Interview with Frank Oppenheimer - Caltech Oral Histories

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Oppenheimer–29GOODSTEIN: Why? Were you interested in physiology?OPPENHEIMER: Yes. I remember one talk he gave, called “Everest in Utero,” which had to dowith the lack of oxygen in the uterus.GOODSTEIN: And then, when you went to Florence, did you follow any courses there?OPPENHEIMER: No. I was only there for eight months. Bernardini and I did this work ondeveloping proportional counters in coincidence to measure the range of protons.GOODSTEIN: Of the three labs, which did you enjoy the most?OPPENHEIMER: They were so different. Probably the Cavendish in some ways because there wasso much going on there, and it was all new to me. And they met every day for tea, and you couldlisten and hit upon what was going on. [Peter L.] Kapitsa was there, Cockcroft and Walton,[George] Gamow would come around. It was a very exciting place.GOODSTEIN: And you heard, every day, what everybody was doing.OPPENHEIMER: That’s right. I don’t know why we don’t stop and talk to each other more.GOODSTEIN: Even at Kellogg, you really only did it on Friday nights.OPPENHEIMER: Yes, that’s right. Where was the Journal Club started? Was that at Berkeley or atKellogg?GOODSTEIN: There was a Journal Club at Caltech.OPPENHEIMER: Yes. I remember that. We all worked at that.GOODSTEIN: That’s where you would present a paper that had recently come out.http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Oppenheimer_F
Oppenheimer–30OPPENHEIMER: That’s right, and that was a very good thing. I remember doing that quite often,and all of us did. But it wasn’t for the whole physics department, I don’t think. I think it waspretty much a nuclear physics or maybe a nuclear physics and cosmic ray journal club.GOODSTEIN: That was informal, with the professors and the grad students?OPPENHEIMER: Yes.GOODSTEIN: Did the undergraduates ever partake of that?OPPENHEIMER: I wasn’t aware of it if they did. They may have. But that was a very fine affair.Then, when I went to Minnesota, I started one up there. And after several months, the FBI camearound to ask what we were discussing. [Laughter]GOODSTEIN: Do you keep up with any of the people that you knew from those days at Caltech?OPPENHEIMER: Not too many. Willy Fowler I like to see. Delsasso isn’t alive. Stevie died.Bonner died. I go to see Sigrid. Tommy died. It’s a pretty dismal picture.GOODSTEIN: Well, it’s true. Tommy died young.OPPENHEIMER: Yes, it’s terrible. God, he was wonderful at these journal meetings. He neverdrank at all in those days. But he would keep up; his mood would change with everybody else’s,and he would get more and more outrageous as everybody else did.GOODSTEIN: Without the benefit of the alcohol?OPPENHEIMER: Yes, that’s right.GOODSTEIN: Was there ever any problem with a son going into the same field as the father?http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Oppenheimer_F
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Interview with Frank Oppenheimer - Caltech Oral Histories

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