Universität Wien [University of Vienna]

Career in nuclear physics, chiefly through 1939; describes differences in atmosphere among the Universities of Vienna, Berlin, London and Copenhagen; his switch from mathematics to physics at Vienna; work at University of Berlin on a grant, with Peter Pringsheim, before going to Hamburg to work with Otto Stern; with Hitler laws in effect, leaves for position with Patrick M. S. Blackett at Birkbeck College, 1933; then to Niels Bohr's Institute, until 1939; anecdotes about working on neutron experiments and nuclear models in Copenhagen; recounts how he and Lise Meitner explained fission, and memorandum with Rudolf Peierls on bomb possibilities; brief comments on postwar career.

This interview was conducted as part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics project, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with approximately 100 atomic and quantum physicists. Subjects discuss their family backgrounds, how they became interested in physics, their educations, people who influenced them, their careers including social influences on the conditions of research, and the state of atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics during the period in which they worked. Discussions of scientific matters relate to work that was done between approximately 1900 and 1930, with an emphasis on the discovery and interpretations of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Also prominently mentioned are: Niels Henrik David Bohr, Albert Einstein, James Franck, Fritz London, Karl Mueller, Peter Pringsheim, Isidor Isaac Rabi, Otto Stern, Hans Thirring, Otto Warburg; and Universität Wien.

This interview was conducted as part of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics project, which includes tapes and transcripts of oral history interviews conducted with circa 100 atomic and quantum physicists. Subjects discuss their family backgrounds, how they became interested in physics, their educations, people who influenced them, their careers including social influences on the conditions of research, and the state of atomic, nuclear, and quantum physics during the period in which they worked. Discussions of scientific matters relate to work that was done between approximately 1900 and 1930, with an emphasis on the discovery and interpretations of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Also prominently mentioned are: Ludwig Edvard Boltzmann, Percy Williams Bridgman, Louis de Broglie, Patrick Browne, James Bryant Conant, Paul Ehrenfest, Albert Einstein, Franz Serafin Exner, Arthur Haas, Fritz Hasenöhrl, Werner Heisenberg, Karl Ferdinand Herzfeld, Victor Francis Hess, Jack Kennedy, Paul Langevin, Ernst Mach, Richard von Mises, Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Kurt Sitte, Arnold Sommerfeld; Deutsche Naturforscher Versammlung (Prague), University of Prague, and Universität Wien.

Interview focusses on early life in Vienna, family and religion; atmosphere in Vienna in early 1930s; growth of interest in mathematical physics; anti-Semitism in Vienna; influence of history teacher and rejection of religion; influence of reading Eddington and Jeans in the mid-1930s; further study in England and contact with Eddington; Trinity College, 1937-1940; study with Besicovitch; collapse of plebiscite and family in Vienna; internment during World WarII; graduate study with Harold Jeffreys; naval radar, 1942; associates during war and circle at Cambridge; development of radar research team with Gold and Hoyle; developing astronomical interests, 1943; early research on accretion and evolution; cosmology; general relativity; contact with Dyson, Lighthill and W.H. McCrae; work in theoretical stellar structure; the problem of red giants; Hoyle's theory of stellar evolution; Hoyle-Lyttleton red giant models; growing interests in cosmology and discussion of Tolman and Hubble; the Steady State Cosmology; reactions to Steady State theory; gravitational theory and relativity circa 1955.

Involvement in the history of quantum physics and nuclear physics; thoughts on physics institutions in underdeveloped countries. Studies at University of Vienna in the early 1920s; his work at Felix Ehrenhaft's Institute until 1928; subsequent assistantship with Werner Heisenberg at University of Leipzig for four years. Conversations with Heisenberg about electrons in the nucleus; origins of Beck's interest in nuclear physics after hearing Francis W. Ashton's paper on mass defect at the 1927 Volta Conference; conferences at University of Copenhagen including 1932, where, before the positron was discovered, everyone was making fun of Paul A. M. Dirac's "holes." Theory of beta decay, inability to continue work on it due to lack of additional data when going to Kansas in 1934 and Odessa in 1935. Leaves Odessa; internment in France during the war; escape to Portugal and arrives in Argentina. Also prominently mentioned are: M. Besso, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Ernest Rutherford, Erwin Schrodinger, Adolf Smekal, Hans Thirring, Joseph J. Thomson, Victor F. Weisskopf, and Hideki Yukawa.