistant Professor, Physics Department, Stanford University 1963-1967 Associate Professor, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University 1967-2006 Professor, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University 1974 Loeb Lecturer, Harvard University 1975 DeShalit Lecturer, Weizmann Institute 1976 E. O. Lawrence Medal, U. S. Department of Energy; Nobel Prize in Physics 1977 Elected to National Academy of Sciences 1980- Paul Pigott Professor of Physical Sciences, Stanford University 1982-1984 Technical Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University 1984-1999 Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University 1989 Elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1994 President, American Physical Society 1996-1999 President Designate, International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) 1999-2002 President, IUPAP 1999- Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University 2000 Astor Visiting Lecturer, Oxford University 2000-2006 Member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) 2001 Laurea Honoris Causa in Fisica, University di Pisa 2002-2006 Executive Board, International Council for Science (ICSU) 2003 Elected to American Philosophical Society 2003-2006 Chair of the National Research Council’s Board on Physics and Astronomy 2006 Retired from Stanford University faculty 2007 Phillip Hauge Abelson Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Science 2011 Phi Beta Kappa Book of the Year Award Enrico Fermi Award 3 Scope & Content The Richter papers document Burton Richter’s role in modern physics as a scientist, administrator, and advisor. The collection includes personal and professional correspondence, memoranda, clippings, reports, minutes, research notes, presentations, proposals, publications, reprints, and photographs relating to Dr. Richter's career at Stanford including his involvement with and participation in Stanford University governance; his work as an administrator and scientist at SLAC particularly administration of the lab’s research, technical, and business affairs; his involvement in science policy development and review in the United States and abroad; and his participation in the development of storage ring physics at Stanford University and in the design and development of the SPEAR storage ring at SLAC. Also included are materials regarding the Nobel Prize lecture and publicity. Scientific topics include background and technical information on experimental program and projects, including SLAC accelerator facilities (the linear accelerator (linac), Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), Stanford Positron Electron Accelerating Ring (SPEAR), Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Project (SSRP) later Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL), PEP Positron Electron Project (PEP), PEP-II, BaBar, and Next Linear Collider (NLC). Of particular interest are records of early storage ring research and development including experiment proposals and logbooks for the 500 MeV colliding ring at the High-Energy Physics Laboratory (HEPL), CBX counter and data notebooks, and the "Report of the HEPAP Subpanel on Colliding Beams, 1966" as well as records regarding the construction of SPEAR and the SP-17 collaboration which discovered the psi particle. Included are the proposals to the Atomic