HistoryNEWSLETTER Physics A FORUM OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICALof SOCIETY • VOLUME XI • NO. 5 • FALL 2011 News of the Forum: Lillian Hoddeson Wins 2012 Pais Prize By Elizabeth Garber and Michael Riordan illian Hoddeson of the University of Illinois has been selected to receive the 2012 Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Physics to recognize her many contribu- Ltions to the discipline. In its recommendation the Pais Prize Committee cited Hoddeson “for her leadership and contri- butions to writing the history of twentieth-century physics, her pioneering studies of American research laboratories— particularly Bell Labs, Los Alamos and Fermilab—and her perceptive scientific biography of John Bardeen.” After earning her Ph.D. in physics from Columbia Uni- versity, Hoddeson did early historical studies on the begin- nings of industrial research at Bell Telephone Laboratories, which led to her work on the development of solid-state physics and the invention of the point-contact transistor. With Spencer Weart she organized the American section of the International Project on the History of Solid State Phys- ics. This research led eventually to publication of Out of the Crystal Maze: Chapters from the History of Solid State Phys- ics (Oxford, 1992)—an invaluable resource on the history of solid-state physics for which she served as lead editor. With Michael Riordan, Hoddeson published Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age (Norton, 1997), which is widely regarded as the definitive history of the invention and development of the transistor. Its award-winning PBS- TV adaptation “Transistorized!” has had a broad impact on general audiences. Hoddeson has also worked on the history of the devel- opment of the atomic bomb. While researching this subject, she realized that Los Alamos was in danger of losing its wartime documents and proposed that the Laboratory cre- ate an archive and a history project. She directed a team of In This Issue scholars, which included Paul Henrickson, Roger Meade and Catherine Westfall, and used both classified and unclassified 2012 Pais Prize Winner 1 documents to publish Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during the Oppenheimer Years, 1943–1945 (Cambridge, 1993). This monograph is considered the defini- Editor’s Corner 2 tive technical work and the standard reference on the history of the building of the atomic bomb. It was widely acclaimed Historic Site Committees 4 by Manhattan Project participants, including Hans Bethe, Robert Bacher and Norman Ramsey. At Fermilab, Hoddeson established an archive and a histo- March/April Meeting Sessions 6 ry program focused on particle accelerators and high-energy New Books of Note 10 Continues on page 8 Editors’ Corner thought I’d devote this particular LHC 7 Peter Schollers, a professor at the plot of newsletter real estate to a The Seventh Laboratory History Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, discussed topic of potential interest to FHP conference was organized by Geert the events leading to establishment, in Imembers, the Laboratory History con- Vanpaemel, a professor of history of sci- 1856, of the Chemical Laboratory of the ferences that have been held biannually ence at the University of Leuven. Van- City of Brussels, one of the first official or annually for over a dozen years. paemel directs the Laboratory Project, a laboratories in the world and still in The Laboratory History confer- 4-year research program supported by operation. These events had much to do ences started in 1999, with a meeting the Flemish Research Council (FWO) with the social and cultural factors. In I organized at Stony Brook University that examines the interface between 1830, Brussels became the capital of the and Brookhaven National Laboratory. laboratory cultures and their social and new nation: Belgium. Municipal officials Since then, the conferences (whose institutional environment to examine were keenly aware that the city’s huge driving force generally has been Cath- how labs have changed the practice of health problems, including abysmal erine Westfall) have been held among science. sanitary conditions, food adultera- other places at Jefferson Lab in Virginia; Many of the laboratories examined tion, and frequent epidemics, reflected at the University of Illinois, Urbana- were Belgian. Lyvia Diser, one of the poorly on a city that was, after all, a Champaign; at the University of Brit- Laboratory Project’s graduate students, European capital. Therefore, Scholliers ish Columbia; and at Johns Hopkins spoke about the founding of the Belgian argued, although the political climate University. They now have an interna- Pasteur Institute. Truus van Bosstraeten, ran strongly against state intervention tional membership, and cover a broader another of the grad students, showed in commerce, and although pharmacists spectrum of laboratories and issues. the contents of a recently discovered traditionally had the role of analyz- The 7th Conference took place in June photo album of Leuven laboratories ing food samples, city officials found 2011 in Leuven, Belgium, and the 8th from the early 20th century. Since much it necessary to establish a municipal is to be held at the Georgia Institute of of the town was destroyed in WWII, laboratory to supersede these traditional Technology in Atlanta on March 30 and this album provided a valuable record practices. 31, 2012, in conjunction with the April of the labs, sometimes providing the Several talks concerned physics labs. APS meeting. only existing pictures of them. The Dirk van Delft, of Leiden University, album illustrated typical features of spoke on the cryogenic laboratory of university labs at the time, including superconductivity discoverer Heike the persistence of the “physics cabinet,” Kamerlingh Onnes. In 1882, Onnes was the precursor of a true natural science appointed professor of experimental lab, where the classic instruments were physics at Leiden, and began to trans- collected. It included pictures of the form its physics department building laboratory in the brewery school, which into a modern research laboratory. This The Forum on History of Physics of served as an important link between the required more than a talent for physics, the American Physical Society pub- university and industry. Delft showed, but also the ability to lishes this Newsletter biannually at Sofie Onghena, another of the Labo- coordinate a wide variety of appliances http://www.aps.org/units/fhp/newslet- ratory Project’s grad students, gave a and instrumentation – pumps, compres- ters/index.cfm. If you wish to receive talk on the differences between physics sors, engines, liquefiers, gas supplies, a printed version of the Newsletter, and chemistry laboratories in Belgian glass-blowing equipment, and so forth please contact the editor. Each 3-year high schools at the end of the 19th – overseen by diverse research organi- volume consists of six issues. century. Belgium was then torn by zation with managers, engineers, glass- an ideological debate between clerics blowers, instrument-makers, students, The articles in this issue represent the (Catholics) and anti-clerics (or advo- and supervisors in what Delft calls “Big views of their authors and are not cates of secularism in government). This Science avant la lettre.” This work cul- necessarily those of the Forum or APS. debate, Onghena showed, was reflected minated in the discovery of mercury’s not only struggles over the proper superconductivity on 6 April 1911. Editor character of education, but even in the Sonja Petersen, a historian of tech- Robert P. Crease different kinds of laboratories found nology from Offenbach Academy of Department of Philosophy in Catholic and Belgian Royal State Art and Design, Germany, spoke about Stony Brook University schools. While labs in Catholic schools a short-lived “piano laboratory” that Stony Brook, NY 11794 tended to consist of cabinets and natural existed in Germany between 1927 and [email protected] history museums, and were designed 1931, which attempted (unsuccessfully) (631) 491-6361 to portray the harmony of God’s cre- to span laboratory science and handi- ation and inculcate knowledge of its craft. Joseph Martin, a graduate student Book Review Editor eternal laws, those in the state schools in history of science at the University of Michael Riordan stressed inquiry and experimentation, Minnesota, spoke about the “National [email protected] and sought to prepare the students for Magnet Laboratory and the Maturation practical industrial careers. of Solid State Physics,” and discussed 2 Volume XI, No. 5 • Fall 2011 • History of Physics Newsletter what the trajectory of this labora- changes wrought in comput- tory can tell us about the emer- ing at BNL by the surging scale gence of solid state research and of information from its major the role of large laboratories in instruments, and changing pat- the U.S. terns of publication as tracked Other talks concerned the by various bibliometric mea- history and fate of various Euro- sures. These patterns include a pean laboratories. Ida Stamhuis, sharp drop in single-authored for instance, from the Vrije Uni- papers, and huge increase in versiteit Amsterdam, discussed interdisciplinarity. Still, she the First German Genetics Insti- found a retention of strong and tute, established in 1914 at the consistent mathematics and Agricultural College in Berlin. physics orientation, and noted Though its director was male, the impact of major national for a while its scientific staff and international