Physics in the 1960s
1960
A pattern recognition computer is designed in Physics to analyze
bubble chamber photographs of high-energy particle events.
(It will become the ILLIAC III machine in 1963.)
1961
The Atomic Energy Commission and ARPA jointly establish the Materials Research Laboratory at Illinois as an interdepartmental and interdisciplinary laboratory of the College of Engineering. Professor of Physics Robert Maurer is its first director, George Russell of Physics is its associate director, and Ralph Flora, Physics' first business manager, is also named the business manager for the MRL. (In the early 1970s, the administration of the MRL will be more clearly divided from Physics' bailiwick, and the MRL director will report directly to the dean of the College of Engineering, instead of to the Physics head. However, MRL will continue to draw heavily on Physics for its faculty and administrators.)
Using the ILLIAC as a computational engine, Illinois faculty introduce PLATO, the nation's first computer-assisted program of instruction. Conceived by Physics professor Chalmers Sherwin and developed under the direction of Professor Don Bitzer (Electrical Engineering), co-inventor of the plasma display panel, PLATO is the world's first time-shared computer-based education system and the home of the world's first on-line community.
1962
Physics continues the Loomis tradition of an annual spring picnic, where everyone associated with the department always came with spouses and children of all ages.
1963
The west wing of the new Physics Building, which contains lecture halls and a commons area, is completed.
The first PLATO terminal classroom is established in Room 204 of the Physics Building.
A PLATO lab in 1975; long-time Physics staff member, David D. Lesny, then a student, is seated at the first terminal.
With a grant of $70,000 from the NSF, Physics faculty establish an experimental, "real-world" laboratory course for advanced undergraduates. Students in Physics 303 and 304 are given problems that have no clear solutions—or perhaps no solutions at all—and are encouraged to devise their own methods and build their own equipment to find the answers.
Frederick Seitz relinquishes his duties as head to become vice president of research and dean of the Graduate College, but is immediately appointed president of the National Academy of Sciences and leaves Urbana. Gerald M. Almy is named head of Physics.
1965
John Wheatley achieves the lowest sustained temperature in the world—0.003 degree above absolute zero—and ushers in a new era of ultralow-temperature physics.
A young research assistant professor, Brian Josephson, comes to Illinois to work with John Bardeen. He will go on to share the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier.
The escalation of the Vietnam war and the "war on poverty" remove a large fraction of federal funds available for graduate education, as well as force the sciences to re-examine their role in society.
1966
The High Energy Physics Group (HEPG), the largest single user of University mainframe computers, discusses the possibility of purchasing a dedicated computer for the sole use of the group. Buying a new computer is found to be impractical, and so negotiations begin with CSL to provide computer services.
1967
Professor of Physics Edwin Goldwasser accepts the position of deputy director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. (Goldwasser will return to Urbana in 1978 as vice chancellor.)
Head Gerry Almy writes "National interest and student interest are shifting to problems that do not require for solution new fundamental advances in science and engineering as much as application of present knowledge to situations complicated by human and political factors."
The CSL completes the CSX-1 computer for the HEPG and moves it to the Physics Building. Designed by CSL Professor Richard Brown, who will later join Physics along with his computer, the CSX-1 is the first computer to be partially designed by another computer, in this case the ILLIAC II.
The nuclear physics program is stunned by the joint Office of Naval Research and NSF announcement that funding for the 300-MeV betatron will be withdrawn as part of a general federal cutback in university research.
1969
The big betatron and the cyclotron are decommissioned and disassembled, with the spare parts and copper wire sold for scrap to offset the cost of the shutdowns. The nuclear physics group, bankrolled by a new $500,000 NSF grant, begins construction of MUSL-I, the world's first superconducting linac accelerator.
The Atmospheric Research Laboratory is formed as part of CSL, with physicist Yoshi Ogura as its director. (Until the Department of Atmospheric Sciences is formally established in 1981, Physics Head Ralph Simmons will represent the Laboratory for the College of Engineering in matters of curricula and administration.)
