True Genius The Life and Science of John Bardeen: The Only Winner of Two Nobel Prizes in Physics (2002) / Chapter Skim
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14 Citizen of Science
14 Citizen of Science
Pages 254-283
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From page 254... ...
Bardeen told his audience that at the root of many social difficulties is "the fact that there are all too few people with a broad understanding of the problems of contemporary life." He urged them to consider jobs in government service or teaching. He went on to explain how PSAC tried to help by analyzing government expenditures on research projects and by recommending how government funds should be distributed among different areas or projects, such as space exploration, missile development, or science education.
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From page 255... ...
The panels prepared reports on a range of important subjects defense strategy, missiles, nuclear testing, computers, space science, and science and engineering education. The reports were then reviewed by the entire committee, which met twice a month to discuss these reports in the Executive Office Building next to the White House.
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From page 256... ...
a healthy rate of growth on a broad base and not see our efforts diverted into unprofitable channels." Bardeen believed that the government should not cover the full cost of research projects and programs. "I feel strongly that Ethel costs of basic research should be shared by the institution receiving support." He gave the following reasons for his opinion: a)
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From page 257... ...
, encouraging a nuclear test ban treaty (which came to fruition during Kennedy's administration) , and strengthening American science education.
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From page 258... ...
" He suggested that "the Mansfield amendment should either be deleted in the 1971 budget or reworded" to permit scientific research in areas, such as solid state physics, which are clearly relevant to the military. Despite Bardeen's belief in government's responsibility for funding science education, he realized that certain types of programs were politically not feasible.
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From page 259... ...
He was part of the Panel on Solid State Physics chaired by Fred Seitz. During the Cold War such contracts required the preparation of both a Report of Loyalty Data and an affidavit that the scientist was "not a Communist or a Fascist," nor planned to engage in "any strike against the Government of the United States." Despite Bardeen's personal distaste for Red Scare fanaticism, he had no reason not to take loyalty oaths such as the one required for his ONR personal services contract.
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From page 260... ...
Not everyone felt that a grace period was necessary, but Bardeen pointed out that "the grace period is valuable in that it allows rapid publication of scientific and technical publications and market test of patentable products prior to application for a U.S. patent." In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson honored Bardeen with the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest award for scientific achievement.
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From page 261... ...
"There was hardly any pain," lane wrote to her sister. "Most of my discomfort was due to getting used to this one position and the traction." The treatment involved wearing a neck brace, and she was confined to bed for six weeks.
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From page 262... ...
" Support for the program would thus have to be based on a conservation argument, that of "conserving a unique, irreplaceable resource for future generations." He suggested that perhaps other countries might be willing to help underwrite the cost of the conservation program. "If the program cannot be sustained, future applications of low temperature technology will be greatly hampered." Although they could not save the U.S.
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From page 263... ...
I think people will depend more and more on communication in their homes, rather than physically going from place to place." He couldn't guess whether the human species would successfully learn to curb its use of resources but, he said, "we've got to take more responsibility for our actions." Bardeen also supported such groups as the Population Crisis Committee, a national organization dedicated to stabilizing global population growth. Long before the environmental movement popularized the problem, he joined forty-seven other Nobel laureates in petitioning President Kennedy and United Nations Secretary General U
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From page 264... ...
in 1970. Protests threatened to disrupt the IUPAP's Twelfth International Conference on Low Temperature Physics (LT12)
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From page 265... ...
He wrote to Sugawara in March that "I regret very much that you have found it necessary to ask representatives of military organizations to withdraw their papers on their own initiative in order to avoid possible trouble at LT12." After meeting early in June with researchers from military laboratories, both in the United States and Canada, Bardeen wrote again to Sugawara. "Since none of these groups have the remotest connection with weapons research, it does not seem fair to exclude them." He also pointed out that "so few cases are involved, it is hard to see how a big issue can be made.
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From page 266... ...
In particular, Russian scientists, who have been quite active in the physics of solids, publish their results and give reports of their work at international conferences." For the United States to remain at the front lines in research, Bardeen wrote, American scientists had to be able to "gain from free exchange of scientific information." Twenty-three years later, Bardeen enclosed a copy of that letter in a note to Thomas H Johnson of the White House Science Council.
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From page 267... ...
Even so, his colleague Charles Slichter urged Bardeen to join the council "because I felt that they needed really good people with courage and strength." Bardeen accepted the position, "but his heart wasn't in it." He had, according to Slichter, "absolute contempt for Reagan." In spite of his reservations Bardeen gave the same serious attention to the White House Science Council that he had given to
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From page 268... ...
But less than a year after he joined, Keyworth and Reagan committed the United States to a space-based missile defense program officially called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and popularly known as "Star Wars." Bardeen strongly opposed the initiative.
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From page 269... ...
The issues raised by this proposal related to solid-state physics. At the time Bardeen accepted his position on the council, he had "thought that I might be helpful in areas of my own expertise, particularly materials science and electronics." It was therefore a great frustration, he wrote to Keyworth, that "neither I nor other members of the WHSC were consulted in regard to the NCAM proposal until the November meeting when it was too late for the discussion to have any influence." He added that in discussing the NCAM proposal "with many knowledgeable people from both universities and industry" and even attempting "to put the proposal in the best light possible, " he still did not find anyone who considered NCAM a good idea.
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From page 270... ...
"He was one of the first ones to sign it." The Strategic Defense Initiative so worried Bardeen that he took the step, unprecedented for him, of writing several short articles and editorials about its dangers. One editorial was sent to the New York Times, but he withdrew it when Hans Bethe and Kurt Gottfried asked him to cooperate with their efforts to call attention to the negative impacts that SDI would have on society.
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From page 271... ...
" Bardeen blamed much of the downslide of the American economy on shortsighted research programs encouraged by a government intent on escalating the arms race. He came to consider arms control as "the most important issue of our time," one on which the "future of civilization is dependent." In an editorial in Arms Control Today, Bardeen focused on problems he associated with SDI, deploring the "militarization of space" because of "staggering" dangers and costs, including the inevitable brain drain.
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From page 272... ...
In the 1950s she found to her dismay that African Americans were not allowed to sit on the main floor of the local movie theaters, and "being of the mind of freedom for everybody, I got involved with the whole movement of racial matters." She helped to organize a league committee consisting of four women, who coincidentally all had the same given name. Charged with combating racial discrimination in the Champaign-Urbana area, the "Committee of lanes" worked with sympathetic religious groups to urge local retailers to hire African American clerks.
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From page 273... ...
While they acknowledged the need for military strength, they argued that government was equally responsible for taking the initiative to "eradicate poverty; attack the clusters of urban problems; overcome water and air pollution; upgrade inadequate transportation; promote the prevention of illness; and make the great advances in medicine, hospital design, and health care available to all, regardless of ability to pay." The committee advocated education as the best defense against mediocrity and closed its "Statement of Principles" with an admonition against intolerance. "In this and all other areas we reject discrimination based on race, creed, or sex as immoral, undemocratic, and savagely wasteful of the nation's human resources.
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From page 274... ...
Bardeen worried about many educational issues, including how state budget cuts might affect both the quality of education at the University of Illinois and the number of students who would have access to it. "You can't cut back continually and expect to have a first class institution." Recalling that as a college student he had enjoyed a great deal of freedom to study whatever he found interesting and noting that this policy had paid off in his case, Bardeen argued for proposed curriculum changes that would allow students more freedom to follow their own interests.
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From page 275... ...
He was among the American scientists to be invited to visit the Soviet Union in 1960 as part of an exchange program set up by the National Academy of Sciences. Because he was a member of
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From page 276... ...
David Pines and Leo Kadanoff came along. Bardeen began the first talk at the conference by saying that "we are familiar with the very outstanding work done in solid state physics in the Soviet Union, and know the names of many of your scientists who have contributed so much to our knowledge, but we seldom have a chance to meet with them in person." He called the conference a "welcome opportunity to make new friends and to discuss with them the latest developments in solid state theory." Everyone was "very friendly," he wrote to lane.
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From page 277... ...
In Xian, where the political types (CCP Party cadres) seemed especially intimidating to their own Chinese physicists, John made sure the latter were treated as intellectual equals to the American physicists, and thereby emboldened them in their research and teaching....
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From page 278... ...
In the early 1980s he served on the advisory committee for the International Project on the History of Solid State Physics, which initiated historical study of this major field and yielded the book, Out of the Crystal Maze. He helped organize the research and wrote to associates in industry, such as Bob Noyce of Intel, to solicit support.
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From page 279... ...
"The income is to be used to help support the Fritz London Award for distinguished work in low temperature physics." The fund also supported the Fritz London Memorial Lecture Series at Duke. Bardeen wrote of London, "More than anyone else he pointed out the path that eventually led to the theory of superconductivity for which Leon N
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From page 280... ...
They stressed that "Iong-term commitment for increased support of science is needed across the board. It is needed for 'small science' projects such as those that led to the transistor, the laser and high-temperature superconductors as well as for the costly '1arge-scale' projects, like the Super Collider, that promise rich dividends in increased understanding of our universe." Bardeen's extensive travels sometimes offered opportunities to renew old friendships or to see family.
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From page 281... ...
Scalapino noted, "John seemed to enjoy all this history immensely, as did we, and I wondered what his relatives thought of the man in their midst who had won two Nobel Prizes in Physics." John liked traveling best when lane came along with him, but until the children were grown and off to college she usually preferred to stay home. When he went to China in 1975 he wrote a little mournfully to lane from his stopover in Tokyo, "It is going to be a long time away from home and I am going to miss you." In later years lane nearly always accompanied him.
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From page 282... ...
His fellow honorees included, among others, the composer Irving Berlin, General Omar Bradley, baseball's Joe DiMaggio, artists Georgia O'Keefe and Norman Rockwell, and former first lady Lady Bird Johnson.
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From page 283... ...
He frequented the local country club, supported excellence in the schools, and attended sports events any time his schedule allowed. Bardeen appreciated the honor, for "there is nothing more gratifying than being recognized by your friends and neighbors.
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