Angelo Baracca (Italy)
A D IF F E R E N T IA T IO N BETW EEN “ BIG SC IE N C E ” VS. “ L ITTLE S C IE N C E :”
L A W R E N C E A N D TU V E, F IR S T E X P E R IM E N T S W IT H D E U T O N S
M y talk will deal with the interactions between instrum ents and research. A t the beginning o f the thirties a num ber o f experim ental groups undertook advanced research in nuclear physics in the US. They were com posed o f young physicists with new ideas and m ethods and styles o f research. In this respect, the thirties were a period o f change, in which one m ay try to recognize the early signs o f future choices.
Team research started in this period. M ainly in experim ental physics the new techniques or machines required the developm ent o f large laboratories. The average num ber o f authors o f a single paper increased during the thirties. M anagem ent became a part o f scientific activity and provided increasing funds for large scale research and facilities. M y talk deals with a specific p a rt o f nuclear physics: the early investigations using the first particle accelerators in the U nited States (1).
Three groups developed these activities: 1) th at o f Lawrence in Berkeley;
2) Tuve at the D epartm ent o f Terrestrial M agnetism (I will call it D T M ) o f the Carnegie Institute o f W ash in g to n ;
3) the group o f C rane and Lauritsen in Pasadena. I will be concerned m ainly with Lawrence and Tuve.
O ther authors (Seidel, Davis, and others) (2, 3,4) have already analized some striking aspects o f Lawrence’s character and a ttitu d e : his com petitive and m anagerial leadership, his constant trend tow ards larger m achines and higher energies, his ability in collecting everywhere financial support, and in this connection his concern in showing the practical usefulness o f his products.
Tuve, on the contrary, had a very different, and in m any respects opposite, attitude. In fact it is striking th at he was one o f the scientists who gave m ajor fundam ental contributions to the progress o f nuclear physics during the thirties (and o f o th er disciplines after the war) b u t his name and achievements are alm ost
238 Angelo Baracca
unknow n to the great m ajority o f today physicists, who on the contrary generally well know Lawrence’s nam e and role. Lawrence, m oreover, was aw arded the Nobel Prize in 1939, while Tuve always missed it, even if it is conceivable th at two or three o f his achievements could have m erited it.
I suggest here th at these facts greatly derived from the peculiar Tuve’s character and attitude, which led him to dislike the mechanisms and spirit th at were increasingly pervading a research activity of ever growing dimensions (laboratories, research groups, and so on). In this sense Tuve at the end came out defeated by the incoming changes. I will deal mainly with a case study reconstructed on the basis o f prim ary sources. I recall first th at Lawrence and Tuve were born in the same town, were school-friends and constantly linked by a deep friendship all along their lives. The bitter rem arks Tuve had to pronounce about Lawrence’s researches are then even m ore significant.
Lawrence’s group published the first results o f experiments in nuclear physics with charged accelerated particles well before Tuve’s group (5): unfortunately the lack o f rigour in these experiments became evident in short time and was recognized and constantly rem arked on by Tuve himself. On the other hand it is well know n th at Lawrence, w orking at the cyclotron and disposing o f it, really missed some o f the m ain discoveries, namely artificial disintegration o f the nucleus, and artificial radioactivity.
The opposite attitude o f Tuve’s group is striking: a great accuracy in designing the m achines and the experimental techniques, in testing the ap paratuses, before really entering nuclear physics research.
On M arch 18th 1933, for instance, Lawrence wrote Tuve (6):
Just a note to tell you that w e have recently found that we were w rong in assum ing that the radiations w e observed from alum inium were alpha particles as stated in our recent letter to the P hysical R eview (7). W e have lately show n definitely that m ost o f the radiations observed are m ade up o f X-rays.
In the letter received by Tuve, some hand-w ritten significant notes appear dated M arch 24th 1933 where Lawrence cites Tuve as the first to have produced artificial neutrons, the latter a d d e d : “ We have never reported or written to anyone th at we had accomplished this...” (6).
The first experimental results published by the D TM group (10) were in fact in clear disagreem ent with Lawrence’s previous results, b ut Lawrence replied insisting on his own results, even if “ there is always, o f course, the possibility that these alpha particles are due to im purities” (11) (and Tuve added a note to the le tte r: “ Im purities?!” ). In the same letter Lawrence reported the first results on the scattering by accelerated deutons, obtained in collaboration with the chemist Lewis. It is interesting to rem ark that, in spite o f the growing divergencies, the Lawrence— Tuve friendship was so deep th a t the first provided the latter with the heavy w ater necessary to perform the experiments with accelerated deuton beams (12).
In fact, Lawrence was elaborating at th at time the fam ous “ deuton disintegration hypothesis” (13), th a t he reported at the 7th Solvay Conference raising the criticism o f the E uropean physicists (4, 5).
■ Tuve was already very sceptic on this h y p oth esis; he had w arned L aw rence: “ I am no t able to follow your suggestion” (14). Lawrence had already replied that, if the initial evidence was effectively scarce, “ I think we have now pretty conclusive evidence on th at po in t” (15).
After the Solvay Conference, Lawrence had to perform m ore accurate tests in order to exclude th at his results derived from systematic contam inations (17), as he wrote Tuve on Decem ber 21, 1933 (16).
Tuve, significantly conscious o f the relevance and the delicacy o f the problem , had answered Lawrence’s letter on January 6th 1934, specifying th a t he had no new result since the whole period was spent on a very rigorous test o f the experimental techniques (18).
But when careful experiments were perform ed by Tuve in the following weeks, the disagreem ent exploded. The “ prelim inary runs” already showed “ a great deal o f difficulty in correlating o u r observations with those you have published” (19)— with the whole set o f observation, n ot only with the deuton resu lts!— and suggested:
[...] that you check over your apparatus very carefully, since at present [...] there appear to be the basis for suspicion that at least part o f your observations are due to som e factor com m on to all your target, which m ay be contam ination, slit edges, target m ountings or som e other factor (19).
A t th a t point Lawrence’s reply (20) was lengthy but appeared very embarassed, and outlined the first autocritical considerations, since in the meantim e his deuton results had been contradicted also by the Pasadena group (21) and a t the Cavendish L aboratory (22):
Y o u are quite right in surm ising that in our preliminary m easurem ents there have been som e errors [...]. Rather than continuin g experim ents w e have decided to em bark on a program o f careful observations o f things already brought to light and it is our intention to get as accurate m easurem ents as w e can.
Lawrence finally adm itted his m istake in the deuton disintegration hypo thesis (23). But Tuve criticism, as we have rem arked, was m uch deeper and concerned not a single result, but the whole set up and m ethod o f the experim ents perform ed in Berkeley and the hurry and lack o f caution with which they had been published. It is im p o rtan t to rem ark th a t on the contrary Tuve, up to the m om ent, had avoided to m ake public the controversy, although he was already sure of his own results. A t th at m om ent, he sent on April 14,1934 a letter to The
Physical Review (24) contradicting practically all the results published from
Berkeley and he sent a copy to Lawrence with some bitter n o te s :
1 wrote y ou at the end o f February warning o f the direction w hich our results were un doubtedly taking. A fter w orking up all o f our results, w e reached the astou nd in g conclu sion that w e w ere unable
240 Angelo Baracca
to check a single one o f the observations which you have reported so far [...]. I m ust say that we were certainly not enjoyed the position in which we have been placed. Once in a lifetime is once to o often (25).
We m ay rem ark th at in the action th at Tuve now developed one may recognize a m ixture of real em barassm ent and professional ethics, o f a kind th at probably has progressively disappeared in subsequent years.
In this sense, on one side, evidently pressed by a growing debate on the issue, he personally pointed to Lauritsen th at
[...] the question for many people as to whether w e check Lawrence’s w ork or not have becom e so insistent that there is no way o f avoiding the issue and we decided that a bald statement was far preferable to any evasion o f the question on our part. We have been very circum spect in what we have said even to close friends visiting the laboratory until the abstracts had to be written (26).
On the other side, however, a harsh press release was em itted by the Carnegie Institute o f W ashington after the M eeting o f the A.P.S. o f April 26, with the ironic title “ A tom -Sm ashers Reveal A tom ic M asquerade,” containing such statem ents as the follow ing:
Speaking before the A m erican Physical Society m eeting here today (April 26), Drs. T uve and H afstad o f the D T M , Carnegie Institute o f W ashington, dram atically announced that they had succeeded in unm asking the outlaw atom s which have played havoc with the results o f atom -splitting investigations currently in progress in various laboratories. The renegade atom s which gave rise to pseudo-transm utations o f carbon, oxygen, and other targets when bombarded by high-speed atom s o f heavy hydrogen, are the atom s o f heavy hydrogen itself, sticking in the pores o f the solid target after being driven there by the high-speed beam (27).
On August 4th, 1934 Tuve himself sent Science— through Fleming— an official rectication (28) since the Journal had reported in “ erroneous and m isleading” terms the results obtained at the D M T, had n ot explicitly referred to the “ contam ination effects” and had expressed the opinion th at the experimental results from various laboratories were not in contradiction.
The whole story inspired in Tuve a sense o f deep regret th at be expressed to Lauritsen bitterly rem arking th at such an accident “ m ust occur rarely, if at all” and, having Lauritsen replied th at “ th at sort o f things should never appear in p rin t,” firmly adding th at rather “ the sort o f things th at should never appear in p rint were w hat led to the necessity for such a statem ent by m e” (29).
This course o f events reveals, in my opinion, not only different Tuve’s and Lawrence’s personal characters, but really the early emergence o f different styles in perform ing research activity. In the following years Lawrence concentrated on cyclotron building and insisted mainly on its use in medicine, while Tuve obtained from his rigorous and careful practice some of the m ost significant results in nuclear physics (5), namely in 1935, with his beautiful experiments on p ro to n -p ro to n scattering, charge independence o f nuclear forces, the first widths o f nuclear resonances. This is only an example. But these events were typical of Tuve’s attitude tow ards a changing style and the growing dimension of research
activity as is confirm ed by the uncom m on Tuve’s choices in the war period, while the “ Big Science” mechanisms really developed.
It is im p o rtan t to rem ark th at Tuve had given im p o rtan t contributions in more than one field and there were in principle m any possible fields in which he could have given relevant contributions to w ar research. W hen he and G. Breit had tried already in 1925 to determ ine the ionosphere height observing the echoes o f short radio pulses, “ they were troubled by echoes com ing from airplanes, which interfered with their m easurem ents” (30); “ this was the first recorded instance o f distance m easurem ents m ade by the pulse-radar m ethod” (31).
Tuve gave m oreover leading contributions to the study o f nuclear fission. W ith R oberts, M ayer and H afstad he showed the first fission process at the D TM accelerator (32), discovered the emission o f the “ delayed neutrons” (33) and subsequently they contributed to show the possibility o f a chain o f reaction (35):
We have been hard pressed to get som e data on uranium fission, largely because Ferm i. Rabi Sziland etc. have been afraid o f chain o f reaction possibilities. Regular “ war seer” w ith secret m eetings etc.! Pres. Bush is anxious to see it settled. A ll indications n ow are that n o chain can occur but it is pretty close (36).
A confidential m em orandum o f June 1st, 1939 to the D irector o f the D T M by G unn, Technical Adviser o f the Naval Research L aboratory at A nacosta, explicitly m entions in this respect Tuve’s availability “ to carry on the final tests at his lab o ratory ” (37) ; on M ay 23, 1940 the Carnegie Institute o f W ashington appropriated $ 20.000 “ for study on uranium fission” (38).
Tuve was a m em ber o f the U ranium C om m ittee called by Roosevelt after Einstein’s letter, b ut his attitude changed at the beginnings o f 1940. “ It all started in February 1940 [...]. A t th at time, Roberts, H afstad, Heidenberg and I simply decided th at we would do no m ore physics research if the likes o f H itler were to inherit our efforts. We undertook to find a way th at we could contribute to the technology o f m odern w ar” (39). While “ by M ay 1940, in talks with officers in the R and D division o f B U O R D , US Navy, I had learned ab o u t the ridiculously low effectiveness o f antiaircraft fire, I heard the term ‘influence fuze’ (later ‘proxim ity fuze’), as a wistful hope” (40).
The history o f the “ proxim ity fuze” has in p a rt been written (41). We are here interested in one specific aspect. In organizing and directing first the “ Section-T” and then the Applied Physics L aboratory (APL), Tuve followed an attitude opposite to th at then prevailing o f early Big Science, th at practically was born in the other projects. He started with the “ four Indians” and followed the concept o f “ a local and flexible group to test the feasibility o f various ideas subm itted to it” (42). In Tuve’s words :
[...] one o f the greatest ‘new developm ents’ o f the war [...] w as the rediscovery [...] o f the efficiency o f the dem ocratic principle o f directing the effort o f organized group o f people [...]. A boss using the dem ocratic principle does not depend on just giving order from above [...]. A sking people to help with the w hole jo b w as what I used in running the proxim ity fuze developm ent [...]. The dem ocratic system
242 Angelo Baracca
is m ore effective, dollar for dollar and hour for hour, than the autocratic system [...]. The key to the effectiveness o f the dem ocratic system is simply that criticism flows both w ays ; criticism and ideas com e up from workers as well as dow n the bosses (43).
Nevertheless, in spite o f his wishes, the A PL itself, under the pressure o f the events, became a model o f advanced big laboratory. One way conclude that the force o f things was stronger than subjective intentions : Big Science was a necessary product o f the p ath followed by science !
A t the end o f the w ar, Tuve left the A PL and came back to the small and quiet D T M , assum ing its direction, b ut abandoned also nuclear physics: “ I left nuclear physics when it changed from a sport into business” (44). He repeatedly made very strong statem ents against Big Science. In 1959 he published in the Saturday
Review a long paper by the title : “ Is Science too Big for the Scientist ?” (45). He
repeated this concept in a meeting in which President Eisenhower announced the appropriation o f 100 m illion dollars for the future Stanford linear accelerator (46); Tuve used such a bald statem ent th a t his collegues publicly reacted against Tuve’s statem ent, claiming th at “ this was neither the time no r the place” for it (47).
R E F E R E N C E S
1. E. M . M e M illan, “ Early H istory o f Particle A ccelerators” , in : R oger H. Stuewer (ed.), Nuclear P hysics in R etrospect, U niversity o f M innesota Press, 1979.
2. N . P. D avies, Lawrence and Oppenheimer, N ew Y ork : Sim on and Schuster, 1968. 3. R. W. Seidel, Ph. D. Thesis, Berkeley, 1978.
4. J. L. H eilbron, R. W. Seidel, B. H . W heaton, Lawrence and H is L aboratory N uclear Science a t B erkeley 1931— 61, Office for H istory o f Science and T ech nology, U niversity o f California, Berkeley, 1981.
5. A. Baracca, R. Livi, M . Pettini, E. Piancastelli, S. R uffo, “ II decollo della fisica nucleare negli U S A (1930— 36): le prem esse della Big Science,” Proceedings o f the IIIrd Italian Conference on the H istory o f Physics, p. 546 ; A . Baracca, R. Livi, E. Piancastelli, S. R uffo, Proceedings o f the International Conference on “The Recasting o f Science between the Two W orld Wars", Firenze-R om a, 20 G iu gno— 4 Luglio 1980, vol II, R om a : La G oliardica, 1985.
6. E. O. Lawrence, M. T uve, M arch 18, 1933, T uve Papers, M anuscript Library, Library o f C ongress (B ox 12, Special Letters 1933).
7. E. O. Lawrence, M . S. Livingston, Phys. Rev. 43, 369 (1 9 3 3 ); February 11, 1933. 8. M. A . Tuve, C. C. Lauritsen, M arch 19, 1933, Tuve Papers, loc. cit.
9. A . Flem ing to E. O. Lawrence, M arch 30, 1933, ivi.
10. M. A . Tuve, L. R. H afstad and O. D ah l, Phys. Rev. 43, 942 (1933) ; M ay 1933. 11. E. O. Lawrence to M . A . T uve, M ay 3, 1933, T uve Papers, loc. cit.
12. A. Flem ing to G . N . Lewis, M ay 9, 1933, T uve Papers, loc. cit.
13. E. O. Lawrence, M . S. Livingston, G . N . Lewis, Phys. Rev. 44, 56 (1933) ; June 10, 1933. 14. M. A . Tuve ato E. O. Lawrence, O ctober.2, 1933, Tuve Papers, loc. cit.
15. E. O. Lawrence to M . A . Tuve, October 9, 1933, Lawrence C ollection, Bancroft Library, Berkeley.
16. E. O. Lawrence to M. A . T uve, Decem ber 21, 1933, Lawrence C ollection, c it . ; v. pure lettera del January 12, 1934. ivi.
17. G. N . Lewis. M. S. Livingston, M . G . H enderson, E. O. Lawrence, Phys. Rev. 45, 242 (1934). 18. M. A . T uve to E. O. Lawrence, January 6, 1934, Lawrence C ollection , loc. cit.
19. M. A . T uve to E. O. Lawrence, February 28, 1934, Lawrence C ollection , loc. cit. 20. E. O. Lawrence to M. A. Tuve, M arch 14, 1934, Lawrence C ollection , loc. cit. 21. C. C. Lauritsen, H. R. Crane, Phys. Rev. 45, 345 (1934) ; Science 79, 234 (1934).
22. J. D .C o c k r o ft, E. T. S. W alton, Proc. R oy. Soc. A 1 4 4 ,7 0 4 (1 9 3 4 ); M . L. E. O liphant, P. Harteck, Lord Rutherford, Proc. Roy. Soc. A 144, 692 (1934).
23. G . N . Lewis, M. S. Livingston, M. C. H enderson, E. O. Lawrence, Phys. Rev. 45, 497 (1934). 24. M. A. Tuve, L. R. H afstad, Phys. Rev. 45, 651 (1934).
25. M. A. Tuve to L. O. Lawrence, April 18, 1934, Lawrence C ollection , loc. cit.
26. M. A. T uve to C. C. Lauritsen, April 18, 1934, T uve Papers, loc. cit. B ox 16, Letters— Special 1934— 5— 6.
27. CIW archives, folder “ D T M — M iscellaneous 1934— 35” .
28. A . Flem ing, J. M ckeen Cattel, August 4 ,1 9 3 4 , N uclear Physics Sym posium : A Correction, CIW archives, loc. cit.
29. M. A. T uve to C. C. Lauritsen, Septem ber 26, 1934, T uve Papers, loc. cit. Box 16, Letters— Special 1934— 6— 6.
30. Report o f the President, 1952, Carnegie Institute o f W ashington. 31. Biografia di M. A. Tuve (anonim a), p. 4, CIW archives, Folder T uve 1.
32. M. A. T uve, Report to the D irector o f D T M for January 1939, 7.2.1939, Library o f Congress, M anuscript Library, Tuve Papers, Box 15, “ M onthly R eports ;” see letter to The Phys. Rev. 55, 416 (1939). See also Roger H . Stuewer, "Bringing the N ew s o f F ission to A m erica,” Physics
T oday, in press.
33. M. A. Tuve, Report for February 1939, 9.3.1939, loc. cit. ; see letter to The Phys. Rev. 55, 510 (1939).'
34. L ouis Brown, private com m unication.
35. CIW , Year Book 1939 (July 1939— June 1940), p. 87.
36. Tuve to G . Breit, 2.8.1939, D T M Office archive file “A rchive-U ranium .” 37. R. G unn, M em orandum for the D irector, 1.6.1939, D T M archive.
38. M inutes o f the Executive Com m ittee, M eeting o f M ay 23, 1940, CIW archives. 39. M. A. Tuve in A PL N ew s, Feb. 1982, p. 8.
40. Ibid.
41. R. Baldwin, The Secret Weapon o f W W 2, San R aphael, C a .: Presidio Press, 1980, pp. X III— XV. 42. F. R. Roberts, “ D evelopm en t o f the Proximity F u ze,” m anuscript required quickly by A b elson
on Oct. 20, 1977, CIW archives. Folder DTM M isc., p. 6 43. F. R. R oberts, op. cit.. p. 5.
44. L. T. Aldrich, L. Brown et al. obituary o f M. A. Tuve, p. 3, 28.5.1982, CIW archives, Folder Tuve 1.
45. M. A. T uve, Saturday R eview , 6 6 1959, p. 49. 46. V. J. Lear, N ew Scientist, 21 5 1959.
