Weisskopf, Victor Frederick. My life as a physicist, circa 1971
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| Title: | Weisskopf, Victor Frederick. My life as a physicist, circa 1971. |
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| Name(s): | Weisskopf, Victor Frederick, 1908-2002 | |
| Type of Resource: | mixed material | |
| Issuance: | monographic | |
| Date Issued: | 1971 | |
| Extent: | 26 pages | |
| Abstract/Description: | Describes choices made in his education; attends University of Göttingen to study quantum mechanics and how working with Paul Ehrenfest shaped his attitudes towards physics. Recounts working with Eugene Wigner and publishing first paper together; anecdotes about Werner Heisenberg whom he worked with as a post-doc. Attempts at first employment during the 1930s in Europe, becoming an assistant to Erwin Schrödinger, then working in Russia. Receipt of Rockefeller fellowship permits study with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen and Paul Dirac in Cambridge; describes encounters with Max Delbrück and Rudolf Peierls, and assistantship with Wolfgang Pauli. Bohr helps him get a position in Rochester, New York during World War II. In 1943 asked by Robert Oppenheimer to join the work at Los Alamos. He discusses the ethical problems of working on the atomic bomb; why he went; his attitude before and after towards physics in general, and towards its application to weapons in particular. Recounts anecdotes about the testing of atomic weapons, and his return to research. Talks about shifts in research interests from electrodynamics to nuclear physics to high-energy physics; recounts becoming Director of CERN. | |
| Note(s): |
Forms part of the American Institute of Physics' Niels Bohr Library Manuscript Biographies Collection. Victor F. Weisskopf, Ph.D., University of Gottingen, Germany, 1931, was professor of Physics at MIT from 1946 until his retirement in 1974. He was director general of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 1961 to 1965. Weisskopf's research focus was theoretical work in quantum electrodynamics and nuclear particle physics. Other major affiliations include: University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA, 1937-1943; Los Alamos, NM, USA, 1943-1947. |
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| Subject(s): |
Bohr, Niels, 1885-1962 Delbrück, Max Dirac, P. A. M. (Paul Adrien Maurice), 1902-1984 Ehrenfest, Paul, 1880-1933 Heisenberg, Werner, 1901-1976 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967 Pauli, Wolfgang, 1900-1958 Peierls, Rudolf E. (Rudolf Ernst), 1907-1995 Schrödinger, Erwin, 1887-1961 Wigner, Eugene Paul, 1902-1995 European Organization for Nuclear Research Los Alamos National Laboratory Universität Göttingen -- Students Atomic bomb -- Testing Science and ethics |
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| Library Classification: | MB 2014-1621 | |
| Held by: | American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA | |
| In Collections: |