Haeberli, W. (Willy)
Oral history interview with Willy Haeberli, 2020 July 31.
Interview with Willy Haeberli, Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. Haeberli recounts his childhood in Basel, Switzerland, and he describes his experiences as a student during World War II. He discusses his early interest in physics and his decision to pursue nuclear physics at the University of Basel under the direction of Paul Huber. Haeberli describes his graduate research on the ionization of gasses by alpha particles, and he describes the circumstances leading to his subsequent postdoctoral job at the University of Wisconsin, where he was attracted to work with Raymond Herb in accelerator physics. He explains some of the scientific and cultural adjustments in order to settle in at Madison, and he describes the central questions of the structure of atomic nuclei that propelled nuclear physics at that time. He describes his subsequent research at Duke University before returning to Madison to join the faculty, he describes his many research visits to ETH Zurich, the Max Planck Institute, Fermilab, Saclay, and at DESY in Hamburg, and he offers insight on some of the differences in approach between American and European accelerator labs. Haeberli reflects on his contributions to the study of polarized protons and deuterons and angular momentum assignments. He discusses his work developing gas targets of pure spin polarized hydrogen and deuteron atoms, and he describes the critical support of the DOE and the NSF for this research. Haeberli shares his feelings on being elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and he explains his preference teaching undergraduates to graduate students. At the end of the interview, Haeberli describes how the department of physics at Wisconsin has changes over his decades of service, and he explains how only with the benefit of historical hindsight can one distinguish the truly important advances in the field.
Willy Haeberli was a Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He completed his graduate studies in nuclear physics at the University of Basel in Switzerland, and then moved to University of Wisconsin for postdoctoral work. Haeberli worked at Duke University before returning to UW Madison.
Barschall, H. H. (Henry Herman), 1915-1997
Camerini, Ugo
Haeberli, W. (Willy)
Herb, R. G. (Raymond George), 1908-1996
Huber, Paul
Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (Center)
Duke University
Eidgens̲sische Technische Hochschule Z rich
National Science Foundation (U.S.)
United States. Department of Energy
Universitt̃ Basel
University of Wisconsin--Madison
Accelerators.
Angular momentum (Nuclear physics)
Conservation laws (Physics)
Deuterons.
Ionization of gases
Nuclear physics
Polarized beams (Nuclear 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