Coppi, B.
Oral history interview with Bruno Coppi, 2020 April 28.
Interview with Bruno Coppi, Professor of Physics Emeritus at MIT. Coppi recounts his childhood in Lombardi, Italy. He discusses his early interests in nuclear engineering and his graduate work in Milan on neutron transport theory. He explains the opportunities that led to his postgraduate appointment at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and his subsequent work at Stanford for his postdoctoral research in collision-less plasma. Coppi discusses his work at the Institute for Advanced Study where he interacted closely with Freeman Dyson, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at MIT where he could work with Bruno Rossi. He describes his collaborations in the Soviet Union with nuclear physicists, and he explains the sequencing of the Alcator program to the Ignitor program. Coppi describes the changes inherent in the AECs transformation into the DOE, and he explains the import of the Voyager 2 space mission. He describes his current interest in spontaneously rotating plasma and he reflects on why science is a humbling profession, even for geniuses. At the end of the interview, Coppi explains why the role of angular momentum remains profoundly mysterious, and why he is optimistic that he will continue to make contributions to the understanding of burning plasmas.
Bruno Coppi is a Professor of Physics Emeritus at MIT. Coppi completed his graduate studies in Italy and held postgraduate appointments at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and Stanford University. Coppi also worked for the Institute for Advanced Study before joining the faculty at MIT.
Bridge, Herbert S.
Coppi, B.
Crocco, Gaetano Arturo, 1877-1968
Dyson, Freeman J.
Fermi, Enrico, 1901-1954
Feynman, Richard P. (Richard Phillips), 1918-1988
Garwin, Richard L.
Goldberger, Marvin L.
Panofsky, Wolfgang K. H. (Wolfgang Kurt Hermann), 1919-2007
Rosenbluth, M. N.
Rossi, Bruno Benedetto, 1905-
Sturrock, Peter A. (Peter Andrew)
Wheeler, John Archibald, 1911-2008.
Wiesner, Jerome B. (Jerome Bert), 1915-1994
American Science and Engineering, Inc.
Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Politecnico di Milano
Princeton University. Plasma Physics Laboratory
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Stanford University
United States. Department of Energy
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Universit ̀‰di Pavia
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
Voyager Project
Alcator device.
Angular momentum (Nuclear physics)
Astrophysics
Black holes (Astronomy)
Cold War
Neutron transport theory.
Nuclear fusion
Plasma physics.
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