Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 27 September 2019 Version of attached le: Published Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Martin, Joseph D. (2016) 'The peaceful atom comes to campus.', Physics today., 69 (2). pp. 40-46. Further information on publisher's website: https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3081 Publisher's copyright statement: c 2016 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Martin, Joseph D. (2016). The Peaceful Atom Comes to Campus. Physics Today 69(2): 40-46 and may be found at https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3081 Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk Physics Today The peaceful atom comes to campus Joseph D. Martin Citation: Physics Today 69(2), 40 (2016); doi: 10.1063/PT.3.3081 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3081 View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/69/2?ver=pdfcov Published by the AIP Publishing This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP: 69.89.103.140 On: Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:28:18 Joseph D. Martin is an assistant professor in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science unit of Lyman Briggs College at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The peaceful atom comes to campus Joseph D. Martin Youthful idealism, institutional ambition, and Cold War sensibilities all helped shape the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project, the University of Michigan’s tribute to fallen World War II soldiers. Columbus found a world, and had no char!, Energy Commission (AEC) maintained in the national Save one that faith deciphered in the skies; laboratory system. Historians tend to understand the To t"#st the soul’s invincible sur$ise phrase “atoms for peace,” drawn from a speech Pres- ident Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered before the Was all his science and his only ar!. United Nations General Assembly in 1953, as a kind —George Santayana, “O world, thou choosest not the be"er part” of Cold War doublespeak. Yes, research on civilian nu- clear technologies was a peacetime application of nu- clear physics, but the goals of the AEC and its national eflecting on how university research could meet laboratories were inextricable from the strategic and ideologi- the challenges of the early 1950s, University of cal conflict with the Soviet Union.2 Michigan provost James Adams suggested that fu- The postwar years also saw American universities launch- ture historians would consider the heady post– ing their own efforts to find new uses for wartime science. Stan- World War II years to be “an age of invincible sur- ford University and MIT recognized that new government and mise.”1 He regarded the era with an optimistic eye. More so industry interest in funding academia presented a route to na- than at any point in history, Adams maintained, troves of use- tional prominence, and they launched research programs to ful knowledge lay within human grasp; as US society sought capitalize.3 The University of Chicago established its Institutes to turn that knowledge to its advantage, universities held “a for Basic Research to maintain the programs and staff of the Rspecial responsibility for the guardianship of truth.” In the wartime Metallurgical Laboratory.4 And at the University of postwar years, the University of Michigan discharged that re- Michigan, the atom came to campus in the form of a war me- sponsibility through a homegrown program exploring peace- morial. The tale of that last case offers a striking contrast to the ful uses of nuclear science: the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix story of civilian nuclear research as seen from the perspective Project. In addition to producing notable research accomplish- of the AEC and shows how the pursuit of the peaceful atom re- ments, the project sparked systematic changes in the way the shaped pa"erns of support for scientific research at Michigan. university supported research and it reshaped the university’s relationships with the alumni community and industry. A living, functioning memorial The Atoms for Peace initiative in the US was most closely The Phoenix Project started small. Its first crumpled dollars tied to the civilian nuclear power program that the Atomic came in December 1946 from a raffle held at the J-Hop, the 40 PHYSICS TODAY | FEBRUARY 2016 This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP: 69.89.103.140 On: Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:28:18 This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AIP content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP: 69.89.103.140 On: Sat, 30 Jan 2016 16:28:18 THE PEACEFUL ATOM a b for the Michigan memorial, was hesitant to follow the precedents those schools set. In an act that reveals both the breadth of possibility the memorial fund represented and the sense that the university was nav- igating unmapped territory, Walter wrote to public figures around the world to solicit their input. Those included Amer- ican literary stars such as John Hersey, mil- itary giants like Chester Nimitz, and inter - national political icons Winston Churchill and Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Walter’s let- ter emphasized the desire for a functional me- morial, gave as an example one veteran’s sug- gestion of an enduring light at a prominent point on campus, and asked advice on how best to proceed. FIGURE 1. LOGOS for the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project. Among those who replied was Lewis Mumford, who pitched (a) An early concept from 1948, likely drawn by one of the students a fellowship to allow students to broaden their horizons on the memorial planning committee. (b) The official logo as by traveling to non-Western countries. E. B. White, reasoning adopted in the 1950s. (Courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library, that a war memorial should bolster the institutions of peace, University of Michigan.) imagined a fund to send students to sessions of the United Nations. Others had more utilitarian visions. Orson Welles suggested a dormitory that would alleviate housing short- annual student formal. The student legislature organized the ages for veterans and their families. Popular songster Fred raffle to raise funds for a war memorial. Operation Phoenix, as Waring, riffing on the suggestion that the memorial be a light it was sometimes called, was the result. Its mission was both to of some kind, proposed that the light be affixed to the top of commemorate the University of Michigan students and alumni a broadcast tower, possibly for a radio station with the call who had died in World War II and, as its logo illustrates (see le"ers HERO. figure 1), to refocus to constructive ends the destructive power unleashed in the war. Idealism and ambition The project officially launched in 1948 in the midst of a mas- The idea that became the seed of the Phoenix Project, however, sive fundraising campaign, the first in the university’s history did not come from a famous writer, warrior, or warbler. Walter that sought support from the entire alumni base. Eventually had also issued a request for input to Michigan alumni, and Phoenix offered grants to a wide array of faculty-led projects Fred Smith, an executive with the New York–based Book of the dealing with peaceful uses of atomic and nuclear science. By Month Club, replied in October 1947, “I think it is wrong to try 1960, the year Donald Glaser was awarded the Nobel Prize in to think of things to do, or gadgets to build, to perpetuate the Physics for his Phoenix-funded work on the bubble chamber, memory of a lot of men who are far more interested in making the project had raised more than $10 million. But at the dawn their work and their sacrifices count for something, than they of 1947, it was li"le more than a twinkle in the eyes of a few are in being remembered. It is my feeling that the Univer- sincere students who surmised that they might do a small part sity might take unto itself the administration and coordination to cra% a be"er postwar world. of research in some specific phase of peacetime atomic re- The students who organized the campaign were not content search.” Smith recalled how he had bristled at the suggestion to build a monument; they insisted on a living, functional me- by Frédéric Joliot-Curie, France’s high commissioner for atomic morial. University administrators embraced that concept, but energy and an outspoken communist, that the US, having un- just what the memorial should accomplish was not immedi- leashed nuclear weapons on the world, was shirking its duty ately clear.