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History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 38 (4/25/03)
The postwar expansion

 
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Outline Physicists and politics (continued)
    The Oppenheimer case (1953-54)
    Campaigns against politically suspect scientists

The state as funder
    Change of ideology in the U.S., change of scale elsewhere
    The Manhattan Project as the physicists' utopia
    Why do governments fund basic physics research?
    Case studies: Electronics, high-energy physics

The postwar expansion
    New experimental possibilities
    American leadership, and those who raised questions
    The population explosion, and those who were left out
Names and terms
Primary Secondary
J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
National Science Foundation
Lawrence Berkeley (National) Laboratory
SLAC = Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
CERN = European Center for Nuclear Research, Geneva		 General Advisory Committee (of the AEC)
House Un-American Activities Committee
Senator Joseph McCarthy
transistor, integrated circuit
Lawrence Livermore (National) Laboratory
Brookhaven, Fermilab
Dubna, Serpukhov
Assignment Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists essay: See separate instructions for the writing assignment .
Copyright © Cathryn Carson 2003