Early family life and early education in Toronto during the Depression. Interest in radio engineering; math-physics scholarship to University of Toronto, 1937. During World War II (from 1941) teaching Army, Air Force, Navy students in basic physics. Masters degree with Arnold Pitt during that period. Work with Gordon Byers on microwave guide antennas. Poor graduate education at Toronto. Interest in nuclear physics; constructs atomic beam light source; his definition of a diatomic molecule. Receives Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Corporation postdoc fellowship (I. I. Rabi); work with Charles Townes at Columbia University on application of microwave spectroscopy to organic chemistry; comments on faculty and co-workers at Columbia. To Bell Labs to work on superconductivity in Stan Morgan's group in early 1950s. Work with Harold Lewis and Bernd Matthias on the intermediate state nuclear quadrupole resonance. The Clad Rob Laser; work atmosphere at Bell Labs; decision to leave Bell for Stanford. Works with graduate students; John Emmett, John Holzrichter on flashlamps; solid state spectroscopy. Role in Optical Society of America and American Physical Society. Also prominently mentioned are: James Crawford, John Emmett, John Holzrichter, Harold Warren Lewis, Theodore Maiman, Bernd T. Matthias, Linn Mollenauer, Henry Warren Moos, Howard Schultz, William B. Tiffany; Canadian Association of Physicists, Linde Corporation, Stanford University, and University of Toronto.