Cambridge

Owen Gingerich: Professor Roy Glauber is a physicist, a physicist who had an early start in physics because when he was still an undergraduate at Harvard, it was during World War II. A mysterious caller knocked on his dormitory door, and asked him if he would want to participate in some unspecified kind of scientific […]

Martin Sherwin: I am in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 26, 1982. Were you married when you were in Los Alamos? Alice Kimball Smith: Yes. We had been married for twelve years. Sherwin: I see. So you and your husband, Cyril Smith, went to Los Alamos and you were promptly put to work as a schoolteacher. […]

Cindy Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly. This is Wednesday, June 24th, 2015, and I’m in Cambridge Massachusetts with Peter Gailson. My first question for you is to tell me your name and spell it. Peter Galison: My name is Peter Gailson, G-A-L-I-S-O-N. I’m a professor here at Harvard, Physics, a history of science. Twentieth century physics […]

Richard Rhodes: Interview with Dr. Kistiakowsky in Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 15, 1982. I have done a great deal of reading into the literature; there are probably two hundred books that are built around the subject that I’ve looked at, including yours, which I enjoyed. Can I go back to some very early things?  George Kistiakowsky: […]

Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and today’s date is June 6, 2013. And we’re in Cambridge, Massachusetts with Priscilla McMillan. And I have a very easy question to begin with, which is, could you say your name, and spell it? Priscilla McMillan: My name is Priscilla, P-R-I-S-C-I-L-L-A McMillan, M-C-M-I-L-L-A-N. Kelly: I […]

Theresa Strottman: We are speaking at MIT with Professor French. And we thank you very much for allowing us to interview you here today. To start off the interview, we wonder if you could briefly tell us where you were born and something about your early education and training? Anthony French:  Okay, well, I was born […]

Priscilla McMillan: Roy, you knew Oppenheimer at Los Alamos and you knew him again when you were a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Had he changed? Did he lead those two institutions differently and behave differently or the same? Roy Glauber: That is a very complicated question to answer. Oppie was […]

Cindy Kelly: I am Cindy Kelly, the date is June 6, 2013, and we are here with Dr. Roy Glauber. And your first question is to tell me your name and spell it. Tough one, start with a tough one. Roy Glauber: I probably can even spell it! I am Roy Glauber and that is […]

[At top is the edited version of the interview published by S. L. Sanger in Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford, Portland State University, 1995. For the full transcript that matches the audio of the interview, please scroll down.] Book version: The plutonium we metallurgists received was actually a fluoride, a dry […]