A free online archive of hundreds of historical interviews with the 20th century's greatest physicists has now been launched to aid the research of science writers, academic scholars, teachers, and students.
The resource, created by the American Institute of Physics' Niels Bohr Library and Archives, contains both written transcripts and audio recordings of oral histories that date back fifty years. This archive draws on four decades of interviews conducted by the staff of AIP's Center for History of Physics.
Want to know how cosmologist George Gamow felt about the term "big bang," the coining of which is commonly attributed to him? "I don't like the word 'big bang.' I never call it 'big bang,' because it is kind of cliche," he said in a 1968 interview available as an online sound clip.
The catalog contains a total of more than 3,000 hours of audio recordings from 1,500 physicists and astronomers.
Online transcripts of these interviews are arranged alphabetically by name – from space physicist Jules Aaron to Manhattan Project member Herbert York – and can also be accessed through the site's search engine. Researchers looking into a particular field such as quantum physics or science education can also search by topic.
"The archive includes interviews with the founders of quantum physics and quantum mechanics like Niels Bohr, Dirac, and Heisenberg … virtually all of the major figures who were still alive in 1960s," said Joe Anderson, director of the Niels Bohr Library and Archives.
Other topics that are covered extensively include nuclear and solid state physics, laser science, modern astrophysics and astronomy, and industrial physics.
Select sound clips from the oral histories, featuring the voices of the scientists themselves, are also offered on the site.
The complete recordings are available by request at the library itself, which also holds a collection of over 30,000 historical photographs, as well as an extensive catalog of books and manuscripts.
The online archive and Web site are made possible by a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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