Papers relating to the career of the nuclear physicist Emilio Segre, including a set of previously classified, now unclassified government documents including correspondence, laboratory reports and memoranda, relating to Segre's research; several diplomas and honorary awards and the programs from the ceremonies at which they were conferred.
Scope and Contents:
This collection is divided into two series: Series 1: Manhattan Project, 1942-1947 and Series 2: Awards, Diplomas, and Other Documents, 1945-1997. Series 1 consists of correspondence, research findings, monthly reports, and patent filing documents associated with Emilio Segrè's work on the atom bomb at the Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico. Individuals represented in this series include: Farrington Daniels, Enrico Fermi, Marshall G. Holloway, John Jungerman, Joseph W. Kennedy, W.M. Manning, G.T. Seaborg, Edward Teller, Richard C. Tolman, and Clyde Wiegand. Series 2 contains numerous awards, diplomas, certificates, booklets, and posters related to Emilio Segrè.
Biographical / Historical:
Emilio Segrè was born in Tivoli, Italy in 1905 and studied engineering at the University of Rome in 1922. He would later study under Enrico Fermi, receiving his doctorate in physics in 1928. Segrè was appointed as assistant professor at the University of Rome, but would later leave in 1936 to become the director of the physics laboratory at the University of Palermo. While visiting California in 1938, Segrè found himself dismissed from the University of Palermo by the Fascist government. Thus he remained in the United States and became a research associate in the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Renowned in the field of nuclear physics, Segrè was a team leader at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratories in New Mexico working on the atom bomb.
Segrè was naturalized as a United States citizen in 1944 and went on to be a professor of physics as Berkeley from 1946-1972. He was later appointed as professor of nuclear physics at the University of Rome in 1974. Working primarily in the field of atomic, nuclear, and particle physics, Segrè's work lead to the co-discovery of the elements Technetium, Astatine, and Plutonium-239, as well as of the slow neutron and the anti-proton. Together with Owen Chamberlain, Segrè received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959 for the discovery of the anti-proton.
He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received many honors from universities and governments throughout the world. His investigations in nuclear physics have increased our understanding of the production methods of nuclear energy.
Related Materials:
Archives Center, National Museum of American History
There are numerous medals, plaques, and other objects that relate to Emilio SegrŠ in the Numismatics Collection, and the Division of Medicine and Science (now Division of Medicine and Science). See Accession #1999.0027.
Provenance:
Collection donated by Rosa Segre Estate, through Peggy Cabaniss, August 27, 1998.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Gloves required with unprotected photographs.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
An Engineering Design Study of A Reference Theta-Pinch Reactor (RTPR) (Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory/Argonne National Laboratory report LA-5336/ANL-8019, Mar 1974) [photocopy sent to Ehricke by NTIS, 1 May 1980]
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Krafft A. Ehricke Papers, Accession 2003-0025, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Krafft A. Ehricke Papers, Accession 2003-0025, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Krafft A. Ehricke Papers, Accession 2003-0025, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Krafft A. Ehricke Papers, Accession 2003-0025, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, vol. 32, no. 8, July 1930; vol. 63, no. 7, May 1961; and vol. 64, no. 1, November 1961.
Collection Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Collection Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests.
Collection Citation:
Arthur Raymond Brooks Collection, NASM.1989.0104, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
The History of the Cell Sorter Videohistory Collection
Extent:
7 videotapes (Reference copies). 12 digital .wmv files and .rm files (Reference copies).
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Videotapes
Transcripts
Date:
1991
Introduction:
The Smithsonian Videohistory Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation from 1986 until 1992, used video in historical research. Additional collections have
been added since the grant project ended. Videohistory uses the video camera as a historical research tool to record moving visual information. Video works best in historical
research when recording people at work in environments, explaining artifacts, demonstrating process, or in group discussion. The experimental program recorded projects that
reflected the Institution's concern with the conduct of contemporary science and technology.
Smithsonian historians participated in the program to document visual aspects of their on-going historical research. Projects covered topics in the physical and biological
sciences as well as in technological design and manufacture. To capture site, process, and interaction most effectively, projects were taped in offices, factories, quarries,
laboratories, observatories, and museums. Resulting footage was duplicated, transcribed, and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution Archives for scholarship, education,
and exhibition. The collection is open to qualified researchers.
Descriptive Entry:
Ramunas Kondratas, curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH), documented the history, development, commercialization and applications
of fluorescence activated cell sorting instrumentation. Sessions were recorded January 30, 1991 at San Jose, California; February 1, 1991 at Palo Alto, California; April 19,
1991 at Washington, D.C.; and June 28, 1991 at Providence, Rhode Island.
Several participants were also interviewed on audiotape. They include Bach, Christiaanse, Fulwyler, Leonard Herzenberg, Leonore Herzenberg, Kudravcev, Mhatre, Recktenwald,
Rotman, Shoor, and Van Dilla. The audiotapes and transcripts complement the videotape sessions and are available through the Division of Medical Sciences, National Museum
of American History. Inventing the Cell Sorter, an edited program on the history of the machine, accompanies the collection as supplemental material. This tape, Inventing
the Cell Sorter, may not be copied without the permission of Ramunas Kondratas.
This collection consists of four interview sessions, totalling approximately 10:20 hours of recordings and 203 pages of transcript.
Audiotapes: Several participants were also interviewed on audiotape. The audiotapes and transcripts complement the videotape session, and are available through the Division
of Medical Sciences, National Museum of American History.
Historical Note:
The cell sorter, an instrument with sophisticated optics, lasers and electronic processors, automated the task of identifying and quantitatively analyzing individual
cells, and of separating and rapidly sorting closely related cell populations. By measuring the physical and chemical properties of cells, such as fluorescence, then by physically
separating cells while still alive, the cell sorter became an important tool for biomedical research and clinical medicine.
The first prototype sorter was built at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in 1965 by physicist Mack J. Fulwyler by joining a Coulter volume sensor with the newly-invented
ink jet printer. The first biologist who clearly saw uses for the Los Alamos instrument, especially for the study of immunological properties of cells, was Leonard Herzenberg
of Stanford University. With Fulwyler's plans, Herzenberg obtained the cooperation of engineers in the Genetics Department's Instrumentation Research Laboratory at Stanford
to build an instrument to sort live cells using fluorescence. Two successful prototypes were built -- a 1969 instrument that employed a mercury arc lamp as light source and
a 1972 version which used an argon ion laser to detect cells tagged with fluorescent markers. Funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) allowed Herzenberg and the
Stanford engineers to interest the medical products company Becton Dickinson (BD) to convert their prototypes into the first commercial instruments, the FACS (Fluorescence
Activated Cell Sorter) in 1975.
Interviewees included scientists, engineers, managers, and physicians from Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems (BDIS), Stanford University, Brown University, and LANL.
Bruce Allen Bach received his B.S. in biology and his M.A. in molecular biology from Stanford University in 1973 and 1974, respectively. He was awarded his Ph.D. in immunology
from Harvard Medical School in 1979 and a M.D. from the Washington University School of Medicine in 1981. After completing his residency at the University of California Affiliated
Hospitals, Bach accepted the position of Associate Scientific Member of the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute in 1984. From 1985 to 1987 he served as a physician at
two San Francisco area hospitals. In 1989, he was appointed Corporate Medical Director of BDIS, and held that position concurrently with his 1991 appointment as director of
BD's worldwide clinical trials group.
Mack Jett Fulwyler received his B.S. in physics from Idaho State College in 1961 and his Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Colorado in 1969. From 1961 to 1967,
Fulwyler worked at LANL where he developed particle separators and sorters. In 1971, he accepted the position of President of Particle Technology, Inc. In 1977, after completing
a two year fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, Fulwyler returned to the U.S. to serve as Technical Director for BD FACS System Division. He retired from that
position in 1982 and accepted a professorship at the University of California, San Francisco. Since 1990, Fulwyler served as Director of Technical Development for the Trancel
Corporation.
After receiving his B.A. in biology and chemistry from Brooklyn College in 1952 and his Ph.D. in biochemistry and immunology from the California Institute of Technology
in 1955, Leonard A. Herzenberg accepted a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society to conduct research at the Pasteur Institute in France. Herzenberg returned
to the U.S. in 1957 to serve as an officer for the Public Health Service at the National Institutes of Health. In 1959, he accepted the position of Assistant Professor in
the Department of Genetics at Stanford University and was eventually appointed Professor of Genetics.
Leonore A. Herzenberg attended classes at Pomona College and the California Institute of Technology during the mid-1950s. In 1981, she was awarded the degree of Docteur
des Sciences Naturelles from the Sorbonne University in Paris. During the 1950s, she served as a research assistant at the California Institute of Technology, the Pasteur
Institute, and the National Institutes of Health. In 1959, she accepted the position of Research Assistant in the Department of Genetics and the Department of Obstetrics and
Gynecology at Stanford University. Subsequently, she was appointed Senior Research Assistant in those departments in 1963 and Research Associate in 1967. From 1973 to 1989,
she worked as a Research Associate and Senior Research Associate solely in the Department of Genetics. In 1989, she was appointed professor in the Genetics Department.
Mark A. Krasnow received his B.S. in biology and chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1978. He was awarded his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1983, and his M.D. in 1985,
from the University of Chicago. In 1988, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His research
interests include the biochemical mechanisms of transcriptional regulation and cell to cell interactions in the development of Drosophila.
Nagesh S. Mhatre, president of BDIS, was awarded a B.S. from Bombay University, an M.S. from Oregon State University, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry-microbiology from Rutgers
University. Before being appointed president in 1983, Mhatre held a variety of positions with Becton Dickinson & Company. Previously, he was with Miles Laboratory for
seventeen years.
After receiving his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1986, Monty Montano conducted research at the University of California, San Francisco
on the use of recombinant DNA applied to clinical genetics. Montano began a doctoral program in genetics at Stanford University in 1988.
Wayne A. Moore received his B.S. in mathematics and science from Stanford University in 1976. From 1972, he worked as a lab assistant and programmer at the Stanford Department
of Genetics and was later appointed Senior Scientific Programmer of that department.
From 1970 to 1974, Thomas Nozaki, Jr., served as an electronics engineer at the Stanford Computation Center. After receiving his B.S. in electrical engineering from California
State University in 1974, Nozaki joined the Stanford Department of Genetics as a research and development electronics engineer.
Richard E. Owen, Director of Instrument Operations for BDIS, joined the company in 1988 as Manufacturing Engineering Manager. Prior to joining BDIS, he was Director of
Thorn EMI Datatech Ltd. in England. He holds a Higher National Certificate in Applied Physics from Southeast London Technical College, a B.A. in Management from St. Marys
College in Moraga, California, and is a graduate of the Institute of Electronic and Radio Engineers.
David R. Parks received his B.S. from Grinnell College in 1967, and his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1973. From 1973 to 1974 he worked as a Field Assistant
and Project Manager in environmental studies at the Missouri Botanical Garden. In 1975, he returned to Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Genetics.
In 1981, he accepted the position of Research Associate in that department and held that position concurrently with his appointment as director of the Shared Cell Sorter Facility
in 1983.
In 1981 Diether J. Recktenwald joined BDIS as a Senior Research Scientist; he was appointed research group leader and later associate scientific director. Prior to BDIS,
he was a visiting scientist at Stanford University and a senior research associate at the Max Planck Institute. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from Ruhruniversitat
Bochum in Germany, and an M.S. and B.S. from Universitat des Saarlandes Saarbrucken, also in Germany.
Marcos Boris Rotman received his M.S. in chemical engineering from the University F. Santa Maria in Chile in 1948, and his Ph.D. in microbiology, organic chemistry, and
biochemistry from the University of Illinois in 1952. After completing his degree, he served a year as a research associate at the University of Illinois, and then moved to
the University of Wisconsin to work in the laboratory of Joshua Lederberg from 1953 to 1956. In 1959, Rotman became Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at
the Albany Medical School, and in 1961 moved to the Department of Genetics at Stanford as a Research Associate. From 1961 to 1966, he served as head of the biochemistry section
of the Syntex Institute for Molecular Biology, located at Stanford. In 1966, Rotman left Stanford to become professor of Medical Science at Brown University. In 1990, he was
awarded the title of Professor Emeritus.
Bernie Shoor completed his B.A. in physics from New York University in 1946. After receiving his degree, he worked for the Army Signal Corps and subsequently the Sperry
Gyroscope Company. In 1966, Shoor began working for Endevco Corporation, a small scientific instrument company which was eventually bought by BD. In 1970, Shoor became manager
of BD's Mountain View, California, laboratory. In 1977, he accepted the position of Corporate Vice-President of Research and Design at BD's headquarters in New Jersey. In
1981, he returned to California to establish the BD Monoclonal Center. Shoor retired from BD in 1984 but has continued to serve as a consultant for the company.
After receiving his B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1965, and his M.S. in theoretical and applied mechanics in 1967 from Cornell University, Richard T. Stovel worked
as a Research Engineer at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company analyzing the structural dynamics of missile systems. In 1972, he joined the Stanford University Department of
Genetics as a Physical Science and Engineering Technician working on the operation and development of the prototype cell sorting machine. In 1976, he was appointed Research
and Development Engineer of the Genetics Department where he continued his research in fluid jet behavior.
Richard G. Sweet received his B.S. in electrical engineering in 1947. From 1947 to 1951, he worked as a design engineer on telephone systems at the Southern California
Edison Company. In 1951, he accepted the position of Senior Design Engineer at Gilfillan Bros. Inc., developing electronics equipment for radar systems. Sweet joined Stanford
University Electronics Labs in 1956 as a research associate where he developed, most notably, high speed ink jet recording systems. After a decade at Stanford, Sweet accepted
the position of Senior Engineer at Varian Associates in 1966 and worked on developing instrumentation for classifying and sorting small particles. In 1971, he travelled as
a visiting scientist to the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center to conduct research on non-impact printing systems. Since 1986, Sweet has served as a consultant to both the Herzenberg
Laboratory and to BDIS.
After receiving his B.S. from City College of New York in 1939 and his Ph.D. in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1951, Marvin A. Van Dilla worked in
the radiobiology laboratory at the University of Utah. In 1957, he joined the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory as the biophysics group leader. Van Dilla left Los Alamos in
1972 to become the cytophysics Section Leader of the Biomedical Sciences Division at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. In 1983, he was appointed Leader of the Gene Library Project
at Livermore.
Nicholas Veizades was awarded his B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958, and his M.S. in engineering sciences from Stanford
University in 1961. He joined the Stanford Department of Genetics in 1962 and worked in the Instrumentation Research Laboratory on biomedical instrumentation.
Rights:
Restricted. "Inventing the Cell Sorter" film cannot be reproduced. Contact SIHistory@si.edu for more details.
At Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, featured Bethe, Christy, Reines, and Mark on the theoretical physicist's view of the Laboratory's operation, c. 1943-1945, including: reasons for participation; division of labor between and relationsh...
At Fuller Lodge, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, featured Bacher, Bainbridge, Bradbury, and Hawkins on the experimental physicist's experience at the Laboratory, c. 1943-1945, including: methods of recruitment and reasons for participation; debate on...
Consisted of visual documentation of the landscape of Los Alamos in 1945 and 1988, including: nine still photographs of the preparations for Trinity; views of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and environs.
Four participants from "Project Alberta" convened for Sessions Seventeen and Eighteen. This phase of the Manhattan Project dealt with the conversion of the Trinity
test device into the practical weapons systems that were used twice on Japan. The interviewees were among those who designed the bombs to fit the B-29, wired them with redundant
electronics, rehearsed the mission, established a base on Tinian Island, and released the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The sessions were shot at the National Museum
of American History in Washington, D.C., and at the National Air and Space Museum's Paul E. Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland.
Norman F. Ramsey, Jr., received his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University in 1940. During World War II, Ramsey consulted with various government groups concerned with
military technology. In 1943 he moved from the offices of the Secretary of War to Los Alamos, where he became a group leader for bomb delivery. After the war, he returned
to Columbia and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1989. Harold M. Agnew received his A.B. in chemistry from the University of Denver in 1942. His advisor referred him to
Enrico Fermi, under whom his responsibility was for some of the measurements of the atomic explosions over Japan. After the war Agnew earned his Ph.D. in particle physics
at the University of Chicago before returning to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. He directed the Laboratory there from 1970 to 1979.
Frederick L. Ashworth graduated from the United States Naval Academy and completed the Naval Postgraduate School course in ordnance engineering shortly before the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. After service in the Pacific Theater of Operations, he worked for William S. Parsons and Norman F. Ramsey on the detonation components of the
atomic bombs. Ashworth acted as weaponeer on the Nagasaki mission and as General Groves' representative on Tinian Island. His book, The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, was published in 1947. Charles W. Sweeney was born in 1920 and grew up in eastern Massachusetts. He enlisted as an air cadet in April 1941, and rose to commander
of a bomber squadron in the European Theater of Operations. With nearly three thousand hours of accident-free flight time to recommend him, Sweeney joined Colonel Paul Tibbetts'
509th Composite Group of B-29's in September 1944. He piloted an observation plane at the Hiroshima bombing and dropped the "Fat Man" over Nagasaki from Bock's Car. After
he completed his enlistment, he returned to Massachusetts to begin a wholesale leather business and served in the Air National Guard until 1976.
Goldberg used the Enola Gay site to draw from the participants details of their involvement with the technologies of Project Alberta. Other questions stimulated
recollections of experiences on Tinian Island and on the two missions to Japan. The sessions were shot with half-inch Betacam tape and provide visual documentation of the
Little Boy and Fat Man bomb models and the B-29 Enola Gay.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 9531, The Manhattan Project Videohistory Collection
Interviewees in this collection worked on the physics of atomic bomb design at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico. The sessions were taped at the
studios of Audvid Film and Tape Production, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Four physicists who played important roles in the "Trinity" atomic bomb test at Alamogordo, New Mexico, were reunited for Session Nine. Kenneth Bainbridge, a physicist
at Harvard University, designed and built the Harvard cyclotron which was used at Los Alamos. In 1940 he joined the radar research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), and soon after went to Cambridge University in England to work on radar and uranium experiments. He was recruited for the Manhattan Project and moved to Los Alamos
in the summer of 1943. In March 1944, he took charge of the Trinity test and administered it from site selection to detonation. Donald F. Hornig, also a physicist at Harvard
before he joined the Los Alamos staff, designed the high-voltage capacitors that fired the Fat Man's multiple detonators. Philip Morrison received his Ph.D. in theoretical
physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1940, and worked on the Project at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago before arriving at Los
Alamos in 1944 to serve as Physicist and Group Leader. Robert Wilson had recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley and taught at Princeton University
before he arrived in Los Alamos in April 1943. He headed various subgroups engaged in cyclotron research for the Trinity test.
Session Ten participants worked at Los Alamos with different levels of responsibility. Robert Wilson and Robert Serber were Division Leaders. Serber received his Ph.D.
from the University of Wisconsin in 1934, and worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer as a Research Associate at the University of Chicago's "Met Lab" before arriving at Los Alamos.
Serber's introductory lectures on the physics and chemistry of the Project in April 1943 became the Los Alamos Primer.
Anthony French received his A.B. in physics from Cambridge University. Before coming to Los Alamos in 1944, he worked at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory. David H. Frisch
was still a graduate student when he arrived at Los Alamos as a Junior Physicist in 1943. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1947.
Four women from Los Alamos convened to discuss their professional and domestic lives in Session Eleven. Lilli S. Hornig received her M.A. in chemistry from Harvard in 1943
and her Ph.D. in 1950. From 1944 to 1946 she served as Staff Scientist in the plutonium chemistry division at Los Alamos, and as Section Leader for high explosives development.
Rose E. Frisch received her Ph.D. in physiological genetics from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. At Los Alamos, she monitored the effects of radiation in the medical
laboratory. Alice Kimball Smith received her Ph.D. in history from Yale University and taught social studies at Los Alamos High School. After the war she served as historian
for the Association of Los Alamos Scientists. Her book, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America 1945-1947, was published in 1965. Jane S. Wilson also
taught at the Los Alamos High School.
Physicists who worked on the implosion program gathered for Session Twelve. Bernard T. Feld worked at the Met Lab at the University of Chicago before coming to Los Alamos
in 1944. He received his Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University in 1945. Cyril Smith received his D.Sc. in metallurgy from MIT in 1926. He served as associate division
leader in metallurgy at Los Alamos from 1943 to 1946. Robert Serber and Philip Morrison appeared again in this interview.
Goldberg encouraged discussion of the culture and the workload at Los Alamos, and the attitudes towards that work and its consequences.
Collection Citation:
Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 9531, The Manhattan Project Videohistory Collection
