Big Science
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“We decided”: Beams recollections, HCP.
“There is no definite”: Ernest Lawrence and Jesse Beams, “On the Nature of Light,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 13 (April 15, 1927): pp. 207–12.
“He worked me”: Beams recollections, HCP.
“a sort of roving”: Ibid.
“I felt out”: Leonard Loeb to Elmer E. Hall, May 8, 1926, reprinted in Childs, American Genius, pp. 98–99.
“the modern developments”: Crelinsten, Einstein’s Jury, p. 21.
In vain, the university: Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 19. For Compton offer, see Birge OH, BANC.
“I got the following”: Birge to EOL, May 23, 1927, EOLP. Birge’s reference was to Floyd K. Richtmeyer, an X-ray expert who would in fact spend his entire career at Cornell, becoming dean of its graduate school in 1933. Lawrence indeed had received an offer from Cornell, which he turned down.
“not behind”: Childs, American Genius, p. 114.
“the teaching schedules”: Birge to Lawrence, February 23, 1928, EOLP.
the university had granted him: Childs, American Genius, p. 108.
“the younger men”: Birge to EOL, March 5, 1928, EOLP.
“the biggest mistake”: Beams recollections, HCP.
“He responded”: Tuve to Edwin McMillan, April 21, 1977, in Stuewer, Nuclear Physics in Retrospect, p. 135.
Chapter Three: “I’m Going to Be Famous”
“I merely looked”: Lawrence, “The Evolution of the Cyclotron” (Nobel Prize lecture delivered December 11, 1951), in Livingston, Development of High-Energy Accelerators, p. 137.
“The merit,” he told a friend, “lies”: Szilard to Otto Stern, undat., cited in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 82.
Tom Johnson: Johnson to Lawrence, September 15, 1931, EOLP.
“But what are you”: Childs, American Genius, p. 139.
“But what can they do”: Brady to E. M. McMillan, April 21, 1977, in McMillan, “Early History of Particle Accelerators,” Steuwer, Nuclear Physics in Retrospect, pp. 131–32.
Everyone seemed to have a different reason: See Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 86.
“Why don’t you”: See McMillan, “Early History,” p. 126. The German quote appears in John H. Lawrence, MD, oral history, interview by Sally Smith Hughes, 1979–1980, BANC.
“any serious difficulty”: M. A. Tuve, G. Breit, and L. R. Hafstad, “The Application of High Potentials to Vacuum-Tubes, Physical Review 35 Jan. 19, 1930): p. 66.
“Mind if I work”: Childs, American Genius, p. 134.
“I’ve got a crazy idea”: Ibid., p. 146.
“If the work”: Lawrence to parents, February 23, 1930, EOLP.
“Preliminary experiments”: E. O. Lawrence and N. E. Edlefsen, “On the Production of High Speed Protons,” Science 72 (October 10, 1930): pp. 376–77.
Livingston acknowledged: Interview of M. Stanley Livingston by Charles Weiner and Neil Goldman, August 21, 1967, AIP.
“He didn’t think”: Ibid.
“all the basic features”: Livingston, Development of High-Energy Accelerators, p. 117.
“At last we seem”: Quoted in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 95.
“We are having a bit”: Lawrence to Swann, January 24. 1931, EOLP.
“Lawrence was really”: Livingston, AIP.
“the best experimental”: Childs, American Genius, p. 155.
“If there is one chance”: Birge, History of the Physics Department, University of California, Berkeley, p. 388.
“angling for funds”: Livingston, AIP.
“asked me the outright”: Ibid. The book was the comprehensive text “Radiations from Radioactive Substances” (1930) by Rutherford, Chadwick, and Charles D. Ellis.
Two weeks later: The estimate of 750,000 volts is in Lawrence to Cottrell, July 17, 1931; that to 900,000 volts is in a letter the same day to Donald Cooksey. Both in EOLP.
“I am hastening”: Lawrence to Cottrell, July 17, 1931, EOLP.
“I could never work”: Gray, George W., “Science and Profits,” Harper’s Monthly, April 1936.
“[T]he moment that”: Abraham Flexner, “University Patents,” Science 77, no. 1996 (March 31, 1933): p. 325.
“the dean of one”: Gregg, Alan, “University Patents,” Science 77, no. 1993 (March 10, 1933): pp. 257–59.
“a vicious influence”: Gray, “Science and Profits.”
“Science is dependent”: Ibid.
“as to the action”: Quoted in Archie MacInnes Palmer, “University Patent Policies,” Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society 16 (February 1934): pp. 96–131.
“endowment for scientific work”: Cameron, Frank, Cottrell: Samaritan of Science, p. 151.
But its grant portfolio: The figures on assets and grants are from Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement, 100 Years of Supporting Science Innovation, pp. 8–26.
“full freedom”: Palmer, “University Patent Policies.”
“may prove to be”: Cottrell to Poillon, July 7, 1931, cited in Cameron, pp. 288–89.
“the advantage of brevity”: Lawrence to Sproul, January 6, 1932, EOLP.
“If he is”: Poillon to Cottrell, August 6, 1931, cited in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 111.
“your proton merry-go-round”: Slater to Lawrence, September 4, 1931, EOLP.
“it never occurred”: Lawrence to Slater, September 8, 1931, EOLP.
“his method for spiraling”: Johnson “to whom it may concern,” September 15, 1931, EOLP.
“during my stay”: Stern to Lawrence, November 2, 1931. The German original and a contemporaneous English translation, from which this quotation is taken, are in EOLP.
“It is apparent”: Lawrence to Arthur P. Knight, December 2, 1932, EOLP. The cyclotron patent is 1,948,384, “Method and Apparatus for the Acceleration of Ions.” Based on Livingston’s eleven-inch design, it was issued on February 20, 1934, and assigned to the Research Corporation, with Lawrence identified as the sole inventor.
“It is entirely”: Lawrence to Poillon, October 19,1935, EOLP.
master’s degree: Childs, American Genius, p. 160.
“I am beginning”: Lawrence to Cooksey, July 17, 1931, EOLP.
“more or less intuitively”: Livingston, AIP.
“Dr. Livingston has asked”: Rebekah Young to Lawrence, August 2, 1931, EOLP.
Chapter Four: Shims and Sealing Wax
“We were heading”: Livingston, AIP.
“It was Lawrence’s genius”: Livingston, AIP.
But they spent: The process of testing shims is documented in Lawrence’s workbooks for 1932, EOLP.
Eventually they discovered: See Ernest O. Lawrence and M. Stanley Livingston, “The Production of High Speed Light Ions Without the Use of High Voltages,” Physical Review 38 (April 1, 1932): p. 834.
“Lawrence literally danced”: Livingston, Particle Accelerators, p. 28.
“The place on the coast”: Boyce to Cockcroft, January 8, 1932, cited in Weiner, Charles, “1932—Moving into the new physics,” Physics Today 25, no. 5 (May 1972): p. 40.
“To a superficial”: P. V. Danckwerts, “From the Cavendish to Harwell,” New Scientist 101, no. 1404 (April 5, 1984): pp. 24–25.
“We weren’t ready”: Livingston, AIP.
the pages of the journal Nature: J. D. Cockcroft and E. T. S. Walton, “Disintegration of Lithium by Swift Protons” (letter dated April 16, 1932), in Nature 129, no. 242 (April 30, 1932): p. 649.
he wired his graduate student Jim Brady: Brady recollections, HCP.
the newlyweds made their circuitous way: The honeymoon itinerary is described in Childs, American Genius, pp. 186–87.
“Everyone has to have”: Molly Lawrence recollections, HCP. John Lawrence recalled a very similar observation from his father (John Lawrence OH, BANC).
“The place was beginning”: Interview of Milton White
by Charles Weiner, May 11, 1972, AIP.
The Rad Lab’s letter: E. O. Lawrence, M. S. Livingston, and M. G. White, “The Disintegration of Lithium by Swiftly-Moving Protons,” Physical Review 42 (October 1, 1932): pp. 150–51.
“I don’t know what”: Malcolm Henderson recollections, HCP.
The department’s budget: See Birge, p. 460.
By contrast, the Rad Lab’s spending: See Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 212.
a typical year: The staff lists and salary figures are at EOLP. See also Heilbron and Seidel, p. 223.
To obtain radio tubes: Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 115.
“This company”: Hockenblamer to Leuschner, September 18, 1931, EOLP.
Don Cooksey, who settled: Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, pp. 141–42.
“quite affluent”: Molly Lawrence, address at the forty-fifth-anniversary dinner of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, October 1976, collection of the LBNL.
if it fell silent: Livingood recollections, HCP.
“There appeared to be”: Molly Lawrence, forty-fifth-anniversary address.
“working day and night”: Lawrence to C. R. Haupt, March 11, 1932, EOLP.
“He’d come in”: Livingood recollections, HCP.
“a sort of laboratory slang”: For an early use of the term “cyclotron” by Lawrence, see Lawrence to Tuve, September 23, 1933, EOLP: “we are calling the proton accelerator the ‘cyclotron’ now.” The term was identified as “slang” in E. O. Lawrence, E. M. McMillan, and F. M. Thornton, “The Transmutation Functions for Some Cases of Deuteron-Induced Radioactivity,” Physical Review 48 (September 15, 1935): pp. 493–99. The Nobel Prize presentation speech is at www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1939/press.html [accessed March 17, 2013].
“Everyone had to wait”: Henderson recollections, HCP.
One morning in 1934: Livingood recollections, HCP.
“a different color”: Henderson recollections, HCP.
“impress the fellows”: Lawrence to Cooksey, December 29, 1934, EOLP.
“all the horror stories”: Molly Lawrence, forty-fifth-anniversary address.
“We have been giving”: Lawrence to Cockcroft, September 12, 1935, EOLP.
“neither particularly”: Tuve, “Memorandum Regarding Mr. Cowie’s Eyes,” June 18, 1947, EOLP.
the Carnegie Institution: Tuve to Kenneth Priestly, Rad Lab, June 20, 1947, EOLP. See also “Cyclotron Cataracts,” Time, January 3, 1949.
An amiable gentleman: Childs, American Genius, pp. 252–53.
But the tube failed: Ibid., p. 192.
“I have warned”: Poillon to Knight, October 11, 1932, cited in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 123. The first of several patents covering elements of the X-ray tube, No. 2,009,457, was issued to Sloan on July 30, 1935, and assigned to the Research Corp.
“I am told”: Lawrence to Poillon, August 18, 1932, EOLP.
“had it running”: Livingston, AIP.
“As the youngest”: Wilson, “My Fight Against Team Research,” in Holton, Twentieth-Century Sciences, pp. 468ff.
“I don’t know”: Henderson recollections, HCP.
“Livingston looks tired”: Hall to Lawrence, June 16, 1932, EOLP.
“Ernest had enough”: Henderson recollections, HCP
“I’m running this”: Brady recollections, HCP.
“Certain things will occur”: Loeb to Herbert Childs, October 4, 1960, HCP.
Cornell had hired: Details of the Cornell cyclotron and Livingston’s role come from Courant, Ernest D., “Milton Stanley Livingston, A Biographical Memoir,” National Academy of Sciences, 1997.
“brought a certain idolization”: Interview of M. Stanley Livingston by Charles Weiner and Neil Goldman, August 21, 1967, AIP.
Chapter Five: Oppie
“Lawrence the experimentalist”: Brady recollections, HCP.
“had no theoretical physics”: Oppenheimer recollections, HCP.
“he intellectually looted”: Rhodes, Making of the Atomic Bomb, p. 121.
University of Leiden: Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 74.
“I don’t think”: Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters, p. 121.
“It won’t be any trouble”: Smith and Weiner, p. 149.
“argued himself”: Pais and Crease, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 29.
“Oppie was extremely”: Serber, interviewed by Martin Sherwin, 1/19/82, quoted in Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 88.
“His physics was good”: Pais and Crease, J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 25.
“That’s impossible”: Alvarez, Adventures, pp. 75–76.
“Pied Piper”: Serber, Peace & War, p. 28.
“We weren’t supposed to”: Bird and Sherwin, American Prometheus, p. 96.
“I still visualize”: Gerjuoy in Kelly, Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, p. 122.
“Oppie, is it a secret?”: Carl Anderson oral history, Caltech archives.
“In those days”: James Brady recollections, HCP.
“I went to their seminar”: Segrè, Enrico Fermi, Physicist, p. 134.
“Oppie—highly cerebral”: Kamen, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, p. 178.
“Theorists tend to be”: Edwin McMillan oral history by Charles Weiner, October 31, 1972, AIP.
“So we went”: Brady recollections, HCP.
“Very often the things”: Oppenheimer recollections, HCP.
“very proper”: Oppenheimer recollections, HCP.
“We talked about”: Ibid.
“I feel pretty awful”: Oppenheimer to Lawrence, October 12, 1931, EOLP.
“Break it up”: Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters, p. 147. The anecdote’s source was Else Uhlenbeck, wife of the Dutch physicist George Uhlenbeck.
“It was like you”: Oppenheimer to Lawrence, undat. but presumably January 3, 1932, EOLP.
“became a relatively prominent guy”: Oppenheimer recollections, HCP.
At Oppie’s request: Serber, Peace & War, p. 42.
“One Jew”: Ibid., p. 50.
scribbled an announcement: Alvarez, Adventures, p. 78.
“has definitely established”: Robert Oppenheimer to Frank Oppenheimer, October 7, 1933, in Smith and Weiner, Robert Oppenheimer: Letters. p. 165.
Chapter Six: The Deuton Affair
Lewis conceived an electrolytic: Interview of M. Stanley Livingston by Charles Weiner and Neil Goldman, August 21, 1967, AIP.
“He liked to tell”: McMillan, Edwin, “Early Days in the Lawrence Laboratory,” speech at forty-fifth anniversary of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, October 30, 1976.
“the world supply”: Childs, American Genius, p. 197.
“As soon as we used”: Livingston, AIP.
the yield jumped a hundredfold: G. N. Lewis, M. S. Livingston, and E. O. Lawrence, “The Emission of Alpha-Particles from Various Targets Bombarded by Deutons of High Speed,” Physical Review 44 (July 1, 1933): p. 56.
“Ernest’s love affair”: Alvarez, Adventures, p. 52.
“All of a sudden”: Livingston, AIP.
“at this rate”: Berkeley Science service, May 20, 1933, quoted in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 154.
“I am almost”: Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 155.
“marvelous advancement”: New York Times, May 21, 1933.
“a new miracle worker”: New York Times, June 20, 1933.
“scouting party”: New York Times, June 24, 1933.
“It was much easier”: “Complementarity in Chicago,” Time, July 3, 1933.
he acquired a tiny supply: Oliphant, “Working with Rutherford,” in Hendry, Cambridge Physics, p. 186.
“Lawrence and his colleagues”: Rutherford to Lewis, May 30, 1933, quoted in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, pp. 157–58.
gold resisted: On the Cavendish experience with contamination, see Boyce to Lawrence, January 23, 1933,
EOLP.
“sticking to the target”: Oliphant, “Working with Rutherford.”
“Energy produced”: Childs, American Genius, p. 205. See Scientific American, November 1933, for the fullest contemporary replication of the “moonshine” quote, which has appeared in many formulations, most of them paraphrases put into Rutherford’s mouth.
“purely a matter”: New York Herald Tribune, September 12 1933.
angrily crossing out: Oliphant, “The Two Ernests-I,” Physics Today 19, no. 9 (September 1966), pp. 35-49.
Werner Heisenberg argued: See Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, pp. 164–66.
Lawrence both made”: Livingston OH, AIP.
“He is just”: Oliphant, “The Two Ernests-I.” Interview of James Chadwick by Charles Weiner, April 17, 1969, AIP.
“I gathered that”: Pollard to Lawrence, December 6, 1933, EOLP.
“He was a bit abrupt”: Lawrence to Pollard, December 20, 1933, EOLP.
“He’s a brash”: Oliphant, “The Two Ernests-I.”
“perhaps before long”: Lawrence to Curtis R. Haupt, December 4, 1933, EOLP.
“It seems to me”: Lawrence to Livingston, January 26, 1934, EOLP.
“It would seem now”: Lawrence to Fowler, December 28, 1933, EOLP.
“A series of measurements”: G. N. Lewis, M. S. Livingston, M. C. Henderson, and E. O. Lawrence, “The Disintegration of Deutons by High Speed Protons and the Instability of the Deuton,” Physical Review 45 (February 15, 1934): pp. 242–44.
“This first definite”: Lawrence to Poillon, December 15, 1933, cited in Heilbron and Seidel, Lawrence and His Laboratory, p. 167.
His report: Crane and Lauritsen, “On the Production of Neutrons from Lithium,” appeared on page 783 of Physical Review 44 (November 1, 1933); the Rad Lab’s paper (Livingston, Henderson, and Lawrence, “Neutrons from Deutons and the Mass of the Neutron”) appeared on pages 781–82.
“After working up”: See Tuve to Lawrence, April 17, 1934, EOLP.
“very good justification”: Cockcroft to Lawrence, February 28, 1934, EOLP.
“Do you think”: Oliphant to Lawrence, March 28, 1934, EOLP.
“alternative and reasonable”: G. N. Lewis, M. S. Livingston, M. C. Henderson, and E. O. Lawrence, “On the Hypothesis of the Instability of the Deuton,” Physical Review 45 (April 1, 1934): p. 497.