Correspondence, memoranda, reports, research papers, laboratory notebooks, lecture notes, contracts, grant proposals, financial records, photographs, blueprints, diagrams, charts, drawings, course related materials and reprints of the Columbia University Physics Department. These files concern the Department and its laboratories, their administration and operation, corricular materials, particularly teaching and research in the field of nuclear physics and the Columbia cyclotrong. Correspondence, consisting of carbon copies and drafts of replies, is a small part of the collection. The majority of the files relate to nuclear physics in the classroom and the laboratories: the Columbia Radiation Laboratory, the Nevins Cyclotron Laboratory, the Pegram Nuclear Physics Laboratory and the Pupin Cyclotron Laboratory.

There are files concerning supplies, equipment, technical specifications and relationships with the Atomic Energy Commission and the U. S. Armed Forces. The laboratory data contains numerous notebooks of experiments on electronic tubes and spectroscopy; blue prints on equipment such as magnetrons and cables; charts and graphs, laboratory reports, and performance results of various experiments. Much of this data is the work of professor Chien-Shiung Wu and her associates. Other major names include professors John R. Dunning, William W. Havens, Polykarp Kusch, Dana P Mitchell, George B. Pegram, Jack Steinberger, and Charles H. Townes. The course related materials consist of sample examinations for courses and for M.S. and Ph.D. candidates, lecture notes, lab problems, quizes, reading lists and lab schedules.