Early experiences in science at Whitman College, Washington, from 1920; friendships with fellow students and teachers. Graduate study at University of Oregon and Harvard University; difficulties funding education; study with Edward A. Milne at Oregon and John Van Vleck at Harvard. Work at National Bureau of Standards on piezoelectricity and oscillators; work at Bell Labs on thermionic emission and experimental basis of statistical mechanics; influence of Arnold Sommerfeld on his work on the copper oxide rectifier. World War II work with National Defense Research Council on the magnetic head of submarine detectors. Return to Bell Labs following World War II; research in solid state with group headed by William Shockley and Stanley O. Morgan; preliminary researches in semiconductor effects.