Physics in Canada

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Physics in Canada
Volume 19, No. 4
Autumn 1963 Automne
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Physics in Canada
The Bulletin oj the Canadian Association oj Physicists
Bulletin de l'Association Canadienne des Physiciens
Vol. 19, No. 4, Autumn 1963
THE EIGHTH MEDAL FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN PHYSICS, 1 9 6 3
5
SOME NON-TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF SCIENCE BY G. M. VOLKOFF
11
IN PROFILE : LEON KATZ BY R. H. HAY
18
C.A.P. AFFAIRS: THE 1 9 6 3 CONGRESS
21
NEWS
31
CANADIAN PHYSICISTS
35
DR. GEORGE NEILSON WHYTE
41
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
43
BOOKS
45
EDITOR: A. Vallance Jones, EDITORIAL BOARD: A. Kavadas, J. D . King, T. P. Pepper,
G . G . Shepherd, R. Skinner.
EDITORIAL ADDRESS: Dept. of Physics, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Sask.
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The Eighth Medal for Achievement
in Physics, 1963
GARNET ALEXANDER WOONTON, B.A., M.A., D.SC.
(Citation read by the President, Prof. G. M. Volkoff)
was born in London, Ontario. There,
also, he received his early education, leading to a B.A. degree from the
University of Western Ontario in Commercial Economics in 1925. He
was then associated with the Bell Telephone Company at Montreal for
a few years, only to recognize that his real interests lay in science rather
than in business. The switch to advanced studies in Physics and Mathematics was accomplished smoothly and quickly—he was awarded an
M.A. in Physics from Western in 1931. This was itself a major achievement and indicated at this early stage in his career one of the great
attributes he has shown ever since: his ability to teach himself large
bodies of fact, laboratory skills, and mathematical techniques, quickly,
surely and independently. Following the M.A. degree, there was no
opportunity for Woonton to continue his formal education, nor was
there any real need: by then he had probably learnt all that professors
can teach. Thus when in 1955, Western accorded him a D.Sc. degree,
they conferred on him honoris causa, an accolade for which in fact his
own labours had qualified him some two decades before.
In the thirties, still at the University of Western Ontario, Woonton
held a joint appointment. As Research Fellow in Physiology he was
concerned with bio-physical problems of the cerebral cortex; as Demonstrator in Physics he did research in electron diffraction. With the
advent of the war in 1939, he became a full-time member of the Department of Physics and joined the team working with the National Research
Council on the development of radar. With this research commitment,
he combined a full teaching program, and it is his proud claim to have
at one time or another taught every field of physics. Clearly recognized
for his versatility in all academic activities and in war research, he now
rapidly advanced through the academic hierarchy, being elected Research
Professor in 1946.
GARNET ALEXANDER WOONTON
6
PHYSICS IN CANADA
Near the end of this period he became more and more concerned
with the fundamental aspects of electromagnetic radiation, which led
him to important work in microwave optics, notably to studies of the
interaction of electrons in long electron beams and associated noise
problems. He attracted a number of outstanding M.Sc. students, many
of whom were eager to continue towards a Ph.D. with him. When he
was appointed Professor of Physics at McGill University in 1948 he
brought some of them with him so that in no time he established at
McGill an important group involved in many aspects of microwave
electronics. Some of the students of this period were John and Marion
Chapman, Peter Forsyth, George Bekefi, Don Hay, Eric Vogan, George
Harrower, Hugh Hamilton, David Hogg and George McCormick, many
of whom have already had considerable impact on physics in Canada.
Professor David Keys, who had resigned from McGill to go to Chalk
River, had laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Eaton
Electronics Laboratory. Professor Woonton now saw to its realization,
becoming its Director in 1950. The first problems attacked in his new
laboratory were problems of microwave optics. Diffraction by apertures
and obstacles, lens design and aberrations, ionospheric scattering, are
topics representative of the preoccupations of this period. Indicative
too of Woonton's interests then were his contributions to the design of
the Mid-Canada Line and his active participation in 1954 and 1955 in
Project Lamp Light at the Lincoln Laboratory of M.I.T.
But gradually, since the mid-fifties, problems involving the physics of
crystals, of work functions, of paramagnetic resonance and of masers,
start to predominate in the work of the Eaton Laboratory. The flow of
outstanding students has not ebbed, and the number of Ph.D.s from the
laboratory—supervised by Woonton and two or three close associates—
is now thirty.* But beside the students, Woonton has maintained a considerable personal involvement in research, which has come to be
centred on quantum electronics, and includes fundamental problems in
the interactions between spin systems of paramagnetic ions and the
vibrations of the crystal lattice, and in a group of phenomena mostly
associated with the magnetic properties of solids.
Since 1954 Woonton has served McGill as Chairman of the Physics
Department in what has turned out to be a period of innovations:
radical modernizations of the honours and general curricula, and a
considerable and continuing growth of the Department.
Le Professeur Woonton est sans contredit l'une des personnalités les
*A partial list of these who may now be quite widely known in Canada would
include: A. Mungall, M. P. Bachynsky, I. Shkarofsky, G. W. Farnell, R. A. Armstrong, G. C. Cloutier and B. A. Mcintosh.
EIGHTH MEDAL FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN PHYSICS
7
plus marquantes de la physique canadienne. Il a servi celle-ci, nous l'avons
vu, par ses travaux de recherche, mais aussi en travaillant activement
dans de nombreuses sociétés, tant nationales qu'internationales. En particulier, il fut Président de notre Association en 1948-49, et sa réputation grandissante valut prestige et respect à notre organisation encore
jeune et suspecte en certains milieux. Il fait partie de divers comités
de l'Office des Recherches pour la Défense depuis 1955, et il est éditeur
associé du Journal Canadien de Physique depuis 1957. Sur le plan
international, il fut Président de la Commission VII de l'Union Radio
Scientifique Internationale de 1952 à 1957, et il est depuis ce temps
Vice-Président de cette même Union. Il est également l'un des directeurs
de l'Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers auquel il s'intéresse
depuis de nombreuses années.
Ce qui surprend peut-être le plus chez lui est l'énergie énorme qu'il
sait déployer dans tout ce qu'il entreprend, par exemple pour maîtriser
un nouveau secteur de la Physique. Dans d'autres domaines on l'a vu
apprendre à piloter un avion, ce qui l'obligea à quelque chose de peu
facile: diminuer sa masse par un facteur de l'ordre de 1.2. C'est cette
même énergie qui se manifeste maintenant dans son ardeur à apprendre
la langue française. Fort heureusement, il rie se permet pas d'exiger
autant de ses semblables que de lui-même; c'est pourquoi il peut allier
deux qualités qui ne vont pas toujours de pair: une activité débordante
et une cordialité à toute épreuve.
This interest in French is not something recent; for all his southwestern Ontario background, both early and later in his career, Woonton
has been drawn strongly toward Quebec. At McGill he has long
established a record of affection for, and deep interest in, things French.
It may be idle to speculate whether this derives from a forebear who
bore arms on Ile Ste. Hélène to defend Montreal against invasion in
1812, or from others in the Channel Islands with names like LeBreton
or Aubin. But with his characteristic tenacity—with which at an earlier
age he mastered mathematics—he has now mastered French: not
perhaps all the polite conversational gambits, but finesses of grammar
and etymology to confound many an expert. In this turbulent era in
Quebec, it may not be too much to say that among English-speaking
Canadians it is precisely men like Gar Woonton who are needed in
all walks of life to help preserve the amity and unity of the Nation.
Ladies and Gentlemen—I present to you Garnet Alexander Woonton,
a noted lecturer and devoted teacher, a versatile contributor to several
fields of physics and a servant of the cause of physics—in administration,
in the Canadian Association of Physicists and internationally—and last
though not least a delightful human being and advocate of biculturisme\
8
PHYSICS IN CANADA
and in the name of us all I award him the 8th medal of our Association
for achievement in physics. Mesdames et messieurs, j'ai l'honneur de
conférer la médaille de l'Association Canadienne des Physiciens au
professeur Garnet Alexander Woonton.
PROFESSOR W O O N T O N ' S R E P L Y
Mr. President: I would like to thank you, and through you the Canadian
Association of Physicists for choosing me as the eighth recipient of the
Medal for Achievement in Physics. I think that it is apparent to all of
us, that no one ever achieves anything by himself: there is always
behind a University Professor and his work a host of other professors,
colleagues and above all students who have contributed to whatever he
has done. Nor do I want to stop with the scientific part of our lives;
there are always families and there are wives who put up with physicists,
look after them and who see that they are not too much interrupted by
the daily tasks of living. This is our common knowledge and knowing
that you understand this I very gratefully accept this honour which you
have done me.
J'ose m'exprimer ici en français, parce que mes collègues de langue
française sont plus que bilingues. Ils ont montré leur aptitude en linguistiques non pas seulement en sachant le français et l'anglais mais
aussi en apprenant à nous comprendre lorsque nous parlons français.
Je ne crois pas, toutefois, importuner mes collègues de langue anglaise;
mon accent est tel qu'ils ne sauront pas que je ne m'adresse pas à eux
en anglais.
If there are any advantages to being eighteen years older than I was
when C.A.P. was founded, one of them is that I can tell many of you
what happened before you began to take an interest in Physics. Il y a
dix-huit ans, le physicien était un être inconnu au public canadien; les
ingénieurs et les chimistes étaient en demande, non les physiciens.
Durant ces années les physiciens commencèrent a découvrir leur importance dans un univers plus grand que leur laboratoire. Le Radar et
la bombe atomique encore inconnus du public étaient le résultat de
recherches conduites par des physiciens.
Eighteen years ago, nearly all of the physicists of Canada were
concentrated in either Ottawa or Toronto. In Toronto, a crown company had been established, Research Enterprises Limited. Je voudrais
vous entretenir de deux jeunes membres le l'exécutif de cette compagnie.
Ni l'un ni l'autre n'étaient des physiciens dans le sens qu'ils imposèrent à
la profession dans la charte de l'A.C.P. Fred Coombs terminait un cours
en physique à l'Université de Toronto quand il entra dans la R.E.L. et
•
EIGHTH MEDAL FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN PHYSICS
9
J. J. Brown, un Canadien, venait de terminer un Ph.D. en littérature
anglaise, à l'Université Yale. Coombs rêvait d'une reconnaissance professionelle du genre de celle accordée aux ingénieurs; Brown proclamait
que le progrès suit l'action et non les plaintes. Ensembles, à l'heure du
dîner (aux sandwiches non au vin) ils donnèrent naissance à l'Association Canadienne des Physiciens Professionels.
My close association with C.A.P.P. began in the summer of 1945
when at the invitation of the founders I became Vice-President first under
F. E. Coombs as president, then under the late J. O. Wilhelm. The other
members of the executive were N. J. Abbot, L. H. Turl, A. D. Misener
and Peter Sandiford. J. J. Brown and others were directors. Durant
l'hiver de 1945-46, la jeune organisation traversa de durs moments. Si
vous vous rappelez les procès d'espions canadiens, vous vous souviendrez
que les mots "communisme" et "anti-communisme" flottaient dans l'air.
D arriva qu'une autre organisation, à tendance communiste prenait naissance avec les initiales suffisament semblables à celles de l'A.C.P.P. pour
semer la confusion. Les physiciens non fixés quant aux intentions de
l'A.C.P.P. nous traitèrent souvent commes des personnes atteintes de
la peste.
Il y avait, cependant, dans nos rangs des hommes pleins de courage
et d'idées. L'exemplaire numéro 1 du volume II du Bulletin de l'A.C.P.P.
daté de février 1946 est une preuve de cette avance, car il contient une
liste imposante des membres fondateurs. Laval peut être fier que la
liste contienne les noms de H. F. Feeney, H. P. Koenig, F. Bonenfant,
A. Boivin, C. Geoffrion, G. Hall aussi que de sept membres étudiants.
II est bon de mentionner qu'il y avait dans cette liste plus de membres
étudiants de Laval, que de toutes les autres Universités Canadiennes
combinées.
The first Congress of the Canadian Association of Professional
Physicists was held at the end of May 1946 at the McLennan Physics
Laboratory, the University of Toronto. Je ne saurais m'empêcher de
mentionner deux événements cocasses relatifs à ce Congrès. Le premier
se passa dans les coulisses. Nous avions dépensé quarante piastres (que
nous n'avions pas d'ailleurs) pour annoncer le congrès dans les journaux de Toronto. Ce n'est que plus tard que nous réalisions que dans
les annonces l'endroit où le congrès devait avoir lieu n'était pas mentionné. Le second événement était plus à la vue du public. Un des principaux conférenciers dont la conférence avait été annoncée comme un
événement extraordinaire, était un éminent: physicien. Il oublia de
venir à la reunion.
Que sont devenus nos pères fondateurs? F. E. Coombs lança la
compagnie Air Line Transport et acheta ensuite la compagnie le Taxi
10
PHYSICS IN CANADA
Murray Hill. Il s'est maintenant retiré du monde des affaires pour profiter des fruits de ses entreprises. Dr. J. J. Brown remporta beaucoup de
succès en combinant une vie d'homme d'affaire et d'étudiant. Ses nombreuses compagnies lui accordent le support nécessaire alors qu'il lance
sa nouvelle aventure, cette fois complètement académique, c'est "The
Institute for Entrepreneurial Research".
Last week, at the same time that I was thinking about the founding of
C.A.P., I was also preparing a report for McGill University on the
future plans of the Ph.D.s and M.Sc.s in Physics who have just received
degrees. Far too many of them are taking positions outside of this
country. This led me to further speculation concerning the number of
B.Sc.s in physics who continue on for graduate work; the best of them
can, and very often do receive very generous awards from graduate
schools outside of Canada and these awards are quite often on a scale
with which we cannot compete. It is difficult to say anything new on this
subject; in fact, was it not at the 1950 Congress in Montreal that C.A.P.
conducted a seminar on this and related topics? I can say, however,
that it seems to me that this situation is no better than it was thirteen
or fourteen years ago and it may be worse. Has not the time come to find
another Brown who will spark another Coombs?
The Departments of Physics in the Canadian Universities appear to
be engaged in a programme of developing the overdeveloped countries.
Let us put it this way: the average Ph.D. attends university for not
less than seven years and each of those years costs somebody not less
than $2,000. Each time a new graduate takes a position across the
border, we make the United States a present of $14,000. How much
return the United States earns on this investment is anybody's guess but
if you count the Canadian physicists in positions of responsibility in
the United States, you can arrive at some kind of estimate. Even the
President has at least one ex-Canadian as an adviser on atomic energy.
I must not pose as an authority nor do I want to talk too long. Let
me say only that in the history of C.A.P. two young men with an idea
succeeded in founding an enduring and important organization in the
face of rather long odds. Again in the face of long odds are there young
men who can solve this problem?
M. le Président, je vous remercie encore de l'honneur que vous m'avez
fait. Je vous remercie tous de votre attention bienveillante.
Some Non-technical Aspects of Science*
G. M. VOLKOFF
E N RÉFLÉCHISSANT au sujet de cette allocution j'ai fait ce qu'un physi-
cien fait très souvent au début d'un nouveau sujet de recherches: j'ai
examiné la littérature du sujet. Dans mon cas la littérature du sujet
se réduit tout simplement à notre journal officiel Physique au Canada.
Je voulais relire ce que mes prédécesseurs ont dit dans de mêmes circonstances. En examinant des allocutions de neuf présidents de notre
association publiées jusqu'ici (je ne trouve aucune mention de ce que
les huit premiers présidents ont dit) j'ai constaté que MM. Herzberg,
Hay, Elliott, Duckworth et Pounder avaient choisi des sujets étroitement
liés à leurs contributions personnelles à notre science si étendue et si
fascinante, tandis que MM. Shrum, Kerwin, Sargent et Currie ont
préféré des sujets de nature plus générale. Ainsi la tradition ne pouvant
me servir de guide j'ai été forcé à faire mon choix indépendamment. Un
tel résultat de l'examen de la littérature n'a, bien entendu, rien de
surprenant.
Within the last few years I have already spoken under C.A.P. auspices
at a number of centres across Canada on that small corner of physics—
the radio frequency spectra of nuclei in crystals—to which my graduate
students and I have made some personal contributions. Therefore, I
have decided not to subject you today to a recapitulation of the same
story, particularly since I have no new exciting chapters to add. Instead,
I wish to speak to you on a more general topic—some lessons taught to
us by science which have wider implications. For an audience of physicists I do not have to describe the personal involvement and satisfactions that the pursuit of science holds for the individual. Neither is it
necessary for me to discuss the social significance of science as the basis
of technology. This aspect of science is so obvious that it is often
held to be the main, if not the sole, influence of science on our civilization. I wish to discuss today some non-technological social aspects of
science which also have a profound bearing on our culture.
The following remarks are based largely on two excellent essays
*A condensation of the C.A.P. Presidential address delivered at the C.A.P.
Annual Meeting at Laval University on June 7, 1963.
12
PHYSICS IN CANADA
which I happened to come across in recent months: "Science and
Human Values" by J. Bronowski,1 and "The Republic of Science" by
M. Polanyi.2 I have derived much pleasure and profit from reading these
two articles, and I shall consider my talk today as having attained its
objective if it leads some of you to read these two essays in detail for
yourselves.
First, I want to put before you Bronowski's contention that, contrary to a widely held belief, the pursuit of science is far from being
a neutral or a mechanical activity unrelated to the problem of values.
He finds that "like the other creative activities which grew from the
Renaissance, science has humanized our values. Men have asked for
freedom, justice and respect precisely as the scientific spirit has spread
among them."
I then want to discuss Polanyi's point of view that "in the free cooperation of independent scientists we shall find a highly simplified model of
a free society." Since physicists thrive on models, you will be interested,
I am sure, to examine the lesson for the political and economic theory
of society as a whole which Polanyi draws from his investigation of
his model Republic of Science.
Bronowski's aim is "to show that the parts of civilization make a
whole" and, in particular, he wants to clarify "the place of science
in the canons of conduct which it has still to perfect." He advances three
main theses.
1. Creative activity is basically the same in the sciences and in the
arts.
2. If there is any difference between the two fields, it is that the
sanction of experienced fact imposes an exact boundary which
encloses the scientist in a way in which it does not constrain the
poet or the painter. The scientist's need to test his concepts continually against experience imposes what Bronowski calls the
"habit of truth" upon him, and through him on our whole civilization.
3. A study of the conditions for the success of science uncovers in them
"the values of man which science would have had to invent afresh
if man had not otherwise known them : the values which make up
The Sense of Human Dignity."
For lack of time I shall not develop any further Bronowski's first
thesis on the universality of the creative process.
In developing his second thesis on the "Habit of Truth" Bronowski
stresses the role played in the scientific method by concepts, even though
he fully realizes that this view is not shared by everyone, and in particular not by the empiricist and the operationalist schools of philosophy.
NON-TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF SCIENCE
13
Bronowski formulates the following familiar sequence as characteristic of science: observation of appearances, organization of these into
laws, creation of concepts based on these laws and the testing, and, if
necessary, correction, of these concepts by observing predicted behaviour
in other experiences.
I shall here, for a selfish reason which will soon become apparent,
digress for a while from Bronowski's main line of argument. It is not
given to many scientists to introduce entirely new concepts. These are
the Newtons, the Einsteins, the Plancks, the Bohrs and the Heisenbergs.
Most of us have to be content to be the hewers of wood and the drawers
of water, and to spend our working days busily and happily either testing
the consequences implied by some current concept (always in the hope
that a contradiction will emerge requiring a modification or a refinement
of the concept), or collecting reliable data which might later be organized
by someone, not necessarily ourselves, into new patterns of order, leading
to new laws, and perhaps eventually to new concepts.
It is in this workaday world of the scientist that another small difference between the arts and the sciences crops up which, nevertheless,
is a source of gratification to the human vanity of even a run-of-the-mill
scientist.
In the frescoes of a Rafael or a Ghirlanclaio the world pays tribute
to the creator of the overall concept and of the grand design of the
masterpiece, but no attempt is made to apportion individual credit
to the many now nameless apprentices in the master's studio who have
contributed a skillfully draped garment here, a chubby cherub there,
to the overall design blocked out in bold but rough outline by the
master painter.
Science is a much more cumulative and step-by-step activity in
which even a minor contributor stands a fair chance of having his name
linked to his small share in the total enterprise. To use a personal
example, and now you see why I have taken this detour, the so-called
Volkoff method of extracting from observed resonance frequencies the
components of the tensor describing the coupling of nuclear electric
quadrupole moments to the electric field gradient in crystals lacking
axial symmetry is a very straightforward and unsophisticated application
of elementary Fourier analysis and diagonalization of matrices. It could
have been, and surely would have been, developed by any other physicist faced for the first time with the same problem. Yet, I will not deny
that it gave me pleasure to see this minor bit of technique linked with
my name in a standard review article3 and in a comprehensive monograph on the subject.4
I hasten to add that this technique has so far contributed only to the
14
PHYSICS IN CANADA
verification, and not to any modification of the underlying concepts.
Nevertheless, it is a minor manifestation of the habit of testing and
correcting the concept by its consequences in experience which (according to Bronowski) has been the spring within the movement of our
civilization since the Renaissance.
We now return to Bronowski's third and main thesis: the impact of
science on human values.
Condensed to barest outline (and omitting most of the numerous
quotations included in the oral presentation; the reader is referred to
Bronowski's original article for these) his argument runs as follows.
If the truth of a concept is to be tested in action then certain prerequisites follow: independence in observation, and then in thought.
As a result science has bred the love of originality as a mark of independence. Originality means dissent, but this is not an end in itself.
Dissent is to freedom, as originality is to independence of mind: one a
mark of the other. Independence must be protected if science is to
become effective as a public practice. This leads to the need of free
inquiry, free speech, free thought, tolerance.
"The society of scientists must be a democracy. It can keep alive and
grow only by a constant tension between dissent and respect, between
independence from the views of others and tolerance for them."
Since "science confronts the work of one man with that of another
and grafts each on each . . . it cannot survive without justice and
honour and respect between man and man."
"Science is not a mechanism but a human progress. Human search
and research is a learning by steps of which none is final, and the
mistakes of one generation are rungs in the ladder, no less than their
correction by the next."
Here I will indulge in another personal note to illustrate two of
Bronowski's points which I have just related: dissent as a necessary
component of scientific progress, and the inevitability of human error,
which together with its correction can still serve as a rung in the ladder.
My very first independent scientific publication5 as a graduate
student working under Professor Oppenheimer's direction in 1939 arose
from my questioning Schwarzschild's long accepted statement that there
exists a natural general relativistic limit to the mass of a sphere of
matter of constant density. I pointed out that this limit exists only if the
pressure at the centre is required to remain finite. However, in attempting to investigate the behaviour of massive spheres of constant density
when the pressure was allowed to become infinite at the centre I made
the rash statement that the differential equation which I set up could not
NON-TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF SCIENCE
15
be integrated exactly, and attempted to treat the problem numerically
(and as it turned out later, not too successfully). Ten years later Prof.
Max Wyman8 pointed out that my inability to solve my equation
exactly was entirely due to my failure to recognize it as a form of the
Riccati equation (apparently "well-known" to mathematicians, but not
to myself). He then proceeded to give a rigorous discussion of the
properties of what he, nevertheless, generously named "Volkoff's
Massive Spheres" which now remain under that name in the literature
as a permanent extension of Schwarzschild's work.
This personal incident was quoted as an illustration of Bronowski's
words: "This is why the values of science turn out to be recognizably
the human values: because scientists must be men, must be fallible, and
yet as men must be willing and as a society must be organized to correct
their errors. William Blake said that 'to be an Error and to be Cast
out is a part of God's design'. It is certainly part of the design of
science."
"The society of scientists has to solve the problem of every society,
which is to find a compromise between man and men. It must encourage
the single scientist to be independent, and the body of scientists to be
tolerant. From these basic conditions, which form the prime values
there follows step by step the spectrum of values: dissent, freedom of
thought and speech, justice, honor, human dignity and self-respect."
This completes the argument in support of Bronowski's thesis, which
is one of the two main points of this talk, that "if these values did not
exist, then the society of scientists would have to invent them to make
the practice of science possible." Science is not morally neutral.
The remainder of this address as presented orally (and abbreviated
considerably here to conserve space) consisted of recounting in some
detail and acompanied by copious quotations (for which the reader is
referred to the original article2) Polanyi's contention that scientists
form a society the modus operandi of which has valuable lessons for
free society as a whole.
Scientists choose their problems freely, and pursue them independently, but, nevertheless, operate as members of a closely-knit organization. Their activities are coordinated by the continual adjustment of the
efforts of each to the hitherto achieved results of the others. This leads
to a joint result unpremeditated by any of those who bring it about,
and which will be the best possible if each consecutive step is decided
upon by the person most competent to do so.
In discussing the method whereby this mutual adjustment takes
place Polanyi brings out the same tension between forces of conformity
16
PHYSICS IN CANADA
and dissent which was already noted in connection with Bronowski's
article, and both authors demonstrate that such tension is not inconsistent with stability of the society of scientists.
Polanyi then discusses the role played by tradition in science, and
notes that it upholds a dynamic authority which cultivates originality,
and whose continued existence depends on its constant self-renewal
through the originality of its followers. In this he sees a valuable lesson
for free society as a whole.
"A free society may be seen to be bent in its entirety on exploring selfimprovement—every kind of self-improvement. This suggests a generalization of the principles governing the Republic of Science. It appears
that a society bent on discovery must advance by supporting independent
initiatives, coordinating themselves mutually to each other. Such adjustment may include rivalries and opposing responses which, in society as
a whole, will be far more frequent than they are within science. Even
so, all these independent initiatives must accept for their guidance a traditional authority, enforcing its own self-renewal by cultivating originality
among its followers.
This view transcends the conflict between Edmund Burke and Tom
Paine. It rejects Paine's demand for the absolute self-determination of
each generation, but does so for the sake of its own ideal of unlimited
human and social improvement. It accepts Burke's thesis that freedom
must be rooted in tradition, but transposes it into a system cultivating
radical progress. It rejects the dream of a society in which all will labour
for a common purpose, determined by the will of the people. For in the
pursuit of excellence it offers no part to the popular will and accepts
instead a condition of society in which the public interest is known
only fragmentarily and is left to be achieved as the outcome of individual
initiatives aiming at fragmentary problems."
For an elaboration of this point of view the reader is urged to consult
the original article.
I have only one duty left to perform. I have been speaking to you
of the role played by tradition in a society of scientists. I must, therefore,
remind you that two years ago President Duckworth inaugurated what
he hoped might become the tradition of a Presidential Poem. He thereby
threw out a challenge to his successors. Last year President Pounder
chose to exercise the scientist's sacred prerogative of dissent from tradition. I choose to conform, and accept the challenge. For the theme of
my poem I choose the technical subject which I now realize I should have
chosen for this whole talk in place of the rambling general discourse
which you have just heard. And since this whole Presidential address
has been derived from other sources, so, for better or verse7, also is the
NON-TECHNICAL ASPECTS OF SCIENCE
17
Presidential Poem whose title has been inspired by our last night's
delightful program of songs.
SONGS O F AN A T O M I C N U C L E U S
Sing a song of magnets,
A crystal full of spins,
When the nuclei relax
Then the fun begins.
With the r.f. tickling them,
They all burst into song,
Mais, quel dommage qu'il n'y a plus de temps
Pour écouter leur belle chanson.
References and Notes
!J. Bronowski, Science and Human Values, Harper & Bros., New York, 1959.
M. Polanyi, Minerva 1, No. 1, 54 (Autumn, 1962).
3M. H. Cohen and F. Reif, Quadrupole Effects in NMR Studies of Solids, Solid
State Physics, 5, 321 (1957), p. 435.
4
A. K. Saha and T. P. Das, Theory and Applications of Nuclear Induction,
Saha Inst, of Nuclear Physics, Calcutta, India, 1957, p. 377.
C
G. M. Volkoff, Phys. Rev. 55, 413 (1939).
«Max Wyman, Phys. Rev. 75, 1930 (1949).
7
Not a printer's error, but the inauguration of the tradition of a Presidential
Pun in addition or as an alternative to the President ial Poem.
2
Profile: Leon Katz
30 YEARS AGO there appeared in the corridors of the old Physics
Building at Queen's University a graduate student whom very few of
the final year and other graduate students knew from undergraduate
days. Many never did get to know him because his time was obviously
carefully organized and rigorously controlled. With some, this would
have meant that life was real, life was earnest—and dull. With Leon
Katz life was never dull, was also fun and he was a welcome visitor in
the labs of the other graduate students. His intellectual curiosity and
his enthusiasm for physics, both his and theirs, were infectious and
stimulating.
Leon Katz, born in Poland in 1909, came to Toronto at an early age
and secured his primary and secondary school education there. After
high school he found work in Kingston at the Monarch Battery Works
where he put in a full day's work at research and development in between
attending classes in Engineering Physics at Queen's University, from
which he graduated in 1934. After graduation he returned to the
Monarch Battery Works as plant foreman and continued there until
1936. Just as a side line, in 1935 he helped as an active campaigner to
get the late Norman McLeod Rogers elected to Parliament. He came
back to Queen's as a graduate student under the late Dean A. L. Clarke
to work on a resonance method for determining the ratio of the specific
heats of gases. Katz developed a crude oscillating piston device into an
extraordinarily elegant, high-precision piece of apparatus. His Master's
thesis was certainly the equal of many a Ph.D. thesis and it won him
scholarship recognition at more than one post-graduate school. He chose
to go to the California Institute of Technology which he attended from
1939 to 1941 and from which he received the degree, Doctor of
Philosophy cum laude. He worked under C. D. Anderson on the construction of a two-foot cloud chamber and on cosmic ray distribution
at sea level.
After graduation he went to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co. in Pittsburgh as resident engineer in their electronics and
electromechanical division. His work there with proximity fuses and
his propensity for getting a little fun out of life made him one of the
ALMOST
LEON KATZ
19
fathers of the radar speed trap used so effectively by law enforcement
officers all over the continent. He observed that passing cars gave him
a marked Doppler effect when he pointed his transmitter out of the
laboratory window at the traffic on a nearby highway. Leon took quite
a ribbing from fellow physicists years later at a luncheon meeting at
which he told how he had explained as an expert to the great satisfaction
of the magistrate and the even greater embarrassment of the speeding
motorist in a Saskatchewan police court how the device worked. His
fellow physicists had apparently been on the wrong end of police radar
development!
In 1946 Katz went to the University of Saskatchewan to "look after"
the newly acquired Betatron. His work there has been a credit to him
and an honour to Canada. Other betatrons may have been something
of white elephants but not that at Saskatchewan and the work which
Katz and his associates have done has received world-wide recognition.
With these accomplishments as basis and guarantee of the future, who
could refuse to listen to his proposition for an even better accelerator?
Those of us who talked to Katz in Quebec this past June know that this
dream has now been translated into reinforced concrete underground
chambers and beam paths. The rest of the gear follows!
In 1941, in Pasadena, California, Leon Katz married Miss Georgina
Caverly of Kingston. They have four children, three boys and a girl.
Taking care of their needs, as well as Leon's, has kept Georgina from
more than casual and very occasional return to the journalistic career
she followed before marriage. Her intense interest in his career is well
revealed by an incident arising out of the preparation of this note. I
wired Leon two questions on early work. Georgina replied as follows:
"Leon in Moscow. Answers are. . . ." And they were what I wanted!
Many honours and awards have come to Katz. He was the only
Canadian invited to the All Union Conference of the Academy of
Sciences of the USSR in November, 1957 and was one of the Canadian delegates to the Second International Conference on the Peaceful
Uses of Atomic Energy. He has served as secretary of the sub-committee
on Nuclear Constants at the American Academy of Science—National
Research Council, and is past president of Canadian Friends of Hebrew
University, Saskatoon Branch. He is a member of Sigma Xi, and the
Physical Society (British), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and
of the American Physical Society, a long time member of C.A.P. and
more than once a member of its Executive Committee. He has served
C.A.P. in special capacities, being a member of its committee to report
on the feasibility of a high energy machine for Canada, and chairman of
its committee to acquire a high energy machine for Canada. His published
PHYSICS IN CANADA
20
papers cover work in the fields of thermodynamics, microwave spectroscopy and nuclear research. C.A.P. can be thankful that Katz was one of
the more than three and a quarter million Canadians who went south of
the border in search of higher education but was one of the few who
returned to do great things in physics in Canada. He'll be good for
C.A.P. as its new President.
ROBERT H . HAY
HtiiEMB caa
Evea S H O O T
u«tee PA a
1
C
/You MEAiJ OM THE
) GOCF CoueSE ?
(
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V^^
\
Û B I E F ,
SHOULD
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,-^hr
Peanuts" characters copyright, 1950, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Cartoons and captions by Robert Bukata, University of Manitoba.
C.A.P. Affairs: The 1963 Congress
T H E ANNUAL M E E T I N G , Q U E B E C , J U N E 7 T H , 1 9 6 3
THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL
has been condensed from the Minutes of the
Annual Business Meeting.
PRESIDENT'S R E P O R T F R O M COUNCIL
Standing Committees
Certain regular activities of the Association have been continued by
our standing committees. The Awards Committee, under the chairmanship of Dr. Larkin Kerwin, has made a selection, and the C.A.P. Medal
will be presented this evening at the banquet. Dr. J. H. Blackwell, for
the Prize Committee, will report this evening on the winners of the
prize competition for undergraduates. The Secondary School Science
Committee has, as you know, been gradually extending the scope of its
school competitions. This year competitions were held in nine provinces,
and later in the course of this meeting the names of the first place winners
will be announced. A complete list will be published in Physics in
Canada. The Association provided $ 3 , 0 0 0 for prizes for these
competitions.
Dr. W. N. English's committee on lecture tours arranged for seven
lecturers who gave C.A.P. lectures in twenty-five different institutions.
Professor John Robson constituted a committee of one to carry on the
new venture introduced last year to bring in Distinguished Visiting
Physicists. Dr. Luis Alvarez visited two Western Universities to redeem
his promise of a return visit, when illness caused him to cancel last year's
tour, and Dr. Norman Ramsey visited two Eastern Universities.
Subject Divisions
The subject divisions of Medical and Theoretical Physics continue to
be active. A new subject division of Earth Sciences has been formed.
Committee on Industrial Physics
A report by the Committee on Industrial Physics has been published
in the most recent issue of Physics in Canada. Another 1 0 , 0 0 0 word
22
PHYSICS IN CANADA
report has been submitted to the Executive, and investigations are in
progress whether it can be published in part or in full.
Physics in Canada
The Editor of Physics in Canada, Dr. D. M. Hunten, unfortunately
has had to resign due to a change of location. I invite the members to
express their appreciation of his excellent services in this timeconsuming and onerous position. A successor will be appointed by the
joint Council Meeting tomorrow.
Miscellaneous
A 1962 membership list has been distributed.
A revised edition of the pamphlet "Careers in Physics" to be published both in French and English is in preparation.
The possibility of allowing members to substitute as part of their
membership privileges subscription to some other journal as an alternative to the Canadian Journal of Physics is being investigated. The proposed new journal in Earth Sciences to be published as one of the
N.R.C. journals, is one such possibility.
C.A .P. Educational Trust Fund
Promotional literature has been prepared by Dr. Hay and after
approval by the Executive, is now being printed. Distribution to a large
list of potential donors will be followed up by personal visits from
C.A.P. members. As will be seen from the Treasurer's report at the
present time the Fund has been nearly exhausted. No corporate members have been recruited as yet.
Future Congresses
The Royal Society of Canada has announced that its 1964 meeting
will be held in Charlottetown, P.E.I., and its 1965 meeting in Vancouver,
B.C.
Limited housing facilities in Charlottetown prevent an invitation
being issued to all the learned societies. The C.A.P. has received invitations from the neighbour institutions of Dalhousie in Halifax, N.S. and
U.N.B. in Fredericton.
After some consideration the Executive has accepted the invitation to
hold the 1964 C.A.P. Annual Congress at Dalhousie University in Halifax, N.S.
A straw vote expression of opinion of this meeting will be useful with
respect to the desirability of following the Royal Society to Vancouver
in 1965. (A majority of those present voted in favour of a B.C. Congress
in 1965.)
C.A.P. AFFAIRS
23
OTHER BUSINESS
The Treasurer's Report showed a revenue of $12,027.00 and expenses
of $9,445.00 for the year ending April 30; cash in hand was $8,800.00.
In addition, the High Energy Study Fund contained $240.00 and the
Educational Trust Fund $260.00.
The Registrar's Report gave the following membership as of April
30th: members, 588; associates, 359; students, 397; members without
fees, 9; total, 1353. Twenty-eight members, twenty-nine associates and
123 students had not yet paid their fees. There were 7 active student
chapters representing a gain of 2 and a loss of 3 chapters in comparison
with 1962.
A report of the High Energy Committee was accepted including three
recommendations that steps should be taken to acquaint Canadian academic and governmental circles with the comparative weakness of the
Canadian program in this field.
A motion was passed authorizing the initiation of a study of the
demand of research physicists in Canada over the next ten years. This
motion was proposed by Dr. Robson and seconded by Dr. Dugdale.
The new officers and counselors were declared elected and the new
President, Dr. Volkoff, took over. [The names of the executives and
council appear at the end of this section.]
O N T A R I O E L E C T O R A L DISTRICTS
The following electoral districts in Ontario were set up at the meeting.
(i) Eastern Ontario; east of 78° W longitude
(ii) South-western Ontario; west of 80° W longitude and south of
Georgian Bay or south of 43.5° N latitude
(iii) Central and Northern Ontario; the remainder
C . A . P . P R I Z E EXAMINATION
The Examining Committee for 1962-1963 was J. H. Blackwell
(chairman), R. E. Bell and I. K. MacKenzie.
All public operations of the Committee were carried out bilingually.
The organization of the examination began in October and the examination was made final in February. On the 19th January the Heads of the
Physics Departments of the 33 universities approached in 1962 were
notified of the 1963 examination and asked to submit estimates of their
probable number of candidates by the 15th February. Twenty-five replies
were received, in some cases only after reminders had been sent.
V A N C E : CRYOGENIC TECHNOLOGY.
1963. Approx. 648 pages. Prob. $18.75.
G I L M A N : THE ART A N D SCIENCE OF G R O W I N G CRYSTALS.
BLACKWOOD,
KELLY,
GENERAL PHYSICS. A
BELL:
1963. 493 pages. $20.00.
Textbook for Colleges, Third
Edition. 1963. 685 pages. $8.50.
MACDONALD:
INTRODUCTORY
STATISTICAL MECHANICS
FOR PHYSICISTS. 1963.
177
pages. $6.75.
WANGSNESS:
INTRODUCTION
TO
THEORETICAL
Classical Mechanics and
PHYSICS.
Electrodynamics. 1963. 413 pages. $9.75.
INTRODUCTION
TO
THEORETICAL
PHYSICS.
Relativity, Thermodynamics, Kinetic Theory, and Statistical Mechanics. 1963. Approx. 312 pages.
Prob. $8.50.
WANGSNESS:
THREE-DIMENSIONAL
LUR'E:
PROBLEMS A N D THE THEORY OF ELASTICITY.
An Inter-
science Book. 1963. Approx. 412 pages. Prob. $12.00.
JUDD,
WYSZECKI:
COLOR
IN
BUSINESS, SCIENCE A N D
INDUSTRY.
Second Edition.
1963. 500 pages. $15.00.
H U T C H I S O N , BAIRD: THE PHYSICS OF ENGINEERING SOLIDS.
T A Y L O R : INTRODUCTORY MECHANICS.
S P R O U L L : MODERN PHYSICS.
BAUMRIN:
1963. 368 pages. $8.00.
1963. 423 pages. $8.75.
Second Edition. 1963. 630 pages. $9.75.
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE,
Volume I. An Interscience Book. 1963. 370
pages. $9.75.
H U A N G : STATISTICAL MECHANICS.
1963. 470 pages. $10.75.
Volume 9 in the Interscience Monographs
and Texts in Physics and Astronomy. 1963. Approx. 288 pages. Prob. $9.75.
L O N G M I R E : ELEMENTARY PLASMA PHYSICS.
INTERPLANETARY DYNAMICAL PROCESSES. Volume 8 in the Interscience
Monographs and Texts in Physics and Astronomy. 1963. 272 pages. $12.50.
PARKER:
Recent Interscience Tracts in Physics and Astronomy
MAGNETIC RESONANCE AT HIGH PRESSURE. 1963.
Approx.
112 pages. $4.75. # 2 0 — G U I N I E R , D E X T E R : X-RAY STUDIES OF MATERIALS.
1963. Approx. 166 pages. Prob. $4.95. # 1 9 — R O S E : PHOTOCONDUCTIVITY.
1963. Approx. 160 pages. Prob. $4.95. # 1 8 — B R O W N : MICROMAGNETICS.
1963. 143 pages. $5.95. # 1 7 — D E N I S S E , D E L C R O I X : PLASMA WAVES. 1963.
Approx. 224 pages. Prob. $9.75. # 1 6 — W I L S O N : NUCLEON-NUCLEON INTERACTIONS. Experimental and Phenomenological Aspects. 1963. Approx. 264
pages. $6.00. # 1 5 — A D A I R , F O W L E R : STRANGE PARTICLES. 1963. 151 pages.
$4.75. # 1 3 — F R A N Ç O N : MODERN APPLICATIONS OF PHYSICAL OPTICS. 1963.
Approx. 114 pages. $4.50.
#24—BENEDEK:
WILSON—WOUTHUYSEN:
PHYSICS, Volume 7.
PROGRESS
IN
ELEMENTARY
PARTICLE
AND
COSMIC
RAY
A North-Holland (Interscience) Book. 1963. In Press.
S M I D T : MAGNETIC A N D ELECTRIC RESONANCE A N D RELAXATION.
A North-Holland
(Interscience) Book. 1963. 789 pages. $25.00.
Send for examination copies
JOHN WILEY & SONS, Inc.
605 Third Avenue
N e w York, N.Y., 10016
RESEARCH IN PHYSICS
PLASMAS
Interaction of plasmas with electromagnetic and magnetic
fields including simulation of geophysical and space
phenomena, re-entry physics, microwave and quantum
electronics (lasers) and plasma diagnostics.
SOLID STATE
Properties of highly compensated semiconductors and
near-insulators, photon interactions with solids, thin films,
ferrites.
RADIATION DETECTION
Semiconductor nuclear particle detection, optical detection,
infrared detection, cryogenics.
COMMUNICATIONS
Systems analysis, antenna design, millimetre waves, solid
state circuitry, satellite telemetry .
SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES
Analysis of field-effect and other new devices, varactors
and transistors at very high current densities, development
of advanced types of transistors and diodes.
Applications are invited from physicists and engineering
physicists who are interested in a career in pure or applied
research.
RCA VICTOR COMPANY, LTD.
RESEARCH LABORATORIES
Director of Research
1001 Lenoir Street
Montreal 30, Quebec
DR. J . R. WHITEHEAD,
26
PHYSICS IN CANADA
The examination papers were mailed late in February and the examination was held on Tuesday, March 5th.
Fifty-seven candidates from 17 universities wrote the examination.
The marking of the papers and double-checking of the top candidates
was not completed until early May. This was not due entirely to the
slowness of the Chairman, but in part, at least, was due to the very
close original ranking of the 2nd to 9th candidates. This necessitated
even closer checking than usual and conferring amongst examiners. In
the end it was decided to amalgamate the second and third prize money
and distribute the sum in five equal parts to candidates Nos. 2-6 who
were rated as second-equal for all official purposes.
The results in the form of a ranked list without marks were circulated
to the heads of the Departments of Physics and some officers of the
Association, and the six winners were notified. They were:
( 1 ) A. B. Langdon
(2) R. Birgenau
(Equal—in
C. A. Bouchard
alphabetical order) C. Brassard
G. J. Hurford
E. Y. C. Lu
University of Manitoba
University of Toronto
Université Laval
Université de Montréal
McGill University
Dalhousie University
Comment should be made on the exceptionally good performance of
Mr. Langdon who led his nearest rivals by 16 per cent. Despite the
difficulty with the candidates immediately following Mr. Langdon, the
spread in marks was quite large but it was noticeable that there were a
half-dozen or more candidates whose scores were so low that it is
doubtful whether they should have been encouraged to enter.
The present chairman would like to acknowledge his indebtedness
to previous chairmen and in particular to the Chairman for 1962, Professor R. E. Bell, for the excellent administrative procedure set up. By
following the 1962 system the work of organizing the examination was
made very easy.
In conclusion the Chairman would like to thank both Professor Bell
and Professor MacKenzie for their hard work, their cooperation and
their tolerance of the Chairman's failings:
J . H . BLACKWELL
C . A . P . H I G H SCHOOL PHYSICS P R I Z E EXAMINATIONS
Competitions for high school physics students were held in nine
provinces this year. Following the practice established last year $400.00
was provided for prizes in each province, with the first prize being
C.A.P. AFFAIRS
27
standardized at $250.00. Again this year several universities added
their own contributions to the prize fund.
The following is a list by provinces of examiner, or examining committee and the prize winners :
Newfoundland
Professor P. D. P. Smith, Memorial University.
First
($250)—Bill Munro, United College, St. John's.
Second ($100)—Reginald Quinton, Bishop's College, St. John's.
Third
($ 50)—Chesley Mills, Central High School, Bishops Falls.
Nova Scotia
Professor D. B. I. Kiang, Dalhousie University.
First
($250)—Edward Doe, Prince Andrew High School,
Dartmouth.
Second ($150) —Ronald Ferguson, West Pictou High School.
Third
($100)—Barbara Trenholm, Prince Andrew High School,
Dartmouth.
Fourth ($ 75)—Douglas Guptil, Queen Elizabeth High School,
Halifax.
Fifth
( $ 75 ) —William Sutherland, New Glasgow High School.
($100 contributed by each of Acadia, St. Francis Xavier and Dalhousie
Universities. )
New Brunswick
First
Second
Third
Quebec
First
Second
Professor M. A. Edwards, University of New
Brunswick.
($250)—Norman Cochrane, Moncton High School.
($100)—David Gass, Sackville High School.
($ 50)—John Finley, Saint John High School.
Professor R. Stevenson, McGill University.
($250)—J. Hoskins, Chambly County High School.
(Three prizes each $83.33)
M. Blanchard, Ecole Regionale des Milles Isles.
A. Dancose, College Mont St. Louis.
A. Smith, Westhill High School.
Third
(Four prizes each $50.00)
R. de Jean, Beaconsfield High School.
G. Louis, Mount Royal High School.
M. Bastien, Ecole Régionale des Mille Isles.
D. Deschenes, Séminaire de Rimouski.
(A total of $300.00 was contributed by Université Laval, Université de
Montréal, McGill and Loyola. )
PHYSICS IN CANADA
28
Ontario
First
Second
Third
Professor A. B. McLay, McMaster University.
($250)—Roger Chetwynd, University of Toronto Schools.
($ 100)—David Fort, Moira Secondary School, Belleville.
( $ 50)—David Rotenberg, Jarvis Collegiate, Toronto.
Manitoba
Professors B. G. Hogg and K. G. Standing,
University of Manitoba.
( $250)—Norman Wilde, Kelvin High School, Winnipeg.
($150)—William Unruh, Menonite Brethren Collegiate,
Winnipeg.
First
Second
Third
(Two prizes $62.50 each)
Kenneth Paschke, Morris High School, Morris.
Gordon Greeniairs, St. John's-Ravenscourt.
($125.00 contributed by the University of Manitoba.)
Saskatchewan
First
Professor L. H. Greenberg, Regina Campus,
University of Saskatchewan.
($250)—Robert Jackson, Punichy High School.
Second
(Two prizes $75.00 each)
P. Dagert, Mount Royal Collegiate, Saskatoon.
Guenther Plattner, Luther College, Regina.
Alberta
First
Second
Third
Professor S. B. Woods, University of Alberta.
( $250)—David Newquist, Prairie High School, Three Hills.
($100)—James Waugh, Lethbridge Collegiate.
($ 50)—Brian Stackhouse, Brooks High School.
British Columbia
First
Professor D. L. Livesey, University of British
Columbia.
($250)—Thomas Aussenegg, Ladysmith, British Columbia.
Second
(Five prizes $30.00 each)
Donald Allan, West Vancouver.
Joost Blom, Pitt Meadows.
Alexander Dawes, Victoria.
Robert Harrison, Campbell River.
Philip Stockmeyer, Richmond.
Congratulations to all concerned
J . S. FRASER
C.A.P. AFFAIRS
29
E A R T H PHYSICS DIVISION
The invitation to Earth Physicists in the winter issue of Physics in
Canada has added a final 41 "founding members" whose names are
recorded here.
R. G. Agarwal, F. M. Anglin, A. E. Beck, B. C. Blevis, C. M. Carmichael, J. H. Chapman, J. F. Clark, L. S. Collett, C. Crowe, E. R.
Deutsch, H. K. Ellenton, R. Fanaki, H. R. Hardy, W. J. Heikkila, J. A.
Jacobs, R. W. Johnston, A. M. Kelly, J. E. Keys, M. P. Langleben, J. E.
Lokken, D. L. Matthews, A. Misener, R. Montalbetti, A. G. McNamara,
D. A. MacRae, R. W. Nicholls, F. J. Osborne, W. Petrie, G. L. Pickard,
D. Rankin, J. Rau, D. W. Rice, M. G. Rochester, B. Segal, I. Shkarofsky, H. M. Sullivan, R. J. Uffen, E. L. Vogan, R. K. Wanliss, J. K.
Walker, J. T. Wilson.
The welcome mat remains out to those wanting better information
and a more effective voice on the development of Earth Physics in
Canada. Just send your name to the Division Secretary, T. R. Hartz,
915 Mountainview Ave., Ottawa 3. The $1.00 Division fee is billed with
annual C.A.P. dues.
A B O U T THE ASSOCIATION
of Physicists invites applications for membership from physicists, scientists and engineers whose work is related
to physics, from teachers of physics, and from university students studying physics or an allied course. Canadian citizenship or residence in
Canada is not a requirement.
Membership is available in four grades—full member, associate
member, student member, and corporate member.
Subject divisions of Theoretical Physics, Medical Physics, and Earth
Physics are active. When the demand warrants, other divisions may be
formed.
For further details regarding membership or the Association write
the Registrar, Canadian Association of Physicists, McMaster University,
Hamilton, Ontario, or see the nearest Council member.
The annual membership fees of the Association are as follows:
Full members $15; Associate members, $6. Full members receive the
Canadian Journal of Physics free, while Associate Members receive the
Journal free for 4 years. All members receive Physics in Canada free.
T H E CANADIAN ASSOCIATION
30
PHYSICS IN CANADA
DEADLINE DATES FOR PHYSICS IN CANADA
The deadline dates for the submission of material for publication in
Physics in Canada are as follows: Autumn—August 20th; Winter—
November 5th; Spring—January 7th; Summer—April 1st. The Editor
would be pleased to publish articles of general interest describing
interesting developments or progress in physics.
President: L. Katz, University of Saskatchewan. Past-President:
G. M. Volkoff, University of British Columbia. Vice-President: P. Lorrain, University of Montreal. Secretary : A. C. H. Hallett, University of Toronto. Treasurer.
C. C. McMullen. Directors: F. T. Davies, Defence Research Board; J. H. Ormrod,
McMaster University; A. Le mieux, University of Montreal. Division Chairmen:
G. F. Whitmore, University of Toronto, Medical Physics', R. T. Sharp, McGill
University, Theoretical Physics; P. A. Forsyth, University of Western Ontario,
Earth Physics. Registrar: R. G. Summers-Gill, McMaster University. Editor:
A. Vallance Jones, University of Saskatchewan.
C.A.P. COUNCIL. B.C. and Yukon:
J. E. Lokken, R. Barrie. Alberta: B. G.
Wilson, W. K. Dawson. Sask. and Man.: K. G. Standing, L. H. Greenberg.
S. W. Ontario: E. B. MacNaughton, P. A. Fraser. Central Ontario: H. M. Love,
J. C. Stryland. Ottawa Valley: A. G. Ward, E. P. Hincks. Quebec: W. R. Raudorf,
P. Marmet. New Brunswick and Newfoundland:
W. J. Noble, S. W. Breckon.
Nova Scotia and P.E.I.: H. D. Smith, W. J. Archibald.
EXECUTIVE ADDRESS: Dept. of Physics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.
C.A.P. EXECUTIVE.
F THIS
BOOK
OKJ
BELATWISTIC
NUCLEAO
BEAC-rio-IS
THE
BEST
ONE OF
I'VE
evee
/WAA
"Peanuts" characters copyright, 1950, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
Cartoons and captions by Robert Bukata, University of Manitoba.
News
DISCOVERY OF DELAYED PROTON EMISSION
IN THE 1963 Congress Issue of Physics in Canada (vol. 19, no. 3), there
appear two abstracts of reports given in Quebec by R. Barton and R.
McPherson of the McGill Radiation Laboratory, on the subject of
delayed proton emission. They describe some of the first work to be
done with the McGill cyclotron's regeneratively extracted beam before
building expansion required shutdown for much of 1963. This work
resulted in the discovery of the first "new" type of radioactivity in
over 20 years. In 1939, Roberts and others at Chicago discovered delayed neutron emission in fission products, and in 1940, Petrzhak and
Flerov in Russia discovered spontaneous fission of uranium. In 196263, Barton and McPherson bombarded aluminum and silicon targets
with 97 MeV protons and discovered delayed proton emission, which
is closely analogous to delayed neutron emission. In the decay process, a proton-rich nucleus, Si25, emits positrons with a half life of about
0.3 seconds, producing excited states in Al 25 that are proton-unstable.
Protons are then emitted with discrete energies between 2 and 5 MeV,
leaving behind the highly stable nucleus Mg24. Other delayed-proton
emitters are Mg21, Ne17, and O 13 .
A complete report of this work has been accepted for publication
in the Canadian Journal of Physics. The experiments will resume when
the cyclotron beam is again available.
J . E . CRAWFORD
N E W S FROM THE R C A VICTOR RESEARCH LABORATORIES, MONTREAL
Visiting professors during the summer have been Dr. G. Paquette of
the University of Montreal, who has been working with the Microwave
and Plasma Physics Laboratory, Dr. C. Lemyre of the University of
Laval, working in the Electronics Laboratory on analysis of the ultrahigh level injection conditions in power transistors at very high frequency,
and Dr. Y. P. Varshni of the University of Ottawa, who has been working in the Solid State Physics Laboratory on recombination processes in
32
PHYSICS IN CANADA
semiconductors. Allan Evans, who is completing his Ph.D. at the University of Wales, returned for the summer to do research on the physics of
metal-oxide-semiconductor devices.
Dr. Morrel P. Bachynski, Director of the Microwave and Plasma
Physics Laboratory, was honoured by the Radio Corporation of America
with its highest technical accolade, the David Sarnoff Outstanding
Achievement Award n Engineering, for his outstanding contribution
and leadership in his chosen field. The award was presented in New
York on May 24, 1963, comprising a gold medal, a citation, and a
cheque for $1000. The David Sarnoff Outstanding Achievement Awards
were established by RCA in 1956 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary in radio of General David Sarnoff. Two awards to individuals
have been made annually since that time to one scientist and one
engineer within the Corporation.
Dr. G. G. Cloutier of the plasma physics group gave a series of
invited lectures in the University of California, Los Angeles, summer
course on Magnetofluid and Plasma Dynamics (June 17-28, 1963),
and Dr. A. I. Carswell gave an invited paper on "Microwave Measurements of Electromagnetic Properties of Plasma Flow Fields" to the
A.I.A.A. Fifth Biennial Gas Dynamics Symposium at Northwestern
University, Evanston, Illinois, on August 16, 1963. Dr. R. W. Jackson
gave an invited paper on "Semiconductor Beta and Gamma Detectors"
to the Summer Meeting of the I.E.E.E. in June.
As a result of the success of the telemetry transmitter designed and
built by RCA Victor for the Alouette satellite, the advanced devices
application group of the Research Laboratories have supplied telemetry
transmitters for the NASA satellites "Topsi" and "MMC" (micrometeoroid measurements capsule) and are being kept busy with an
increasing number of projects of the same nature.
R.W.JACKSON
T H E NORANDA RESEARCH C E N T E R
The new building of the Noranda Research Laboratories in Pointe
Claire, P.Q., has been completed and staff and equipment began moving
in in July. The Center has a floor area of 42,000 sq. ft. and was erected
at a cost of about $1,300,000. The present staff numbers about 50,
which includes about 8 physicists. Most of the physicists, under the
leadership of Dr. C. H. Champness, are engaged in research on thermoelectric materials, and on some of the basic problems in the materials
for transmission cables and other copper-based products used for
communications.
R . W . JACKSON
NEWS
33
N E W S FROM U . B . C .
The University of British Columbia approved the setting up of a
separate Department of Geophysics as from July 1, 1963. Professor J. A.
Jacobs, Director of the Institute of Earth Sciences, was named Head
of the new department. Dr. J. C. Savage, Dr. W. F. Slawson, Dr. G. P.
Erickson, Dr. T. Watanabe and Dr. M. A. Chinnery were transferred
from the Department of Physics to the Department of Geophysics.
Dr. J. A. Jacobs was invited to join the faculty of a NATO Advanced
Study Institute on Low Frequency Electromagnetic Radiation which
met in Bad Homburg, Germany, July 22-August 2, 1963.
J . A . JACOBS
N E W S F R O M THE UNIVERSITY OF W A T E R L O O
With the aid of government and University grants the Department
has obtained a Collins Liquefier. This will give a boost to the solid state
and low temperature experiments which have been awaiting its arrival.
The physics of thin metallic films is going ahead as Dr. Boswell has
obtained an electron microscope through N.R.C. and University grants.
In keeping with the trend towards greater application of physics in
industry, the Department has introduced a new co-operative Honours
Applied Physics programme leading to an Honours B.Sc. degree. The
first students will register this fall and as in the co-operative Engineering
programme, students will spend alternate terms in University and industry. The Mathematics and Physics content of the course is the same as
that of the regular Honours Physics course, but there is an extended
choice of electives in Science and Engineering subjects.
An "expedition" to view the solar eclipse of July 20, 1963, was
organized by Dr. G. E. Reesor. Members from all faculties of the University journeyed by special train to Moose River, about 50 miles south
of Moosonee, Ontario. None were professional astronomers and the
intention was to take photographs and record light intensity and temperature during the eclipse.
J . A . COWAN
N E W S FROM THE M E D I C A L PHYSICS DIVISION
The Division of Medical Physics met during the C.A.P. Congress
which was held at Laval in June. The Medical Physics Division sponsored two Scientific Sessions. One session consisted of 8 papers dealing
with topics in biophysics and radiobiology and the second scientific
34
PHYSICS IN CANADA
session consisted of 9 papers dealing with radiation physics or medical
physics. The Tenth Annual Meeting of the Medical Physics Division
was held on Thursday, June 6. The new executive for the 1963-64
year is as follows: Dr. H. E. Johns, Past Chairman; Dr. Gordon F.
Whitmore, Chairman; Dr. Rene A. Beique, Vice-Chairman; Mr. Paul M.
Pfalzner, Secretary-Treasurer; Dr. Garth Olde, Councillor. Drs. Johns
and Whitmore are at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto and
associated with the Department of Biophysics, University of Toronto.
Dr. Beique is the Physicist at the Montreal General Hospital in Montreal.
Mr. Pfalzner is associated with the Ontario Cancer Foundation, London
Clinic, London, Ontario and Dr. Olde is the Physicist in the Isotope
Laboratory, University Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta. For the past two
years the Division of Medical Physics has been studying a change in
their bylaws and name It was decided at the Tenth Annual Meeting that
the name of the Division would now be The Division of Medical and
Biological Physics. This decision for a change of name and change in
the bylaws has been sent to the Executive of The Canadian Association
of Physicists for their consideration.
Dr. Beique of the Montreal General Hospital has recently been
appointed an Editor of the Journal of The Canadian Association of
Radiologists.
Dr. J. E. Till of the Department of Biophysics, University of Toronto
and the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, has been appointed an
editor of Radiation Research.
Dr. A. F. Holloway, Senior Physicist of the Manitoba Cancer Foundation has recently been appointed a physicist to the Executive Council
and a Full Advisory Board of the Advisory Committee on Clinical
Uses of Radioisotopes in Humans to the Minister of National Health
and Welfare.
SYLVIA FEDORUK
Canadian Physicists
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA . . . .
DR. G . M . GRIFFITHS
of the nuclear physics group has returned after a year's leave at the
California Institute of Technology . . . . D R . M Y E R B L O O M has been
granted a renewal of his Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship . . . . Both B L O O M
and G R I F F I T H S have been promoted to Full Professors . . . . In the
theoretical physics group DRS. L. D E SOBRINO and P. RASTALL have
been promoted to Associate Professors and R . HOWARD has been promoted to Assistant Professor. RASTALL is going an a year's leave of
absence to the University of Texas. D R . H . SCHMIDT from Koln University has been appointed as Visiting Lecturer. D R . M . J . M C M I L L A N who
has spent two years on an NRC Post-Doctorate Fellowship in Turin
and Cambridge is joining the Department as Assistant Professor . . . . In
the plasma physics group DRS. A. J . BARNARD and F. L. CURZON have
been promoted to Associate Professors. D R . R . J. CHURCHILL has resigned to accept an industrial research position in the U.S., and DR. P. R.
SMY has resigned to accept a post at Glasgow University . . . In the low
temperature group DR. P. W. M A T T H E W S has been promoted to Assistant
Professor. D R . M . J . CROOKS is joining the Department as Assistant
Professor after obtaining his Ph.D. at Yale and following his research
supervisor Prof. H. A. Fairbank to Duke University as a Research
Associate for a year. MR. A. F. R I C E who is completing his D.Phil, at
Oxford is joining the Department as Instructor . . . . In the solid state
group D R . J . C . G I L E S has resigned to return to the U.K., and to replace
him D R . C . F. SCHWERDTFEGER has been appointed as Assistant Professor. He is completing a year as Research Associate in Indiana after
receiving his Ph.D. from Notre Dame. MR. D. H. GOODE who is completing his Ph.D. in Canterbury, New Zealand is expected to join the
solid state group as Instructor in January . . . . In the nuclear physics
group DR. B. L. W H I T E has been promoted to Associate Professor.
D R . M . K. CRADDOCK has been appointed as Assistant Professor on
completion of his D.Phil, at Oxford. DR. G. M . BAILEY has been
appointed as Instructor on completing his Ph.D. at the Australian
National University . . . . In the spectroscopy group DR. F. W. DALBY
has been promoted to Associate Professor . . . . In the nuclear magnetic
resonance group D R . D . L L . W I L L I A M S has been promoted to Assistant
36
PHYSICS IN CANADA
Professor. D R . K . W . GRAY from Bangor, Wales is coming as an NRC
Post-Doctorate Fellow. M R . V . M. CHIBRIKIN from the Institute of
Chemical Physics in Moscow who spent four months at U.B.C. under
the N.R.C.-Academy of Sciences, U.S.S.R. exchange scheme and returned to Moscow to defend his Candidate dissertation is coming back
to U.B.C. for a year as a Research Fellow . . . . DR. N. H. THYER who
received his Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Washington
and has spent a year with the Meteorological Department in Ghana is
joining the Department as Assistant Professor. His research affiliation
will be with the Institute of Oceanography . . . . DR. R. D . RUSSELL is
returning after a year's absence in Toronto to become a Full Professor
in the newly created Department of Geophysics whose members will
continue to be in close contact with the Department of Physics and will
take part in the teaching program of the Department of Physics.
DR. A. J . SURKAN is leaving to accept a position with I.B.M. in New
York . . . . Attendance at meetings: R. BARRIE and J . GRINDLAY
attended the Conference on Lattice Dynamics in Copenhagen; F. L.
CURZON and R. NODWELL attended the International Conference on
Ionization Phenomena in Gases in Paris and visited a number of laboratories active in plasma physics research in England and on the continent;
M. BLOOM attended the Gordon Research Conference on N.M.R.;
R. STEWART spent three months visiting research Institutes in the
U.S.S.R. under the N.R.C.-Academy of Sciences, U.S.S.R. exchange
scheme; B. L. W H I T E and G . M VOLKOFF attended the International
Conference on Nucléon Structure at Stanford; R E. BURGESS attended
the URSI meeting in Tokyo; W. OPECHOWSKI attended the International
Colloquium on Neutron Diffusion and Diffraction in Grenoble, France;
a large number of staff members attended the IUGG meetings in
Berkeley, and the C.A.P.-A.P.S. meetings in Edmonton; G. M. VOLKOFF
was one of the Canadian delegates to the IUPAP General Assembly
in Warsaw.
A T THE METEOROLOGICAL BRANCH, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT
. . . . At the 4th Congress of the World Meteorological Organization
held in Geneva, Switzerland, April 1-27, Canada's Principal Delegate
was DR. P. D . MCTAGGART-COWAN, Director of the Meteorological
Branch . . . . Other members of the Branch who were delegates were
C. C. BOUGHNER, Chief of the Climatology Division, F. W. B E N U M ,
Chief of the Forecast Division and L. T . C A M P B E L L , Liaison Meteorologist . . . . Also attending the Congress was DR. W. L. GODSON of the
Met. Branch representing the International Union of Geodesy and
Geophysics . . . . D R . A N D R E W THOMSON, former director of the
Met. Branch and now retired was welcomed at the Congress as a
CANADIAN PHYSICISTS
37
Counsellor. During the sessions Dr. McTaggart-Cowan was Chairman
of the important Finance Committee, whose deliberations required long
hours of concentrated effort. The Director was elected to the presidency
of Regional Association IV (North and Central America) succeeding
Dr. F. W. Reichelderfer, Chief of the United States Weather Bureau.
As president of Region IV, Dr. McTaggart-Cowan became a member
of the Executive Committee and remained in Geneva after the conclusion
of Congress to attend this week-long Committee meeting. From Geneva,
Dr. McTaggart-Cowan continued on to Bracknell, England, where he
represented Canada at the Commonwealth Meteorologists' Conference
held from May 6 to 10 . . . . M. B. DANARD has completed his course
of studies at the University of Chicago for a Ph.D. degree in Meteorology. His field of research while at the University concerned the effects
of latent heat on the energetics of cyclone development. On return to
the Atmospheric Research Section in the Meteorological Branch, Department of Transport, he will be carrying out investigations on general
circulation problems . . . . DR. P. J. RAO recently of Andhra University,
Waltair, India, has been awarded a one-year N.R.C. postdoctorate
fellowship to be taken in the research section of the Meteorological
Branch. Dr. Rao will be reporting around the first of September to do
research on the energy budget.
. . . . The untimely death of D R . G . N.
is deeply regretted . . . . D R . G . A. H A R R O W E R has been promoted to Professor, D R . W . R. C O N K I E to Associate Professor, and
D R . H . C . E V A N S to Assistant Professor. D R . H . W . HARKNESS has
retired from part-time teaching duties. MR. J. R. A L L E N has returned
from the University of Manchester to resume his teaching duties . . . .
New appointments are as follows: MR. V. A. H U G H E S as Associate
Professor, DR. R. C . R O E D E R as Lecturer, and M R . RICHARD B U T L E R
as Senior Instructor. Mr. Hughes was a Principal Research Officer at the
D.S.I.R. Radio Research Station, Slough, England. Dr. Roeder has
relinquished his position as Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the
University of Illinois to return to Canada. Mr. Butler has been working
as a graduate student in radio astronomy at Queen's. The Department
of Physics will henceforth be responsible for courses and research in
Astronomy . . . . D R . W . R. CONKIE worked during the summer at the
Brookhaven National Laboratory. DR. H. C . E V A N S was a member of
the accelerator group at A.E.C.L., Chalk River during the summer . . . .
DR. S. SANTHANAM completed his work for the doctorate in nuclear
physics and joined the staff of Loyola College, M o n t r e a l . . . . MR. R. G.
JOHNSON who completed his work for the M.Sc. degree under Professor
B. W. Sargent in 1962 has been awarded the Rutherford Scholarship
A T Q U E E N ' S UNIVERSITY
WHYTE
38
PHYSICS IN CANADA
of the Royal Society of London; he will continue his work in high
energy physics at the University of Liverpool.
AT N.R.C
M R . F . L . W . M C K I M , Assistant Director since 1 9 5 7
of the Division of Administration and Awards, has been appointed
Director of the Division, a position relinquished by Dr. F. T. Rosser,
Vice-President (Administration) . . . . D R . D . W . R. M C K I N L E Y ,
Associate Director of the Radio and Electrical Engineering Division
since 1960, has been appointed Director of the Division, succeeding
Dr. B. G. Ballard, recently appointed President of NRC . . . . DR. H. R.
SALLANS, Acting Director of the Prairie Regional Laboratory since the
death in August, 1962, of Dr. G. A. Ledingham, has been appointed
Director of the Laboratory . . . . D R . W . G. SCHNEIDER, Head, General
Physical Chemistry Section, has been appointed Director, Division of
Pure Chemistry. Dr. Schneider fills the vacancy created by the appointment of Dr. Leo Marion as Vice-President (Scientific) of the Council.
A T T H E UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO . . . . The News Editor regrets
any embarrassment caused by the incorrect news item published in
the Summer issue. The correct information (directly from the source)
follows . . . . The Faculty of Science is now six years' old and has been
expanding rapidly. To take care of this year's influx of students the Department of Physics has increased its teaching staff by 25 per cent with the
addition of the following members . . . . D R . R. R. HAERING, formerly
of I.B.M., has joined the Department as Professor of Physics . . . .
D R . P. C . EASTMAN of the Defence Research Board has been appointed
Assistant Professor . . . . M R . J. D. LESLIE is returning to Waterloo as
Assistant Professor after completing his Ph.D. programme at the University of Illinois . . . . MESSRS. J. M . CORBETT and J. R. RICHARDSON will
be temporary lecturers for the year 1963-64 . . . . In the past year
four students have received their M.Sc. and are all continuing work
towards Ph.D. degrees. They are LANCE HODGES and JACK KRUUV, who
are now studying at the University of Western Ontario; STANLEY
WILSON, who has returned to the University of Saskatchewan; and FELIX
KAPRON, who is remaining at Waterloo.
A T T H E UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO . . . . D R . J. M. DANIELS has been
elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada . . . . DR. L. E. H.
TRAINOR and D R . G . D . GARLAND formerly of the University of Alberta
and D R . R. LIST formerly of the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and
Avalanche Research, Davos, Switzerland, have been appointed Professors of Physics . . . . D R . D. A. L . PAUL of the Royal Military College,
Kingston is to join the staff as Associate Professor on January 1,
1964 . . . . D R . R. E . PUGH who has been working at Iowa State University has been appointed Assistant Professor and D R . D . R. MASSON
CANADIAN PHYSICISTS
39
previously at Imperial College, London has been appointed Lecturer
and Research Assistant . . . . D R . E. CORINALDESI of the Institute
Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Pisa, Italy will be Visiting Professor at
Toronto for four and one half months beginning September, 1963; DR.
A. DANIELIAN of King's College, London will be Visiting Assistant Professor for the session 1 9 6 3 - 6 4 . . . . A. C. H . H A L L E T T , J . N . P. H U M E ,
D . G . IVEY, and K. G . M C N E I L L have been promoted from Associate
to Full Professor; R E. A Z U M A , G . M . GRAHAM, H . P. G U S H , and J . D .
P R E N T I C E from Assistant to Associate Professor; H . S. CAPLAN from
Research Associate to Assistant Professor . . . . Four Ph.D.'s in Physics
were awarded at the Spring Convocation. A. F. EISAHARTY (Geophysics)
has returned to the United Arab Republic. P. P. M. M E I N C K E (Solid
State Physics) is now at the Royal Military College, Kingston. V. F.
SEARS (Molecular Physics) has been awarded an N . R . C . post-doctoral
scholarship and will work at Oxford University. D. E. SMYLIE (Electromagnetic Excitation of the Chandler Wobble) is now a post-doctoral
student at M.I.T. and will be returning to Toronto at the beginning of
1964.
A L ' U N I V E R S I T É LAVAL . . . . M . J E A N - D E N I S C A R E T T E du laboratoire
de recherches en Physique atomique du Dr. Larkin Kerwin, est le récipiendaire d'un bourse Ford pour l'année ' 6 3 . . . . L E D R . LARKIN
K E R W I N s'est rendu à San Francisco pour organiser et présider le symposium sur les collisions en spectrométrie de masse, organisé par
L'A.S.T.M
L E D R . K E R W I N a été nommé membre du comité des
bourses du Conseil National des Recherches . . . . L E D R . PAUL M A R M E T
assistait à la sixième (6 e ) conférence internationale sur les phénomènes
d'ionisation dans les gaz, tenue à Paris cet été. Il a aussi présenté une
communication intitulée "Comparison of collision cross sections associated with excited and ground state ions," at the "3E International
Conference on the physics of electronc and atomic collisions" tenue à
Londres . . . . L E D R . CLAUDE D E L I S L E se rendra en septembre à l'Université de Rochester pour y poursuivre des recherches post-doctorales
pendant un an . . . . M . L E PROFESSEUR CLAUDE F R É M O N T a présenté
une communication au congrès de l'ACEF (l'association canadienne
des éducateurs de langue française), qui a eu lieu à Vancouver et dont
le thème était "L'enseignement audio visuel" . . . . M . L E PROFESSEUR
F E R N A N D B O N E N F A N T a été nommé président des bibliothèques de
l'Universite Laval . . . . L E D R . M . HUSSAIN du Laboratoire du Professeur John Hasted du Imperial College à Londres, est boursier postdoctoral du Conseil National des Recherches à l'Université Laval pour
1 9 6 3 - 6 4 et il travaille au Laboratoire de Physique atomique et moléculaire.
40
PHYSICS IN CANADA
A T T H E UNIVERSITY OF W E S T E R N ONTARIO . . . .
R . J.
UFFEN,
Principal of University College, was appointed to the Defence Research
Board and to the National Research Council in April . . . . Among
graduates receiving degrees at the Spring Convocation were: MARGOT
R . ROACH, P h . D . in Biophysics; M . B . B E L L , M.Sc. in Physics—continuing graduate studies in radio astronomy at the University of Toronto;
R . W . JOHNSTON, M . S C . in Physics—joined the staff of the Research
and Development Laboratories, Northern Electric Company, Ottawa;
G . J . I R W I N , M . S C . , in Geophysics—joining staff of Physics Department
at O . A . C . in Guelph; P . D . N E W B E R R Y , M . S C . in Biophysics; M . H .
SHEREBRIN, M . S C . in Biophysics . . . . N . R . C . Overseas post-doctoral
fellowships were awarded to H . E . T U R N E R , to continue studies in micrometeorology at C S I R O in Australia, and to R . A . W E N T Z E L L for further
studies at the University of Durham in magnetohydrodynamics . . . .
Recent promotions in the Department of Physics: R . W . NICHOLLS to
Senior Professor; P . A . FRASER and D . R . H A Y to Professor; C . M .
CARMICHAEL, H . I . S. FERGUSON and E . H . TULL to A s s o c i a t e Profes-
sor; R . C . M U R T Y to Assistant Professor; and W . R . Jarmain to Research
Associate and Lecturer . . . . J . H . BLACKWELL has been promoted to
Senior Professor in the Dept. of Pure and Applied Mathematics, and
A . E . B E C K to Associate Professor and Head of the Dept. of Geophysics . . . . D . R . MOORCROFT has been appointed Assistant Professor
in the Dept. of Physics . . . . J . T A L M A N has been granted leave of
absence from the Dept. of Pure and Applied Mathematics to work
at Davis College, U . of California . . . . D R . G . V . M A R R (Lecturer in
Physics, University of Reading), DR. B. BROCKLEHURST (Lecturer in
Chemistry, University of Sheffield) and D R . G . R . H E B E R T (Assistant
Professor, St. Francis Xavier University) were research visitors in the
Physics Department during the Summer . . . . R . W . NICHOLLS attended
the A G A R D symposium in London (Eng.) in April . . . . P . A . FRASER
and N . A . DOUGHTY attended the International Symposium on Ionization Phenomena in Paris in July, and the International Conference on
the Physics of Electronic and Atomic Collisions in London (Eng.)
in July . . . . Those attending and presenting papers at the I U G G
meetings in Berkeley in August were C . M . CARMICHAEL, P . A . FORSYTH,
D . R . H A Y , G . F . LYQN and R . W . NICHOLLS from the Physics Department, and A . E . B E C K , R . M E R E U , R . J . U F F E N and T . U L R Y C H from
the Department of Geophysics . . . . D. R. HAY also presented a paper
at the Radio Meteorology Symposium in Tokyo and attended sessions
of U R S I there . . . . P . A . FORSYTH attended the Second C I G - I Q S Y
Assembly in Rome in March.
George Neilson Whyte
13, 1963, George Neilson Whyte died in Ottawa
after a six-month illness. Late in his 39th year, he had recently been
promoted to Professor of Physics at Queen's University, Kingston and
was at the peak of his career.
Neil Whyte was a keen observer of the world in which he found
himself. Quick to uncover hypocrisy and humbug, he was no cynic,
but enjoyed both the people and the things around him. Indeed, few
have come to better terms with their environment, both human and
natural. He loved his native city of Ottawa, loved to walk in it, photograph it, watch it change and grow. No less did he love his University,
Queen's, where first he went as a student in 1942. When he graduated
four years later he led his class in Applied Science, was awarded the
Medal in Physics, the Governor-General's Medal and a Shell Oil
Graduate Fellowship. The following year he obtained an M.Sc. under
the direction of Professor J. A. Gray.
In May of 1947 he left for Princeton where the next four years were
equally successful. He was awarded a Procter Fellowship, the most
coveted fellowship bestowed in Physics, and went on to do a thesis on
Cosmic Rays, working with Professor George T. Reynolds. In order to
obtain burst data near the geomagnetic equator, he spent a summer
in the Pacific flying balloons from the deck of the USS Norton Sound.
After obtaining an A.M. and a Ph.D. from Princeton, he remained there
as an instructor for another year before joining the staff of the National
Research Council of Canada in 1951.
There, working with the X-rays and Nuclear Radiations Section of
the Applied Physics Division, he soon became interested in the physics
of radiation dosimetry. In conjunction with his colleagues at N.R.C. he
made extensive contributions to the field in a long series of papers
written in the years 1951-58. This work brought him an enviable
international reputation which was further enhanced with the publication
in 1959 of his book "The Principles of Radiation Dosimetry".
Successful though he was in this phase of his career, a lifelong interest
in teaching, which had been stimulated anew by a year at Queen's in
1956-57, led him to return there permanently as an Associate Professor
ON SATURDAY, APRIL
42
PHYSICS IN CANADA
in 1958. At Queen's he was able to continue his contributions to dosimetry through his membership in the committees of the International
Commission on Radiological Units and Measurements and of the U.S.
National Committee on Radiation Protection and Measurements. Nevertheless, his main interest from now on was to be in the teaching of
physics, a pursuit for which he was admirably fitted. At the time of his
death he was engaged in writing a textbook on the laboratory teaching of
Nuclear Physics.
Neil Whyte was quiet and unassuming by nature, so that few, even
of his close friends, knew of the totality of his accomplishments; precise
and logical by training, few ever caught him with an irrational or inconsistent point of view. Just as he valued his own privacy, so he respected
that of others. Yet he was no recluse. Remembering the distraction
caused by otherwise insignificant mannerisms of his own teachers, he
once staggered his students at Queen's by having them fill in a questionnaire, which among other things, asked them to fist any of his irritating
mannerisms, or other deficiencies in his presentation.
He took a keen interest in the cultural and political life of Canada
and it was always a pleasure to discuss these things with him. At such
times, his calm outlook, natural insight and kindly sense of humor shone
through vividly, and it was a rare occasion when one's own ideas were
not clarified. In recent years his principal hobby was photography. It
was characteristic of Neil, though not of amateur photographers in
general, that his rare showings of transparencies always left his viewers
hoping for more. It is possible that he never took any bad shots, but it is
a good deal more likely that the mediocre ones were ruthlessly weeded
out.
If it is ever possible to sum up a person in one word, that word for
Neil Whyte would probably be consideration. At no time was this consideration for others more evident than during his final unsuccessful
battle with a brain cancer. His too early death is a grievous loss to his
family, his friends, to Queen's and to Canada.
J. C . D . MILTON
THE G. N. WHYTE MEMORIAL PRIZE
A prize is being set up in memory of the late Professor G. N. Whyte.
It will be awarded annually to an outstanding physics student at Queen's
University. Anyone interested in contributing to the endowment of this
prize should get in touch with J. C. D. Milton, Physics Division, Chalk
River Nuclear Laboratories, Chalk River, Ontario.
Letters to the Editor
Dear Sir:
In the Spring issue of "Physics in Canada" Capius declared that the physicist
as such is not a "measurer" but that "this lowly distinction belongs, of course, to
the engineer. The true physicist 'measures' only as a means to an end". These
two sentences are too clear to be merely bad phrasings. They are the deliberate
expression of misinformed and bigoted ideas. It seems to me that it is evident
that no one, be he engineer, tailor or bookmaker measures just for the pleasure
of it. Paragraphs could be written tearing apart the bizarre ideas of the above
mentioned gentleman, but the constructive thing to do is to take the positive
approach and explain what the engineer is.
The engineer must have a discipline that is not required of the man engaged in
pure scientific research. He cannot content himself with the probing of nature
and the accepting of whatever he finds. He must confine himself to the specific
problem at hand and must build a practical solution taking into account such
factors as time, cost, and provision for future modification.
An engineer cannot be content with being qualified only in the technical sense.
He must also be adept at the organization of a task and the "man management"
of others also responsible in some way for its accomplishment. An engineer able
to design but not able to supervise installation and servicing would be of limited
use.
The physicist has not the same public responsibility as the engineer. Much is
made of the responsibility of the medical profession (which is great) however
one must admit that the doctor's mistake will usually affect but one person at a
time. A mistake on the part of the engineer will have much farther reaching
consequences as is witnessed by the Quebec Bridge disasters and the burst dam
in southern France two years ago, as well as by the crashes of the first Comet
jetliners. The engineer, perhaps more than any other member of our society,
holds lives in his hands.
The engineer, then, is a man of many hats. As well as being a man of science,
he must be a businessman, an efficiency expert, a cost accountant, sometimes
a salesman and often a diplomat.
The engineers among the members of the C.A.P. were no doubt hurt, as I was,
by the unthinking remarks of the physicist in the spring issue. It is to be hoped
that these few paragraphs will contribute to a better understanding that will lead
to what can only be a fruitful partnership.
(Sgd)
WILSON PRICE
April 25, 1963
Faculté des Sciences
Université Laval
Dear Sir:
Reading the article "Applied Physics" by Dr. Howlett in the Spring issue of
P.I.C. I found myself agreeing with everything he said, except what he said
about what I said. I believe some of the differences are only apparent, and arise
44
PHYSICS IN CANADA
only from differences in the definitions of terms between us. Perhaps I may be
allowed a few words to try to clarify what I was trying to say.
To categorize the RCA Victor Research Laboratories simply as a research-forprofit contracting outfit is convenient (and true in some measure) but to do so
is to miss a major point of my essay. This was, that during those years contracting was the only way a Canadian electronics company was able to afford
research. The basic aim of the research group—to contribute eventually to new
and improved company products—was inevitably warped somewhat by contract
terms, but was always there. Over the past year and a half, with the government
research assistance programs, conditions have been changing everywhere for the
better and, to the extent that contract seeking becomes unnecessary, the assistance
programs can be judged to succeed. I agree with Dr. Howlett that defence contracting as a basis for applied research leading to new commercial products is
not the most efficacious or most economic means—measured in terms of output
per year, output per dollar, or output per scientist or engineer.
I still stand by my remark that a company management will be disappointed if
it attempts to judge the value of its scientific research group solely, or even
primarily, by what new products it has invented, shocking as it may seem. But
it must be taken in the context of the size of company I am talking about, and
my definition of "research", to be understood. The real determinant of a company's
effectiveness in introducing new products is its development organization and,
secondarily, its marketing organization. In development is also where the major
part of the cost is. (I have an idea that Dr. Howlett has included "Development"
in his definition of "applied physics".) The point is that ideas are everywhere.
We can't keep up with them. The present rate of growth of science and technology is such that the role of the industrial scientific research group is becoming
more a role of processing new information—of understanding it, interpreting it,
channelling it to the needs at hand (in, of course, an enlightened and original
way)—more than strictly inventing. To clarify the relation between the different
levels of scientific and engineering effort in an industrial research and development organization would require much more space than I can be allowed here,
but I hope that I can accomplish it before long to my own and everyone else's
satisfaction.
The impressive record of the Applied Physics Division of the NRC in generating
ideas which have been exploited into new commercial products seems to belie
what I just said above. But it must be remembered that the situation in which
you invent something, and then search the world until you find a sponsor to
exploit it, differs in an essential respect from the usual industrial research situation.
The research laboratory of the individual industry is almost the inverse case.
(Sgd)
April 19, 1963
Director, Solid State Physics Laboratory,
R.C.A. Victor Company, Montreal
R . W . IACKSON
Books
The Many-Body Problem—Lectures from the first Bergen International School
of Physics, edited by CHRISTIAN FRONSDAL, N E W York, 1 9 6 2 . W . A . Benjamin,
Inc. Pp. 310. $9.75.
Quantum
Theory of Many-Particle Systems. By L . VAN HOVE, N. M . H U G E N P. HOWLAND, New York 1961. W. A. Benjamin, Inc. Pp. 249.
HOLTZ AND L .
$3.95.
BENJAMIN INC. has done a real service to physics through its paperback editions
of lecture notes and reprint collections. While disappointments like Feynman's
Quantum Electrodynamics have occurred in its Frontiers in Physics series, real
excellence has also been achieved in books such as Quantum Statistical Mechanics
by Kadanoff and Baym. Benjamin has used paperback binding and photo-offset
printing in an attempt to keep costs down and to speed up publication of topical
material. To a considerable extent this purpose has been achieved. Still $9.75 for
the Bergen lectures seems like a lot of money for a paperback, whatever its
contents.
The theory of many-body systems has undergone a very extensive development
during the past decade and some notable results have been achieved. In particular, conventional perturbation theory has been subjected to a good deal of critical
analysis, and important modifications have been introduced to make it applicable
to a wide variety of many-body problems, e.g. to problems in transport theory
and statistical mechanics. In this development, the language of second quantization
has proved invaluable and a number of important techniques have been borrowed
from the theory of quantized fields. Even in the striking case of superconductivity,
where conventional perturbation theory breaks down entirely, the language of
second quantization has proven the natural language of description. The modern
literature in low temperature and solid state physics, and to some extent in
nuclear physics, employs this language so extensively that no serious student in
these fields can profitably avoid exposure to it.
From this point of view, the Bergen lecture notes are certainly useful. The 35
page introduction to the N-Body Problem by Falkoff makes the subject accessible,
at least superficially, to any student of modest talent who has a good background
in conventional quantum mechanics. Falkoff's introduction is followed by a very
clear and concise account of the BCS theory of superconductivity by L. N.
Cooper. Ambegaoker and Kadanoff then show how the BCS theory can be made
gauge invariant. As a consequence of gauge invariance, superconductors have, in
addition to the quasi-particle excitations of BCS, collective excitations which can
be induced by an electric field. An excellent account of the scattering of electrons
by impurities in both normal and superconducting metals is given by Rickayzen.
Short chapters by Mittag on the dense electron gas and by Stephen on the diamagnetic susceptibility of an electron gas, round out the section on solid state
and low temperature studies.
This section is followed by a series of 4 articles on the nuclear many-body
problem. In a lecture entitled "Properties of the Nuclear Surface," Professor
46
PHYSICS IN CANADA
Rosenfeld manages, in addition to covering the topic at hand, to give a concise,
but lucid, account of several general methods or devices, e.g. the variational
principle and the self consistent field, the density matrix, and the Thomas-Fermi
method. The language of second quantization is used by G. E. Brown in an
extensive discussion of collective nuclear motions, and by J. S. Bell for a clear
exposition of superfluidity in nuclear matter. The final lecture in this section is a
review by Bell of the problem of hard core potentials in perturbation theory.
The Bergen lectures end with four contributions of rather varied nature.
A. Katz discusses the calculation of the moment of inertia of a many-fermion
system, A. J. Glick discusses the properties of the linear-response function from
which several important properties of the many-body system can be derived, and
R. Balian discusses the structure of the t-matrix of Brueckner and of the canonical transformation of Bogoliubov. Perhaps the most interesting contribution is
the article of Katz on the analytic structure of perturbation theory in which he
points out that, by analytic continuation, a perturbation series such as the Goldstone expansion may have significance far beyond its circle of convergence.
Finally, it might be remarked that the Bergen lectures are prefaced with a short
review of their contents by editor Christian Fronsdal.
In contrast to the Bergen lectures, the Quantum Theory of Many-Particle
Systems is a reprint collection. Specifically, it is a reprint collection on the fundamental contributions of Van Hove and Hugenholtz on the perturbation theory
of many particle systems. It is necessarily very partial to the work of Van Hove
and Hugenholtz, and while their formulation of perturbation theory in terms of
the resolvent operator has some distinct advantages, the alternative formulation
in terms of the development operator has been largely adopted in the current
literature. Moreover, it is rather vague as to its general purpose and represents a
rather mixed bag of items.
Nevertheless, the collection is a useful reference work for the serious student
of perturbation theory in the quantum mechanics of many-body systems. The
book begins with an expanded version of an MIT report by Van Hove entitled
"Interactions of Elastic Waves in Solids". This article gives an excellent review
of the classical and quantum theories of elastic solids, and demonstrates the use
of modern perturbation methods for handling anharmonic effects. In particular,
Van Hove discusses at some length neutron scattering at 0° K, and three basic
papers on neutron scattering and crystal dynamics are reprinted from the
Physical Review. Unfortunately, the reduction of page size from the Physical
Review to book form results in print which is too small for comfortable reading.
For this reason, the reader is likely to turn to the reprints from Physica with
a real sense of relief. Van Hove's two contributions on "Energy Corrections and
Persistent Perturbation Effects in Continuous Spectra", in which he discusses at
length the "cloud" and "self energy" effects in many-body perturbation theory,
are of more general interest to the field theorist than to the solid state physicist
The discussions are very good, however, and Van Hove outlines the resolvent
method in perturbation theory. This method is taken up in the classic paper of
Hugenholtz which makes extensive use of the diagrammatic analysis of Feynman
to discuss the quantum mechanics of many-body systems at zero temperature.
Particular attention is paid to the problem of separating out properly extensive
thermodynamic quantities in the perturbation treatment.
The method is applied to the Fermi gas model of heavy nuclei in a subsequent
reprint of Hugenholtz and the collection ends with an important paper of
Hugenholtz and Van Hove on single particle energies in an interacting Fermi
gas. In this paper, it is shown that the single particle concept for an interacting
Fermi gas at zero degrees has meaning only for those particles whose momenta
are approximately equal to the Fermi momentum.
L . E . H . TRAINER
University of Alberta
BOOKS
Meteorites. By
BRIAN MASON.
47
John Wiley and Sons. Pp. 273. $7.95.
of this book, authoritative information on these interesting
bodies has been widely scattered through the literature. Both specialists and
teachers of astronomy will welcome its appearance, though it is addressed more
to the former. After some introductory chapters and a description of the external
features of meteorites and their classification, the author discusses their mineralogy
and internal structure in great detail. Physicists may find themselves somewhat
intimidated by words like "enstatite" and "hypersthene", but they are no doubt
necessary in a mineralogical discussion. A long chapter gives a critical discussion
of the elemental composition of meteoritic matter. The various kinds of meteorite
ages are considered briefly but thoroughly. The book concludes with a chapter on
the origin of meteorites and one on tektites. Appendices discuss the chemical
analysis of meteorites and give a complete list of meteorites of the United States.
It appears that all specialists in the subject would want to have a copy of the
book, and that it should be in the library of any department which teaches
astronomy.
D. M. H.
UNTIL THE APPEARANCE
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL,
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA.
DIVISION OF APPLIED PHYSICS
invites applications for a Research Officer
in the Division of Applied Physics.
THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
An interesting and challenging position is available in the field of neutron
physics. The program covers research in neutron dosimetry, neutron spectra
by proton recoil or time of flight methods, neutron-induced nuclear reactions
and nuclear decay schemes. The improvement of standards in the field of
neutron physics is entailed with particular reference to radioactive neutron
sources, and thermal and fast neutron fluxes. The successful candidate will
be expected to be able to undertake independent research in the field of
neutron physics.
QUALIFICATIONS: The applicant should have training and preferably some
experience in nuclear or reactor physics. M.Sc. or Ph.D. degree required.
INITIAL SALARY:
Depending on qualifications.
Enquiries should be addressed to the Director of the Division of Applied
Physics, Building M-36, Montreal Road, National Research Council, Ottawa,
Ontario.
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