Lederman, Leon M.
Oral history interview with Leon Lederman, 2002 August 12.
Recollections of political and professional controversies within the physics community in the Vietnam War ear; extended impressions of Columbia University in the 1960s and 1970s including the Department of Physics and Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory; involvement in science education programs and activities, including development of international programs at Fermilab and the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy; views on reductionism in science and the teaching of science in secondary education; extended recollections of Lederman's directorship of Fermilab and his role in promoting the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) project through the early 1990s; views on present and future development of physics and physical theory. Also prominently mentioned: Jacques Barzun, President Bill Clinton, Joseph Needham, Frank Press, Isador I. Rabi, Carl Sagan, Abdus Salam, Robert Wilson.
Leon Max Lederman (born July 15, 1922) is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work with neutrinos. He is Director Emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois. He founded the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, in Aurora, Illinois in 1986, and has served in the capacity of Resident Scholar since 1998. He joined the Columbia faculty in 1951, eventually becameing Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. He took an extended leave of absence from Columbia in 1979 to become Fermilab's director. He resigned from Columbia and Fermilab in 1989 and taught briefly at the University of Chicago before moving to the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 1991, Lederman became President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Barzun, Jacques, 1907-2012
Clinton, Bill, 1946-
Lederman, Leon M.
Needham, Joseph, 1900-1995
Press, Frank, 1924-
Rabi, I. I. (Isidor Isaac), 1898-1988
Sagan, Carl, 1934-1996
Salam, Abdus, 1926-1996-
Wilson, Robert R., 1914-2000-
Columbia University. Dept. of Physics -- Faculty.
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
Particles (Nuclear physics)
Physics -- Study and teaching.
Superconducting Super Collider.
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Science.
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Doel, Ronald Edmund, interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA