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History of the APL Colloquium, Covering Its First Four Decades Through 1988, Has Been Previously Described in the Technical Digest

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D. m. siLVer The ApL colloquium David M. Silver The ApL Colloquium has been a 59-year tradition at the Laboratory. The lectures are held weekly, generally from October to May, and cover an eclectic range of topics. The early history of the ApL Colloquium, covering its first four decades through 1988, has been previously described in the Technical Digest. The present article highlights some of the history of the institution and provides a chronological inventory of the colloquium lectures from 1988 to 2006. INTRODUCTION A colloquium is a meeting for the exchange of views staff on what is currently exciting, relevant, and of value covering a broad range of topics, usually led by a differ- to the work and people of ApL. ent lecturer on a different topic at each meeting, and The colloquium schedule has been chronicled in pre- followed by questions and answers. A colloquium series vious Technical Digest articles, beginning with the first is aimed at a diverse audience and differs from a seminar issue in 1961 of the precursor APL Technical Digest.1 series, which tends to be geared to specialists in the field This tradition has continued to the present in the and is consequently more restrictive and esoteric with Digest, where the “miscellanea” section regularly con- respect to the topics covered. given this distinction tains a list of recent colloquia (the Laboratory has tradi- between colloquium and seminar, the ApL Colloquium tionally used the Latin plural, colloquia, rather than the is certainly rightly named, covering an eclectic range of english form, colloquiums). The early history and first topics intended to appeal to the ApL staff in general. four decades of the colloquium through 1988 have been The ApL Colloquium, begun in 1947, is held weekly, described in another previous issue of the Digest in an generally on Friday afternoons from October to May, and article by ernest gray and Albert stone.2 is one of the longest standing technical and scientific Although information regarding the earliest days lecture series in the Washington/baltimore area. The was fragmentary (there were no surviving records from goal of the colloquium has been to bring to the Labo- that period), Gray and Stone managed to provide the ratory scientific scholars, technical innovators, industry flavor of the colloquium series and some specifica- leaders, government sponsors, military personnel, policy tion of memorable speakers, some of whom were or makers, authors, journalists, commentators, and pho- later became nobel Laureates. speakers through the tographers to inform, educate, and enlighten Laboratory 1950s included Jesse Beams, Robert H. Dicke, C. Stark 278 Johns hopkins ApL TechnicAL DigesT, VoLume 26, number 3 (2005) The ApL coLLoQuium Draper, scott Forbush, buckminster Fuller, george quickly broadened in scope to include the entire ApL gamow, peter goldmark, Donald r. griffin, marc community. The early lecture series was held late on kac, herman kahn, polykarp kusch (later awarded Friday afternoons at the Laboratory’s 8621 georgia the nobel prize), otto neugebauer, Franco rasetti, Avenue facility in Silver Spring. Robert Herman was in then captain hyman rickover, richard b. roberts, charge of the colloquium from 1947 to 1955, when he Arnold siegert, s. Fred singer, John c. slater, nobel left the Laboratory. Laureate harold c. urey, John A. Wheeler, nobelist Albert Stone took over and ran the colloquium from eugene Wigner, and nobelist chen n. Yang. 1955 to 1961. At the start of this period, the William S. starting with 1960 through 1988, gray and stone parsons Auditorium in the then-new howard county were able to give a year-by-year summary of colloquium facility was phased in as the venue for the colloquium, speakers. The list of notable presenters included the with the first one held there on 21 October 1955. Parsons following. 1960s: William s. Albright, nobelist nico- Auditorium greatly expanded the colloquium accessibil- laas Bloembergen, Richard W. Courant, Nobelist Peter ity with its capacity of 200 participants. The tradition Debye, Milton S. Eisenhower, Nobelist Leon M. Leder- of having a colloquium luncheon for the speaker and man, margaret mead, nobelist marshall W. niren- attended by a small number of ApL staff was also estab- berg, and Nobelist Norman F. Ramsey. 1970s: Nobelist lished. In 1961, Stone handed over the responsibility of hannes Alfvén, Amar g. bose, Wernher von braun, running the colloquium to ernest gray. Louis b. Leakey, Arnall patz, nobelist ilya prigogine, gray held the reins from 1961 until he retired in 1994. paul s. sarbanes, Joseph D. Tydings, James A. Van During this 33-year period, between 25 and 30 colloquia Allen, and e. bright Wilson. 1980s: harold brown, per year—around 900 colloquium lectures—were con- nobelist Melvin Calvin, W. Edwards Demming, Nobel- ducted under Gray’s command. One of the innovations ist Riccardo Giacconi, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Paul W. during this period started in November 1961, when all klipsch, Philip E. Leakey, Nobelist Alan G. MacDiar- colloquia were audiotaped and then, by 1962, videotaped. mid, Hans Mark, Elliott W. Montroll, Nobelist Daniel Video permitted the lectures to be transmitted on closed nathans, Raold Z. Sagdeev, Nobelist Herbert A. Simon, circuit to remote TV monitors in the Howard County solomon H. Snyder, and Jerome B. Wiesner. In addition, cafeteria whenever the audience exceeded the capacity the colloquium also featured several ApL staff members of Parsons Auditorium. Copies of the videotapes in VHS as speakers each year. format were deposited in ApL’s r. e. gibson Library The present article provides a few brief highlights so that staff members who had to miss a lecture could of the history of the ApL Colloquium and documents catch up later. In 1969, a weekly Colloquium Informa- activities from 1988 to 2006. tion Sheet and a monthly colloquium schedule were dis- tributed to the ApL staff. The Colloquium Information sheet provided a half-page biography of the speaker and HIGHLIGHTS OF APL COLLOQUIUM a half-page synopsis of the talk. The Kossiakoff Center HISTORY opened in 1983, allowing some colloquia to be held in The founder of the ApL colloquium was robert the much larger 500-seat auditorium. Also in 1983, live herman (now deceased), whose initial conception in broadcast of the colloquium lecture to Homewood via a 1947 was a scientific research lecture series intended microwave link to TV monitors in Maryland Hall was for the ApL Research Center staff, but the colloquium instituted, but eventually abandoned in 2004. Colloquium Leaders Robert Herman Albert Stone Ernest Gray Kishin Moorjani 1947–1955 1955–1961 1961–1994 1994–2002 Johns hopkins ApL TechnicAL DigesT, VoLume 26, number 3 (2005) 279 D. m. siLVer kishin Moorjani became the next colloquium leader colloquium is held early in the colloquium year and is in 1994. A colloquium website, www.jhuapl.edu/collo- presented by an ApL staff member. The list of speak- quium, was established in 1995, providing the schedule of ers in this series follows: Frederick s. billig, Wayne talks and an archive of previous talks. Starting in 1999, A. Bryden, Denis J. Donohue, James Franson, Robert the website included an author biography and topic syn- Fry, Tom krimigis, Donald g. mitchell, John som- opsis for each colloquium. In late 2001, the Colloquium merer, James c. spall, Joseph J. suter, and paul J. information Sheet and the monthly colloquium sched- Waltrup. ule transitioned from paper sent to the staff to an elec- With the beginning of the 21st century, eight collo- tronic version e-mailed to staff. However, the recipients quia were held and designated “millennial Challenges: on the external mailing list continued to receive paper colloquia 2000.” The speakers in this series shared their announcements. moorjani was in charge of the collo- expectations and speculations for the new century in the quium from 1994 until his retirement in 2002, whereupon areas of national security, space science and technology, i was given the task of running the colloquium. and education. The list of speakers in this series was as in 2003, a colloquium feedback page was added to the follows: William R. Brody, Frank L. Fernandez, Daniel S. colloquium website to provide a mechanism for com- goldin, Shirley Ann Jackson, then Rear Admiral Michael ments, suggestions, and evaluations of the lectures. Also g. Mullen, then Admiral Rodney P. Rempt, Richard T. that year, the distribution of the Colloquium Informa- roca, Robert Skinner Jr., and Virginia Trimble. An issue tion Sheet and schedule transitioned to a fully electronic of the Technical Digest documents these lectures.3 mailing, with the commencement of e-mail to external Following 9/11, 15 colloquia were held through the recipients. Another development in 2003 was the move 2001–2003 period labeled “The New Critical Challenge: to record the colloquium lectures on DVD-r, in addi- The War on Terrorism.” These colloquia dealt with tion to VHS, for deposit in the Gibson Library, where aspects of the terrorist threat, bioterrorism, counterterror- they are available for viewing or borrowing. ism, defense policies, legal issues, military responses, and intelligence concerns. The list of speakers was as follows: SPECIAL COLLOQUIA stephen Biddle, Marius Deeb, Richard D. Fisher Jr., Vicki During the year, there are certain special colloquia. Freimuth, sheldon greenberg, richard haver, bruce one of them is the Archie I. Mahan Colloquium, held hoffman, James F. Jarboe, edward mackerrow, brad- annually since its inauguration in December 1991. Under ley roberts, s. Frederick starr, peter F. Verga, michael the provisions of his will, former ApL staff member Dr. Vlahos, ruth Wedgwood, and r. James Woolsey. mahan bequeathed a sum of money to ApL to establish a Two additional special colloquia are held each year special memorial fund in his name, to invest the money to focus on the diversity of talent in two communities.
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