From: Bill Evenson Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 8:41 PM To: Paul M. Grant Subject: RE: APS March Meeting Symposium on 20th Anniversary of HighTcSuperconductivity Paul, Thanks for your detailed reply. I hope it's okay if I try to reach you on the telephone tomorrow to discuss these suggestions a bit further. We are very short of time for getting this organized, but I think we can put together a first-rate session. Thanks, Bill >>> "Paul M. Grant" 10/16/2006 4:01 PM >>> Hi Bill, Of course, I'd be willing to help assist organizing such a session. BTW, I apologize for not responding sooner...even though I'm now "fully retired," it seems somehow I'm busier than ever. I'm attaching a recent book review I wrote for Nature as an example (the title, "Moses of Silicon Valley," I blatantly plagiarized from Michael Riordan). Also attached for background is the 1997 Nature piece I did on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of "Woodstock" (would you believe one of the younger editors at Nature had never heard of the original Woodstock?). You may know I've had several conversations and e-mail exchanges with Dave Tanner, current chair of DCMP, and Judy Franz, most recently at the Baltimore meeting past. One of the more awkward aspects of a 20th anniversary recognition of the 1987 March Meeting event is that next year is also the 50th anniversary of BCS. There has been much discussion as to how to handle this latter situation given Bob Schrieffer's unfortunate and tragic circumstances surrounding his conviction on a traffic incident that resulted in the death of completely innocent individuals three years ago. Bob is now incarcerated in Wasco state prison, only a couple of dozen miles from where I live, and may be paroled before year end. When I look at the slot you have available, it's about 3 hours divided by 5, or around 30+5 minutes for each speaker. Might I suggest you one or two additional speakers? There were quite a number "present at the creation." Has FHP given you any support (money) for travel expenses of potential speakers? I have in mind those like Alex Mueller and Shoji Tanaka who led off Woodstock. On the other hand, it may be more appropriate to wait and have a big blowout in 2012 on number 25. And then, on the other hand, none of us are getting any younger! I don't know how far along you are in the organization of a Denver session, so I'll just make some recommendations off the top of my head. Chairpersons: Brian Maple and/or Brian Schwartz. Both were vital in organizing the 1987 session. Speakers: I assume you want these individuals to address the historical events before and during the Hilton session (war stories), perhaps concluding with a brief perspective on the issues of HTSC today. If practical, I would stick with those who gave presentations at the New York meeting. Institutions: There were several major institutions involved, both at the beginning, and at the March Meeting: IBM, U. Tokyo, U. Houston, Bell Labs and BellCore (the last two no longer really exist!). IBM: Of course, Bedorz and/or Mueller, if available. Beyond them, there were myself and Rick Greene (on sabbatical to Yorktown from my group from Almaden at the time). Yorktown was rather slow in catching on to the discovery. Bill, there's a big story here that I don't want to go into at present. Modestly speaking, I know the inside IBM story and could relate a selective portion should Alex and George not be available. Recently, I related what led Alex Mueller to consider mixed valent TMOs as possible high temperature superconductors at a retrospective session we held at ASC06 two months ago in Seattle (http://www.ascinc.org/20thAnniversary.asp). Tokyo: There's a great story here, too. Shoji Tanaka is the "Ted Geballe" or "Bernd Mattias" of Japan, and was the second speaker at the all-night session the day after St. Patrick's. In 1986, he did not believe at all the Bednorz-Mueller paper of the September Z. f. Physik. But his protégé Koichi Kitazawa did and had the courage to go against his boss, which today Shoji with pride says was the right thing to do. Koichi's English is outstanding and he can spin a great tale. Houston/Alabama: Paul Chu...who else? Actually, there's an interesting story known only to a few...the first public disclosure of some of the details of Paul's discovery. This occurred at two seminars Doug Scalapino organized at ITP-UCSB, first one by invitation only, followed by one open, the afternoon of Thursday, February 26, 1987, the day before the publication of Paul's papers in PRL and two and half weeks before the March Meeting. Paricipants at the first seminar were Doug, Paul, Bob Schrieffer, Phil Anderson, Alan Heeger, Jim Sethna (visiting from Cornell) and yours truly. We all gave talks and it lasted about two hours. It was very lively, to say the least, followed by dinner at a local Goleta Italian restaurant with lively predictions that by the time of next year's Aspen Meeting we'd all be skiing on levitated boards! As far as I know, Doug has never publicly related the events of that day, and he is a great storyteller. Bell Labs: Were it not for the Schoen Affair, Bertram Batlogg would be the natural choice. On second thought, I'm not so sure. Scandal or not, Bertram tends to be rather condescending toward others, a "tragic flaw" that lead to his current situation. Bob Cava is a good speaker and in my opinion deserved to be the Bell speaker at Woodstock instead of Bertram. The third member of their team at that time, Bruce van Dover, is a good historical source because he really knows what went on in Murray Hill. Bruce and I have traded a number of "insider stories" over the last 20 years. BellCore: I would nominate Laura Greene, now at UIUC. Laura's work, along with Jean-Pierre Tarascon, in February 1987 on oxygen processing in La2CuO4, was vital to our later understanding of creating bulk superconductivity in YBCO. As an adjunct to this anniversary session in Denver, you might consider having a modest exhibit of pictures perhaps outside the session room. Oddly, there is a surprising lack of "official photos" available, although I know many pictures were taken by various individuals. It was quite difficult for Nature to obtain photos to use for my 10th anniversary article, most of which I believe were obtained from NYT archives. Phil Schewe of AIP has given permission to me to use photos he took, several of which show Alex Mueller being interviewed by the press. One might think about polling the APS membership for personal pictures that might be donated. In addition, I have digitized into mpeg files the entire session taped by APS on the occasion, so one could consider setting up a continuously running DVD player plus monitor, at least for the opening plenary session. Well, there you have it. I hope this doesn't arrive too late to be helpful. If you want to talk some of the above over, let me know a time and number to phone you. Somehow I thought I was a member of FHP...I get the newsletter from the Neils Bohr library...but I see I'm not, a situation I'll correct next year. My love of history is second only to my love of physics. I plan (someday) to write up the "definitive" story of the HTSC discovery period. You can get of little taste of what that might entail from the title page of my website (click on the photo). I see you live in Provo. I've been a skier since age 5 and for many years would do the runs in Cottonwood Canyon returning from March Meetings. If I hadn't spent so much time in the mountains, I could have published 50 more papers. Cheers, -Paul Paul M. Grant, PhD Principal, W2AGZ Technologies Visiting Scholar, Applied Physics, Stanford University EPRI Science Fellow (Retired) IBM Research Staff Member Emeritus w2agz@pacbell.net http://www.w2agz.com -----Original Message----- From: Bill Evenson [mailto:Bill.Evenson@uvsc.edu] Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 1:29 PM To: Paul Grant Subject: APS March Meeting Symposium on 20th Anniversary of High TcSuperconductivity Paul, You have been suggested to me as someone who might help the APS Forum on the History of Physics (FHP) organize a symposium for the March Meeting (Denver, March 5-9, 2007) on "20th Anniversary of High Tc Superconductivity." Time is very short: we need to have the names of invited speakers in two weeks. Please let me know your thoughts about this. I'll be happy to call and discuss it further on the telephone. We do have a slot reserved on the program: Monday, March 5, 11:15-14:15, 4-5 speakers. Thanks, Bill Evenson FHP Chair Elect and Program Chair