DOCSLIB.ORG

Under the Radar

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Under the Radar Under the Radar Physics, Engineering, and the Distortion of a World War Two Legacy A thesis presented by Raphael Chayim Rosen to The Department of the History of Science in partial fulfillment for an honors degree in History and Science Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts March 2006 Under the Radar Physics, Engineering, and the Distortion of a World War Two Legacy Raphael Chayim Rosen Abstract This thesis examines the historical legacy of microwave radar development during World War II. At the M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory in 1940-1941, physicists attempted to construct a working microwave radar set. These physicists heavily relied upon engineering skills: focusing on enhancing the efficiency and efficacy of specific components of radar technology. In the postwar era, as a result of the new celebrity of physicists, their wartime inventions, including microwave radar, became associated with physics itself, not engineering. The community of engineers lacked the authority and recognition necessary to reclaim a share of the credit for their discipline. Physicists never emphasized engineering’s importance, because they did not see it as containing independent forms of knowledge or creativity and so did not believe it had played a key role in their inventiveness. This thesis concludes with a brief investigation of engineering’s endogenous forms of knowledge and their relation to the Radiation Laboratory. Keywords M.I.T. Radiation Laboratory Microwave Radar World War II Engineering History of Physics Public Opinion Epistemology Contents Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………..5 Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 7 One: Engineering Ascendant…………………………………………………….. 14 Irradiating the Heavens: Radar Physics in November 1940…………. 21 Targets Acquired: Radar Components in November 1940…………... 24 In “The Hour of Peril and Need”: Rad Lab Engineering…………….. 34 Physics Research at the Rad Lab: Complication and Resolution…..... 48 Two: Engineering Descendant…………………………………………………… 54 Withering Laurels: Engineering’s Immediate Postwar Reception…… 55 Popular Opinion and the Indomitable Postwar Physics……………… 66 The Dark Shadow: Engineering in Disrepute………………………... 71 The Adulterated Rad Lab Legacy……………………………………. 80 Three: Engineering Divergent……………………………………………………... 92 Physicist versus Engineer at the Rad Lab and Beyond………………. 94 Scientific Potentate, Engineering Vassal…………………………….. 100 Towards an Epistemology of Engineering…………………………… 108 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………. 118 Appendix: Key Radar Terms Explained…………………………………………… 120 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………….. 121 Acknowledgements “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” -Winston Churchill Shawn Mullet, thank you for your invariable ebullience, your indefatigable support, and your ready willingness to assist. Your breadth of knowledge on the relevant history and guidance through it kept me on track, and, more importantly off innumerable fruitless and tortuous ones. Even brief discussions with you could transform inchoate ideas into concrete, cogent arguments. Thank you truly. Professor Sarah Jansen, for your robust confidence, your warmhearted excitement, and your insistence upon pinpointing the heart of the argument, I am deeply appreciative. Thank you for pressing me to always consider the consequential questions and to make them known. Most of all, thank you for stressing the importance of enjoying the process; you helped keep my head level. Professor Steven Shapin, thank you for helping me paddle through the unfamiliar bog of innovation studies and the literature on the epistemology of engineering. Professor Cathryn Carson and Professor David Henkin, your thoughtful recommendations were acutely helpful in clarifying my thoughts. To Professor Charles Rosenberg, Professor Daniel Kevles, Professor Robert Pound, Professor Gerald Holton, thank you all for sharing your insights and stories and advice with me. To Rebecca Press Schwartz, thank you for a copy of your intriguing study. Professor Steven Peter Rosen, I sincerely thank you for your open ear and candor. Our animated discussions of radar history, military secrecy, and the research process are some of my fondest memories of the thesis writing process. Thank you to the Olin foundation for your generous travel grant. Thank you to Matthew Lazen and the Harvard College Research Program for your financial support as well. Frederic Burchsted, for being superman and guiding me to terrific sources even while suffering from the flu, I am extremely grateful. Chapter two would simply not exist without your help. Your mind is the encyclopedia of encyclopedias, and my project would have perished many times over without your help. To all the archivists and librarians that assisted me, thank you for your patience and thought. Thank you Joan Gearin of the National Archives for your prompt assistance and cheerful recommendations. To Nora Murphy and Jeffrey Mifflin at M.I.T, to David Farrell and David Kessler at UC Berkeley, and to Margaret Kimball at Stanford, your assistance is also heartily appreciated. Jean-Francois Gauvin, thank you once again for your lucid criticism. This thesis was far less considered and careful without your assistance. Your tutelage over the past three years has been the brightest spot of my time studying the history of science. Peter Buck, Ben Rapoport, and especially Allie Belser, thank you for your many little recommendations. Stef Tung, many thanks for being my authority on postmodern “authors.” Sharrona Pearl, Jacob Aptekar, and Andrea Maxwell: without your help, this thesis, like the credit owed to its subject, would have been terribly muddled. My friends, thank you for your patience and understanding. Jeanette LGW, for your equanimity and compassion and love, I am and will forever be unspeakably grateful. To my family, the constancy of your love and support have been the greatest blessings I know. To the Rosen family, southwest region, thank you Michael and Debbie for your love and your humor. Eytan and Danya, thank you for being the stars of my computer desktop and bringing a smile to my face every morning. To Gavri and Jesse, thank you for your love and your concern. I simply could not have made the writing clean without your thorough vacuuming of it. To my Bubbie and Zaydie for always supporting me and believing in me, thank you. Zaydie, I’ve always loved your many radar and Navy stories; maybe one day we’ll find those old manuals after all. Bubbie, your tremendous love and zeal for your family have always inspired me. Ema and Abba, for awakening in me, more than anyone else, an appreciation of the infinite blessings this life has to offer; and for breeding within me an insatiable love of truth and a sedulous work ethic, I am extremely thankful. The help you all gave has brought this thesis to life. This thesis is dedicated with sempiternal gratitude to all the physicists and engineers (and the methods they used) who defeated the U-boat and assisted the landings at Normandy so that the Nazi tyranny might be put to rest. Introduction “And yet, through the gloom and the light The fate of a nation was riding that night.” -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in “Paul Revere’s Ride”1 On January 4, 1941, history repeated itself. Nearly two centuries earlier, Paul Revere had stood on the on bank of the Charles River, awaiting a signal from the opposite shore in Boston. Legend has it that when two lanterns flickered in Boston’s Old North Church, Revere sped through Middlesex County sounding the alert of a British advance. That night, the nation’s survival rested in the hands of a silversmith and his steed. Then, in 1941, atop building six of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a team of physicists peered across the Charles River, also anticipating a signal. On the screen of the first operational American microwave radar system, a faint arc appeared.2 It represented the dome of Boston’s Christian Science Mother Church. Their radar set had seen across the river.3 In 1941, as in 1775, the United States faced a grave threat from 1 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” in The Poetical Works of Longfellow, ed. George Monteiro (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975), 208, lines 77-78. 2 Technically, a microwave radar system had been up and running in Tuxedo Park, New York, in the summer of 1940, but this system used the Doppler method of detection, not the pulse method which would predominate during the war. Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science that Changed the Course of World War II, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002): 177-178. 3 Coordination Committee Series 1, Box 49a, interview with Alvarez and Box 49b, interview with Van Voorhis. M.I.T. Rad Lab, RG 227. Office of Scientific Research and Development, National Archives and Records Administration Northeast Region (Boston). Waltham, Massachusetts. In 1998, a New York Times article would confuse this radar success with another one on February 7, 1941. Interviewing former Rad Lab physicists, the article identified the first building spotted on the radar as the Christian Science Temple, but then averred that the Rad Lab cabled the message, “We have seen Mary Baker Eddy with one eye.” Philip Hilts “Last Rites for a Plywood Palace That Was a Rock of Science,” New York Times, march 31, 1998, pg. F4. Mary Baker Eddy is the founder of Christian Science, but the expression ‘one eye’ refers to using a single antenna system, which the Rad Lab physicists did not achieve in crudest form until January formidable and militant forces.4 For America and her allies, a great hope lay in a system that could detect enemy planes. That hope was realized in microwave radar. Radar—Radio Detection And Ranging—bounces short radio waves off a plane or ship and detects the reflection of that signal; based on the time it takes to receive the reflection and the direction from which it returns, an object’s location can be pinpointed.5 Mist, haze, darkness, and fog do not impede the accuracy of these waves. Of the different kinds of radar, microwave radar, consisting of waves only ten centimeters in length, can detect planes and ships with much greater precision than longer-wave radar.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Manual of Avionics by Brian Kendal
    Manual of Avionics 11 :q I LNVM 81453 11111111111111111 IIIII IIIII IIII IIII Library © Brian Kendal 1979, 1987, 1993 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library Blackwell Science Ltd, ISBN 1-4051-4654-0 Editorial Offices: 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK Library of Congress Tel: +44 (0)1865 776868 Cataloging-in-Publication Data 25 John Street, London WClN 2BL 23 Ainslie Place, Edinburgh EH3 6AJ Kendal, Brian 350 Main Street, Malden, Manual of avionics: an introduction to the MA 02148-5020, USA electronics of civil aviation/ Brian Kendal. 54 University Street, Carlton p. cm. Victoria 3053, Australia Includes index. 10, rue Casimir Delavigne ISBN 1-4051-4654-0 75006 Paris, France I. Avionics. I. Title. TL695.K46 1993 Other Editorial Offices: 629.135-dc20 92-28100 CIP Blackwell Wissenschafts-Verlag GmbH Kurfiirstendamm 57 For further information on 10707 Berlin, Germany Blackwell Publishing, visit our website: www.blackwellpublishing.com Blackwell Science KK MG Kodenmacho Building Licensed for sale in India, Nepal, Bhutan, 7-10 Kodenmacho Nihombashi Bangladesh and Sri Lanka only. Sale and Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104, Japan purchase of this edition outside these territories is unauthorized by the publishers. The right of the Author to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • Secrets Jeremy Bernstein
    INFERENCE / Vol. 6, No. 1 Secrets Jeremy Bernstein Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the decided to found a rival weapons laboratory. Even if Teller United States had offered me a job, I doubt that I would have accepted.3 by Alex Wellerstein After obtaining my degree, I was offered a job that University of Chicago Press, 528 pp., $35.00. would keep me in Cambridge for at least another year. One year became two and at the end of my second year I was uclear weapons have been shrouded in secrecy accepted at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. from the very beginning. After plutonium was It was around this time that the chairman of the physics discovered at the University of California in department at Harvard, Kenneth Bainbridge, came to me NDecember 1940, researchers led by Glenn Seaborg submit- with an offer. Bainbridge had been an important figure at ted a pair of letters to the Physical Review. The details of Los Alamos during the war. Robert Oppenheimer had put their discovery were withheld from publication until after him in charge of the site in New Mexico where the Trinity the war.1 Once the project to make a nuclear weapon got test had taken place.4 Bainbridge told me that the labora- underway, secrecy became a very serious matter indeed. tory was offering summer jobs to young PhDs and asked The story of these efforts and how they evolved after the if I was interested. I was very interested. Los Alamos had war is the subject of Alex Wellerstein’s Restricted Data: an almost mystical significance for me due to its history The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Ira Sprague Bowen Papers, 1940-1973
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf2p300278 No online items Inventory of the Ira Sprague Bowen Papers, 1940-1973 Processed by Ronald S. Brashear; machine-readable finding aid created by Gabriela A. Montoya Manuscripts Department The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2203 Fax: (626) 449-5720 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=554 © 1998 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Collection Inventory of the Ira Sprague 1 Bowen Papers, 1940-1973 Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Collection Inventory of the Ira Sprague Bowen Paper, 1940-1973 The Huntington Library San Marino, California Contact Information Manuscripts Department The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2203 Fax: (626) 449-5720 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=554 Processed by: Ronald S. Brashear Encoded by: Gabriela A. Montoya © 1998 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. Descriptive Summary Title: Ira Sprague Bowen Papers, Date (inclusive): 1940-1973 Creator: Bowen, Ira Sprague Extent: Approximately 29,000 pieces in 88 boxes Repository: The Huntington Library San Marino, California 91108 Language: English. Provenance Placed on permanent deposit in the Huntington Library by the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Collection. This was done in 1989 as part of a letter of agreement (dated November 5, 1987) between the Huntington and the Carnegie Observatories. The papers have yet to be officially accessioned. Cataloging of the papers was completed in 1989 prior to their transfer to the Huntington.
    [Show full text]
  • March 12, 2008 (Download PDF)
    Volume 52, Number 19 Wednesday, March 12, 2008 TechTalk S ERVING THE MIT CO mm UNI T Y MIT boosts aid for students Increases number of undergraduates who can attend tuition-free More MIT students will have their tuition and fees completely covered next year under a series of financial aid enhancements that the Institute unveiled March 7. Under the new plan, families earning IMAGE / ELLENZWEIG ARCHITECTURE | PLANNING less than $75,000 a year will have all tuition covered. For parents with total annual David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research groundbreaking income below $75,000 and typical assets, MIT will ensure that all tuition charges are An artist’s rendering of the new David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, which will be constructed at the corner covered with an MIT scholarship, federal of Main and Ames streets. Groundbreaking on the research institution was held on March 7, for more on the event see page 8. and state grants and/or outside scholar- ship funds. Nearly 30 percent of MIT stu- dents fall into this tuition-free category. For families earning less than $75,000 a year, MIT will eliminate the student loan Marine bacteria’s mealtime dash is a swimming success expectation. MIT will no longer expect Denise Brehm take up nutrients before they students from families with total annual Civil and Environmental Engineering undergo chemical changes. A income below $75,000 and typical assets to paper published in the March 10 take out loans to cover expenses beyond online edition of the Proceedings tuition.
    [Show full text]
  • MIT Faculty Newsletter, Vol. XXIX No. 1, September/October 2016
    Massachusetts Vol. XXIX No. 1 Institute of September/October 2016 Technology MITFaculty http://web.mit.edu/fnl Newsletter in this issue we offer commentary on the Faculty and Staff Quality of Life Survey (below and page 22); a report on MIT’s overall international activities, “Global MIT” (below) and “The MIT Haiti-Initiative” (page 14); and two articles on Access MIT (pages 16 and 18). 2016 Presidential Candidates Global MIT MIT Asked, We Editorial Answered: The 2016 Presidential Faculty Quality of Candidates Weigh In Life Survey On Science Policy Krishna Rajagopal, Leslie Kolodziejski, Issues R. K. Lester Christopher Capozzola THE MIT COMMUNITY IS magnifi- WELCOME BACK FROM WHAT we IN SEPTEMBER, PRESIDENTIAL cently but unselfconsciously multina- hope has been an invigorating summer, candidates Donald Trump, Hillary tional. With 42% of our faculty, 43% of and all best wishes for the new academic Rodham Clinton, and Jill Stein returned our graduate students, and 65% of our year. their responses to a set of 20 key science post-docs hailing from countries other The three of us have spent time over policy issues (Libertarian Party candidate than the U.S., and 151 countries repre- the summer diving into the results from Gary Johnson did not respond). The sented on our campus, MIT is truly “of the 2016 Faculty Quality of Life Survey. questionnaire was prepared by a national the world.” The outcome of the survey provides a science consortium, ScienceDebate.org, We are also, increasingly, in the world. wealth of information and insights about that included the American Association Today MIT faculty and students are the perspectives of the MIT Faculty on a for the Advancement of Science and the working in more than 75 countries, and wide variety of questions.
    [Show full text]
  • A Singing, Dancing Universe Jon Butterworth Enjoys a Celebration of Mathematics-Led Theoretical Physics
    SPRING BOOKS COMMENT under physicist and Nobel laureate William to the intensely scrutinized narrative on the discovery “may turn out to be the greatest Henry Bragg, studying small mol ecules such double helix itself, he clarifies key issues. He development in the field of molecular genet- as tartaric acid. Moving to the University points out that the infamous conflict between ics in recent years”. And, on occasion, the of Leeds, UK, in 1928, Astbury probed the Wilkins and chemist Rosalind Franklin arose scope is too broad. The tragic figure of Nikolai structure of biological fibres such as hair. His from actions of John Randall, head of the Vavilov, the great Soviet plant geneticist of the colleague Florence Bell took the first X-ray biophysics unit at King’s College London. He early twentieth century who perished in the diffraction photographs of DNA, leading to implied to Franklin that she would take over Gulag, features prominently, but I am not sure the “pile of pennies” model (W. T. Astbury Wilkins’ work on DNA, yet gave Wilkins the how relevant his research is here. Yet pulling and F. O. Bell Nature 141, 747–748; 1938). impression she would be his assistant. Wilkins such figures into the limelight is partly what Her photos, plagued by technical limitations, conceded the DNA work to Franklin, and distinguishes Williams’s book from others. were fuzzy. But in 1951, Astbury’s lab pro- PhD student Raymond Gosling became her What of those others? Franklin Portugal duced a gem, by the rarely mentioned Elwyn assistant. It was Gosling who, under Franklin’s and Jack Cohen covered much the same Beighton.
    [Show full text]
  • Section 1: MIT Facts and History
    1 MIT Facts and History Economic Information 9 Technology Licensing Office 9 People 9 Students 10 Undergraduate Students 11 Graduate Students 12 Degrees 13 Alumni 13 Postdoctoral Appointments 14 Faculty and Staff 15 Awards and Honors of Current Faculty and Staff 16 Awards Highlights 17 Fields of Study 18 Research Laboratories, Centers, and Programs 19 Academic and Research Affiliations 20 Education Highlights 23 Research Highlights 26 7 MIT Facts and History The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one nologies for artificial limbs, and the magnetic core of the world’s preeminent research universities, memory that enabled the development of digital dedicated to advancing knowledge and educating computers. Exciting areas of research and education students in science, technology, and other areas of today include neuroscience and the study of the scholarship that will best serve the nation and the brain and mind, bioengineering, energy, the envi- world. It is known for rigorous academic programs, ronment and sustainable development, informa- cutting-edge research, a diverse campus commu- tion sciences and technology, new media, financial nity, and its long-standing commitment to working technology, and entrepreneurship. with the public and private sectors to bring new knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. University research is one of the mainsprings of growth in an economy that is increasingly defined William Barton Rogers, the Institute’s founding pres- by technology. A study released in February 2009 ident, believed that education should be both broad by the Kauffman Foundation estimates that MIT and useful, enabling students to participate in “the graduates had founded 25,800 active companies.
    [Show full text]
  • A Selected Bibliography of Publications By, and About, J
    A Selected Bibliography of Publications by, and about, J. Robert Oppenheimer Nelson H. F. Beebe University of Utah Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB 155 S 1400 E RM 233 Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090 USA Tel: +1 801 581 5254 FAX: +1 801 581 4148 E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] (Internet) WWW URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ 17 March 2021 Version 1.47 Title word cross-reference $1 [Duf46]. $12.95 [Edg91]. $13.50 [Tho03]. $14.00 [Hug07]. $15.95 [Hen81]. $16.00 [RS06]. $16.95 [RS06]. $17.50 [Hen81]. $2.50 [Opp28g]. $20.00 [Hen81, Jor80]. $24.95 [Fra01]. $25.00 [Ger06]. $26.95 [Wol05]. $27.95 [Ger06]. $29.95 [Goo09]. $30.00 [Kev03, Kle07]. $32.50 [Edg91]. $35 [Wol05]. $35.00 [Bed06]. $37.50 [Hug09, Pol07, Dys13]. $39.50 [Edg91]. $39.95 [Bad95]. $8.95 [Edg91]. α [Opp27a, Rut27]. γ [LO34]. -particles [Opp27a]. -rays [Rut27]. -Teilchen [Opp27a]. 0-226-79845-3 [Guy07, Hug09]. 0-8014-8661-0 [Tho03]. 0-8047-1713-3 [Edg91]. 0-8047-1714-1 [Edg91]. 0-8047-1721-4 [Edg91]. 0-8047-1722-2 [Edg91]. 0-9672617-3-2 [Bro06, Hug07]. 1 [Opp57f]. 109 [Con05, Mur05, Nas07, Sap05a, Wol05, Kru07]. 112 [FW07]. 1 2 14.99/$25.00 [Ber04a]. 16 [GHK+96]. 1890-1960 [McG02]. 1911 [Meh75]. 1945 [GHK+96, Gow81, Haw61, Bad95, Gol95a, Hew66, She82, HBP94]. 1945-47 [Hew66]. 1950 [Ano50]. 1954 [Ano01b, GM54, SZC54]. 1960s [Sch08a]. 1963 [Kuh63]. 1967 [Bet67a, Bet97, Pun67, RB67]. 1976 [Sag79a, Sag79b]. 1981 [Ano81]. 20 [Goe88]. 2005 [Dre07]. 20th [Opp65a, Anoxx, Kai02].
    [Show full text]
  • Physics Today - February 2003
    Physics Today - February 2003 Rosalind Franklin and the Double Helix Although she made essential contributions toward elucidating the structure of DNA, Rosalind Franklin is known to many only as seen through the distorting lens of James Watson's book, The Double Helix. by Lynne Osman Elkin - California State University, Hayward In 1962, James Watson, then at Harvard University, and Cambridge University's Francis Crick stood next to Maurice Wilkins from King's College, London, to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their "discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material." Watson and Crick could not have proposed their celebrated structure for DNA as early in 1953 as they did without access to experimental results obtained by King's College scientist Rosalind Franklin. Franklin had died of cancer in 1958 at age 37, and so was ineligible to share the honor. Her conspicuous absence from the awards ceremony--the dramatic culmination of the struggle to determine the structure of DNA--probably contributed to the neglect, for several decades, of Franklin's role in the DNA story. She most likely never knew how significantly her data influenced Watson and Crick's proposal. Franklin was born 25 July 1920 to Muriel Waley Franklin and merchant banker Ellis Franklin, both members of educated and socially conscious Jewish families. They were a close immediate family, prone to lively discussion and vigorous debates at which the politically liberal, logical, and determined Rosalind excelled: She would even argue with her assertive, conservative father. Early in life, Rosalind manifested the creativity and drive characteristic of the Franklin women, and some of the Waley women, who were expected to focus their education, talents, and skills on political, educational, and charitable forms of community service.
    [Show full text]
  • Cold War Requisitions, Scientific Manpower, and the Production of American Physicists After World War II
    DAVID KAISER* Cold War requisitions, scientific manpower, and the production of American physicists after World War II 1. RAYMOND BIRGE’S “MAIN OBJECTIVE” “THE MAIN OBJECTIVE of this department of physics,” Raymond Birge wrote in late May 1955, “is to train Ph.D.’s in physics.” Birge— iconic, somber, a displaced Yankee who traced his New England ancestry nine generations back—had been chair of Berkeley’s physics department for twenty-two years; by the mid-1950s, it was the nation’s largest. At the time he explained his department’s “main objec- tive,” Birge was the retiring president of the American Physical Society (APS). Birge and his colleagues in Berkeley’s physics department had emphasized the importance of its graduate program many times before in annual budget requests to the university administration and in funding reports to private industries; it would be easy to read such remarks as thinly-veiled requests for more funding, since training physics Ph.D.s became expensive after World War II. This time, however, Birge articulated his department’s mission in a letter to a local citizen, far outside of the university bureaucracy, who had no funds to offer and who had requested no such pronouncement. 1 *Program in Science, Technology, and Society, and Department of Physics, Building E51- 185, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139; [email protected]. My thanks to Shane Hamilton for his research assistance, and to Alexis De Greiff, Kenji Ito, John Krige, Elizabeth Paris, and John Rudolph for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The following abbreviations are used: AIP-EMD, American Institute of Physics, Edu- cation and Manpower Division Records, Niels Bohr Library, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD; BAS, Bulletin of the atomic scientists; BDP , University of California, Berkeley, Department of Physics Records, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, CA; HDP, Harvard University Department of Physics Records, Pusey Library, Cambridge, MA; PDP, Princeton University Department of Physics Records, Seeley G.
    [Show full text]
  • MIT Press Journals
    MIT Press Journals 2019 catalog Table of Contents General Information 1 Advertising 1 Journal Packages 2 Selected Books 45 Ordering Information 46 Subscription Form 47 Publishing with the MIT Press 48 Science & Technology Artificial Life 4 Computational Linguistics 5 Computational Psychiatry 6 Evolutionary Computation 7 Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 8 Linguistic Inquiry 9 Network Neuroscience 10 Neural Computation 11 Neurobiology of Language 12 Open Mind 13 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 14 Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics 15 The Arts & Humanities African Arts 16 ARTMargins 17 Computer Music Journal 18 Dædalus 19 Design Issues 20 Grey Room 21 JoDS: Journal of Design and Science 22 Leonardo 23 Leonardo Music Journal 24 The New England Quarterly 25 October 26 PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 27 Projections 28 TDR/The Drama Review 29 Thresholds 30 inside front cover Table of Contents General Information 1 Advertising 1 Journal Packages 2 Selected Books 45 Ordering Information 46 Subscription Form 47 Publishing with the MIT Press 48 Science & Technology Artificial Life 4 Computational Linguistics 5 Computational Psychiatry 6 Evolutionary Computation 7 Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 8 Linguistic Inquiry 9 Network Neuroscience 10 Neural Computation 11 Neurobiology of Language 12 Open Mind 13 Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 14 Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics 15 The Arts & Humanities African Arts 16 ARTMargins 17 Computer Music Journal 18
    [Show full text]
  • Journals 2016 Catalog Directors’ Letter
    MIT Press Journals 2016 catalog Directors’ Letter Dear Friends, The MIT Press celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012, and the inclination to ponder our distinguished history remains strong, perhaps even more so this year with the change in Press leadership—Amy Brand was named Director of the MIT Press in July of 2015. The Press’s journals division, which was founded in 1972, ten years after the books division, also has a significant publishing legacy to consider, with over 80 journals published since the division’s inception. Some, such as Linguistic Inquiry and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, have grown with us from the very beginning. Other core titles like International Security, October, The Review of Economics and Statistics and Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience joined the Press over the following decades, providing a solid base for the high-quality and innovative scholarship that our journals division is well known for. Today, we continue to push the boundaries of scholarly publishing and communication. We relish discovering new fields to publish in, and working with scholars who are establishing new domains of research and inquiry. In keeping with that spirit, the Press is proud to launch a new open access journal in 2016, Computational Psychiatry, to serve a burgeoning field that brings together experts in neuroscience, decision sciences, psychiatry, and computation modeling to apply new quantitative techniques to our understanding of psychiatric disorders. Developing new ways of delivering journal articles and providing a richer range of metrics around their usage and impact is another current effort. On our mitpressjournals.org site, the Press is providing Altmetric badges for select titles to give an improved sense of the breadth of a journal article’s reach.
    [Show full text]