60 years of quantum physics

I was invited to speak on the occasion of the 1500th Regular Meeting of the Society, and of course am delighted to be able to come and do it. But those who conveyed the invitation could not refrain from reminding me that I owed the Society a retiring presidential address. I was president in 1951, and it was in the fall of that year that I departed hastily to go to Corning Glass Works to be director of research. That was a very interesting experience, and I am still connected with the glass business, though I am also doing professing. I started my career in experimental physics and lasted one day. When I started work on a doctoral thesis at the University of California in 1925 I had to set up a vacuum system. All experimental physicists in those days had to get a Cenco pump on the floor and glass tubing up to something that was on the table. I started out like all the rest but broke so much glass the first day that they suggested I go into theoretical physics. I told this story at Corning after I became their director of research. Mr. Amory Houghton, chairman of the board, who is now our ambassador to France, said, “Isn’t it good that at last you are in a place where you can’t possibly break enough glass to make any difference.”

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