[Phys-L] Re: Stories to share

[jbellina <jbellina@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

Many years ago there were several groups studying the reflection of
electrons of nickel oxide surfaces.  Some of them had developed a way
to measure the angular distribution.  One was Lester Germer at Bell
Labs and the other was Harry Farnsworth at Brown.  Neither could make
much sense of the variations they saw.

As it happened Davidson, a colleague of Germer's had been to Europe
and heard deBroglie speak of matter waves.  When he returned to Bell
Labs, he and Germer concluded that they were seeing the diffraction
of electrons.

Sometimes you have to be in the right place at the right time.

joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

On Feb 4, 2006, at 1:04 PM, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> Responding to a message on another list yesterday, I wrote (in part):
>
>
> > > . . . That reminded me of a story I was told in France, when I was a
> > > graduate student in Orsay. As most of you know, Frederic Joliot
> > > Curie and his wife, Irene, discovered artificial radioactivity and
> > > shared Nobel Prize for it. At that time a small cyclotron was
> > > already
> > > used in Berkeley. Those who worked with the cyclotron knew that
> > > Geiger counters located near objects hit by the beam often
> > > continued counting for a while after the beam was turned off. But
> > > they did not think that this was worth announcing as a big
> > > discovery.
> > > It was accepted as a trivial fact. . . .
>
> To which Brian Josephson, another Nobel Laureate, replied:
>
> > And once upon a time one Ivar Giaver, investigating superconducting
> > tunnel junctions, noticed that occasionally there was a zero voltage
> > current, which he assumed was due to a short circuiit across the
> > barrier as it often is.  He also noticed the sensitivity of this
> > current
> > sometimes to magnetic fields, but assumed that this was just
> > some quirk of the apparatus ...
>
> I did not know about Giaver's missing a chance of being recognized
> as a
> discoverer of an interesting physical phenomenon. In any case, stories
> like these should be known to students. That is why I am sharing them
> here. Any more illustrations of that kind?
>
> Ludwik Kowalski
> Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good.
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l