Race for the Atomic Bomb

[For Edwin McMillan’s lecture, which preceded Elsie’s, please click here.] Elsie McMillan: You know, I will tell you a secret. This is the very first time I have shared a platform, let alone shared it with my best beau and a Nobel Prize winner [Edwin McMillan]. I think my greatest difficulty this afternoon is going […]

Edwin McMillan: Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start with two remarks. First, this is going to be a personal story, so if I use the first person singular, this is not pure egotism, it is simply the fact that that’s the part that I know best. Second remark is, the difficulty of establishing […]

Owen Gingerich: This is an interview between Owen Gingerich and Robert Wilson. You use your middle initial. It’s Robert R.? Robert Wilson: Yes, usually. Gingerich: Robert R. Wilson, who is a builder of high energy accelerators and who was one of the physicists at Los Alamos. We are speaking today in Philadelphia, where we both happen […]

Alexandra Levy: This is Alexandra Levy of the Atomic Heritage Foundation here in New Jersey on June 13, 2016, with Joseph Papalia. My first question is to please say your name and spell it. Joseph Papalia: Joseph Papalia, P-A-P-A-L-I-A. Levy: Can you tell us where and when you were born? Papalia: I was born August […]

Martin Sherwin: This is Martin Sherwin. Today is March 29, 1983. I am going to interview Professor Robert F. Bacher – B-a-c-h-e-r – in his office on the Caltech campus in Pasadena. Robert Bacher: Look, before we start on this, I want to talk a little bit more about things in general. If you are […]

Alexandra Levy: We are here on June 13th in New Jersey with Jack Widowsky. This is Alex Levy with the Atomic Heritage Foundation. My first question for you, Jack, is to please say your name and to spell it. Jack Widowsky: My name is Jack Widowsky. J-A-C-K, which is easy, but the last name is […]

Nate Weisenberg: My name is Nate Weisenberg. I am doing this interview for the Atomic Heritage Foundation with Kathleen Maxwell here in Wellesley, Massachusetts. It is Monday, April 25, 2016. How did you get involved with the Manhattan Project? Kathleen Maxwell: I had just finished my Master’s degree at Smith [College], and I was contemplating […]

Martin Sherwin: You must have met the Oppenheimers when Murph [her husband, Marvin Goldberger] met them? Mildred Goldberger: No. Sherwin: No? Goldberger: No, Murph met [J. Robert] Oppenheimer quite early on, I think. Not during the war. But he was an early invitee to the Rochester Conferences. I am sure Oppenheimer was there. In any […]

Martin Sherwin: This is an interview with Professor Joseph Rotblat, R-O-T-B-L-A-T, at his office in London. Well it really was quite a production. Seven hours! Joseph Rotblat: Yes, oh yes, quite a production. Sherwin: I thought Sam Waterston played a marvelous part. Rotblat: Who? Sherwin: The person who played [J. Robert] Oppenheimer. Rotblat: Oh, yes, […]

Japan was one of the Axis powers in World War II. Its attack on Pearl Harbor, HI, on December 7, 1941 brought the US formally into the war. Japan also attacked British, Dutch, and American possessions in the Southwest Pacific around the same time. Previously, Japan had invaded Chinese territory in Manchuria in 1931, as part […]