Wenner, David L.
Oral history interview with David Wenner, 2020 August 24.
David Wenner is a retired businessman and consultant who curated the rare physics manuscript library that would eventually become the Wenner Collection at the Niels Bohr Library (https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/ex-libris-universum/wenner-collection). In this interview, Wenner recounts his childhood in Florida and describes his early interests in sports and academics. He describes his interest in pursuing a liberal arts education as an undergraduate at Yale, and he discusses his graduate work in computer science at Purdue. Wenner discusses his professional experiences at Texas Instruments and his long career in consulting at McKinsey & Company. He explains how he became involved with the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara and how an interest in reading physics books grew into a full time pursuit curating what would become a singular library of rare physics manuscripts. Wenner describes how he built the collection and the various considerations that led to him deciding to work with AIP and to create the Wenner Collection. He describes the process that went into his book History of Physics, and he discusses his current interest collecting manuscripts relating to climate change. At the end of the interview, Wenner reflects on ongoing questions raised by cosmology and quantum theory.
David Wenner is a retired businessman and consultant who curated the rare physics manuscript library that eventually became the Wenner Collection at the Niels Bohr Library. He completed graduate studies in computer science at Purdue, and has worked at Texas Instruments, McKinsey & Company, and the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara.
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
McKinsey and Company
Purdue University
Texas Instruments Incorporated
Business consultants.
Climatic changes
Computer science
Cosmology
Manuscripts -- Books.
Physics -- History -- 20th century
Physics -- Manuscripts -- Catalogs.
Quantum theory
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
Zierler, David, 1979- interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA