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Ostriker, J. P.
Oral history interview with Jeremiah P. Ostriker, 1988 January 19.
Interview covers Jeremiah Ostriker's childhood memories of books on science; early fascination with being able to calculate things about the world; college education; influence of a Fortune magazine article on astronomy; reaction to steady state model; interest in chaotic inflationary universe models; role of belief in cosmology; education at Harvard and demoralization of students there; decision to go into astronomy; interest in a broad perspective of things; early thinking on galactic evolution and work of Beatrice Tinsley; dislike of bias and favorite models; Ostriker's style of doing science; work on explosive galaxy formation; different kinds of dark matter; history of work on dark matter; hostility of the community toward the idea of dark matter; how people destroy their scientific careers by inssiting too much on certain ideas; reaction toward the work by de Lapparent, Geller, and Huchra on large-scale structure; attitude toward the flatness problem; problem with extrapolating the universe back to close to the big bang; attitude toward the horizon problem; attitude toward the inflationary universe model and the community's reaction; importance of visual pictures in science; ideal design for the universe; importance of scientists of a broad background in the humanities and a large store of images; question of whether the universe has a point.
(1937- ): Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Chicago (1964) under S. Chandrasekhar; postdoctoral year at Cambridge University; joined the faculty of Princeton University; member of the National Academy of Science; research includes the evolution of globular clusters, high enery astrophysics, galaxy origin and evolution, and large scale cosmic structure.
Geller, Margaret J.
Huchra, John P.
Ostriker, J. P.
Tinsley, Beatrice M.
Harvard University.
Astronomy
Cosmology
Dark matter (Astronomy)
Galaxies -- Evolution
Inflationary universe.
Large scale structure (Astronomy)
Steady state cosmology.
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Lightman, Alan P., 1948-, interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA
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