Obituary of Dan Bolef (1921-2011)

Dan I. Bolef, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis and social activist, passed away peacefully on September 29 at his home in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, after an extended illness.

Dan was born on June 10, 1921 in Philadelphia to Jewish immigrant parents. His undergraduate studies were interrupted by World War II, during which he served as an infantryman, was captured in Belgium, and later escaped. After the war, he completed his bachelor’s degree in physics at Penn State and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University. His thesis work, supervised by I. I. Rabi and Polykarp Kusch, was in molecular beams. In 1953 Dan joined the scientific staff at Westinghouse Research Laboratories in Pittsburgh, where he worked on masers and developed high-sensitivity ultrasonic techniques. He used these ultrasonic techniques to measure the complete elastic moduli of many transition metals and alkali halides.

While at Westinghouse, Dan and Meir Menes originated and developed the field of nuclear acoustic resonance (also referred to as “acoustic nuclear magnetic resonance”), an analogue of nuclear magnetic resonance in which nuclear spin transitions are excited and detected acoustically.

In part because of a shift of emphasis away from basic research at Westinghouse, Dan accepted an offer from Washington University to help build their solid-state physics program. He was an active member of the physics faculty there from 1963 to 1983. His research centered on nuclear acoustic resonance and various extensions, including acoustic paramagnetic resonance, in which electronic spin transitions are excited and detected using ultrasound, the acoustic Mossbauer effect, and magnetoelastic interactions in antiferromagnetic materials. He authored Nuclear Acoustic Resonance with Ronald K. Sundfors. During this time, he supervised the Ph.D. theses of 12 students.

Meanwhile, Dan had a parallel career as a social activist. Circa 1960, during the civil-defense push to build bomb shelters, Dan came to believe that the United States government was not leveling with the public. In response, he worked with colleagues at Westinghouse to publicize the effects of nuclear weapons, giving dozens of public talks and contributing to an influential booklet, The Effects of Nuclear War on the Pittsburgh Area. Watching the buildup of nuclear stockpiles during the Cold War, Dan became increasingly convinced that scientists have a social responsibility to address the implications of their work. From that point onward, he was as intensely engaged in social activism as in scientific research. In opposition to the Vietnam War, he counseled conscientious objectors and members of the military who opposed the war. He renounced military funding for his research. His outspokenness on behalf of arms control, civil rights, and environmentalism, as well as his opposition to nuclear proliferation and militarism sometimes put him at odds with other faculty members and the Washington University administration.

Dan’s approach to activism was based in community organizations. He described himself as “a home boy” who paid close attention to what was going on nationally but focused his efforts locally. He was instrumental in organizing several St. Louis groups, including the Coalition for the Environment, the St. Louis Committee to Support Resistance, the World Community Center, and the St. Louis Peace Center. Other regional groups frequently solicited his assistance on issues of peace and social justice. Many of his activities are documented in the Dan Bolef Papers, housed at Olin Library on the Washington University campus (http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/archives/guides/pdf/bolef.pdf ).

Dan retired from Washington University in 1983. He moved back to rural southwest Pennsylvania, where he engaged in creative writing while continuing to be involved in local environmental and social justice issues. To the end, he always cared about the marginalized. With Dan, conscience always took precedence over personal advancement, scientific or otherwise. Dan Bolef was an inspiring, hands-on mentor to his Ph.D. students, who learned a wide range of experimental techniques by working side-by-side with him. He painstakingly taught his students the art and science of preparing single crystal specimens to serve as ultrasonic resonators in sophisticated standing-wave measurements that pushed the limits of sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio. He was generous with his help – including visits to the lab during midnight experiments. Dan also taught his students the importance of carefully prepared and clearly expressed manuscripts, sharing with them his gift for excellent writing. He always made sure credit for creative work was broadly and fairly distributed and never usurped. He treated students as individuals, instilling in them a feeling of enthusiasm and confidence. His students found him to be a source of wise counsel long after they graduated.