Security & Secrecy

[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 […]

Harold Cherniss: Well, you see, I was married on January 1, 1929, in White Plains. When we went back to Berkeley, it was immediately after that that I met  [J. Robert] Oppenheimer. This is the time in which he had come to Berkeley the autumn before, just about this time. Taught one term in Berkeley, […]

Cynthia Kelly: I’m Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation, and it is Wednesday, August 24th, 2016. I am in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and with me is Dr. Baldwin Sawyer. My first question for him is to say his name and spell it. Baldwin Sawyer: Baldwin Sawyer, B-a-l-d-w-i-n S-a-w-y-e-r. My initials are B.S, and in case anybody […]

Cindy Kelly: Okay, I am Cindy Kelly. This is Tuesday, August 9, 2016 in Berkeley, California. I have with me Dr. Geoffrey Chew. My first question to him is to say and spell his name. Geoffrey Chew: Geoffrey Chew, G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y C-H-E-W. Kelly: Very good, so now we will move on to some harder stuff. If […]

Robert Bacher: I presented this [the discovery of the neutron] in the seminar and there were a good many questions. Some people were skeptical. I convinced Ed Condon almost immediately. In fact, within the week we had written a note together on the spin of the neutron because you could work it out. This part […]

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 […]

[Many thanks to Thomas Scanlan for recording and donating this interview to the Atomic Heritage Foundation.] Thomas Scanlan: —Is part of an interview, which I held with Professor Marvin Wilkening at his home on Socorro, New Mexico on July 15, 1995.  Now, I was reading that you had worked at four different places associated with the […]

Cindy Kelly: Okay, I am Cindy Kelly, Atomic Heritage Foundation. It’s August 9, 2016 and we are in Berkeley, California. I have with me Esther Floth. Our first question I want to ask is for her to tell us your name and to spell it. Esther Floth: My name is Esther Marie Green Floth. It’s […]