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Dismayed at what I found in the Practical Class I was quite dismayed by what I found in my first period of duty as a Demonstrator in the 2nd Year Practical Class. Many of the experiments taught minor variations of techniques which had long since decayed in use in the world outside or even in University research. On the other hand techniques in widespread use were not covered at all. Some experiments had been retained from decades before because of their elegance, not their practical use. No attempt had been made to analyse what was being taught so that several electrical phenomena were covered again and again while others were completely absent. The apparatus provided for the students was rather grotty and in general the notes required re-writing.
Professor Mott obtains a large grant and places me in charge of a Practical Class When I expressed my views to Nevill Mott on the situation in the 2nd Year Practical Cass, his action was rapid and effective. He obtained from the University Chest a grant of the enormous sum for those days of £20,000 and placed me in charge of the class with a brief to give it a complete overhaul. The classes were listed in the University Lecture List in the usual way and Professor Mott circulated an Internal Notice showing the staffing and who headed each class. I had some very good people allocated as my Demonstrators, namely John Adkins, Ellis Cosslett, Ken Smith, Evans of the Scott Polar Institute and, later, Gilbert Yates.
Physics research students not the best designers To design new experiments I had the run of, in all, about 50 of the brightest Physics research students in the world and I was authorised to pay them £5 an hour for their efforts. For me, an abiding lesson was that only 2 of the 50 showed themselves to be good designers, despite the fact that most had been through the class as students and were thus well aware of the ‛market‛.
Lecturing and publishing papers on Practical Class teaching Good progress was made with overhauling the class, covering all aspects from the analysis of teaching objectives through design of experiments to meet the objectives, the purchase or the design and manufacture of apparatus as well as the provision of notes for tutors and students. Arising out of this activity, Nevill Mott invited me to lecture on practical class teaching to 6th Form teachers of Physics assembled at a Conference at the Cavendish. I gladly accepted the invitation and thus on 7th April 1959 I delivered my paper. I later published a few papers on the topic, one of which appeared in the first issue of Contemporary Physics. It is interesting to note now that after a search for a word to express the process of growth and decay of the many measurement techniques by adaptation to the technical, economic and many other conditions in which each was used, I chose for the paper the then unfamiliar term ‛ecological‛.
Regret that I did not team up with A.E. Kempton When Professor Nevill Mott asked me to give the lecture on Practical Class teaching he suggested that I should work with Dr. A.E. Kempton who, it was said, was at something of a loose end because of the cancellation of a cyclotron project. I regret that I did not follow this up because, on a visit to Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon, shortly after joining M.I., its President, Howard Vollum, told me that his huge success in establishing and building the company was due in very large part to his having A.E. Kempton as his mentor while they were at TRE (Telecommunications Research Establishment) during the war.
Supervising visiting students - Admiral Rickover sends Monty Finniston to vet me I also supervised visiting students. One such was Jean-Claude Gregoire, who worked in my laboratory for about two terms and produced a very good report on his experience. Sheila and I had the pleasure of dining with him and his family at their home in Paris when I attended a Nuclear Electronics Conference at UNESCO in Paris. Another was from the U.S.A. - it must have been in late 1959 or early 1960 that Prof Nevill Mott asked if I would consider taking the son of Admiral Hyam Rickover ('father of the nuclear sub') into my lab for a term or two. He added that if I agreed, it would be subject to my being vetted by Monty Finniston on behalf of Admiral Rickover. I expressed interest and not long afterwards Monty came to Cambridge to ‛examine‛ me. I took him to tea in the University Combination Room for that purpose. Evidently I satisfied him for Robert Rickover came and worked away under my supervision. I realised much later that Admiral Rickover must have had quite a high security and intelligence profile.
I joined the Association of University Teachers After a while I joined the Association of University Teachers - I had been taken as a guest to a lunchtime discussion on Education in one of the Colleges, had found the meeting exhilarating and had liked the civil way in which the arguments were put forward. I do not think there was a Trades Union content to what took place and I was not aware of a political dimension.
Interviewed by a Security man about an applicant for a RMCS Chair So far as I am aware, enquiries about one of my Technical Officers, Dr. Michael Potok, after his application for the Chair at the Royal Military College of Science (RMCS) was my first involvement in a Security vetting. A Security man travelled from London to interview me at the Cavendish Laboratory. Michael Potok got the job.
Appointed Regional Scientific Training Officer, Civil Defence Civil Defence was another activity arising out of my appointment at the Cavendish Laboratory. Apparently it was thought that experimental physicists would be particularly adept at making interpretations and judgements on incomplete and imperfect fallout information so that a realistic picture could be presented to the Heads of Regional Government and of the Emergency Services. Thus I was appointed by the Home Office Advisers Branch to a post entitled Regional Scientific Training Officer, for which activity I signed the Official Secrets Act. Duties included taking part in training exercises at the Cavendish, providing simulated fallout information in two 48-hour Military and Civil exercises in massive concrete bunkers and giving a talk to senior Herts & Essex Police on the effects of H-bombs.
Communist undertones at the Cavendish - Kapitza, Cosslett, Wooster, Sputnik There were some Communist elements in my period at the Cavendish. I was very sceptical and ignorant about all politics so was mystified when one Cavendish colleague went out of his way to say that Kapitza (who did not return from a visit to the USSR) had been an engineer, just like me. On another occasion I was warned off by one Cavendish colleague about associating with another esteemed Cavendish colleague, Ellis Cosslett, on the grounds that he was a communist. Then a Dr. Wooster of the Mineralogy Department, on a pretext so flimsy that it was obvious there was an ulterior motive, insisted that he and his wife must entertain my wife and I to dinner at his home. During dinner the Woosters disclosed that they were members of the Anglo-Soviet Friendship Society. Over Yugoslav wine, about which he was very enthusiastic, Dr. Wooster proudly informed us that his daughter was at the ballet school in Leningrad. At one point he made the, to me, extraordinary statement that Reds in the University were unlikely to get promotion - there was a strong prejudice against them. Other points of a left-wing political nature were made by our hosts. On the other hand they also mentioned they ran a business supplying scientific models for educational purposes as a sideline to their University posts. Another USSR-linked event occurred when I asked a question of a USSR Sputnik team making a presentation at the Cavendish - I think it was the first time they had described their work in the West. I do not remember my question (nor the answer) but I recall vividly the uneasy glances it caused between the presenters and other members of their party at the back of the Clerk Maxwell Lecture Theatre.
Letter suggesting formation of Electronics Lunch Club (extract)
How I did not dine with Bill Hewlett of Hewlett Packard A.H.W. Beck of Engineering was sometimes confused with myself, H.V. Beck of Physics. One notable occasion was when the much respected Livingston Hogg, who ran an instrument marketing organisation, arrived one evening in Cambridge with Bill Hewlett of hp. Livingston thought he would ask me to dine with them in their hotel. He looked in the phone book and called the Beck he thought was me. He told me later that he hid his surprise when a Beck he did not know turned up.
Dolby makes a noise - which is delightfully suppressed! Dolby is a name which has long appeared in the literature and on the panels of numerous consumer electronic products throughout the world. In 1960 Ray Dolby, the originator of the ubiquitous noise-reduction circuitry, had come over from the U.S.A. and was a Cavendish research student attached to Downing College. The following anecdote will illuminate him as a person. In November 1960 Ray showed me a letter he had sent to Welwyn Electric remonstrating about the difficulty he had in using one of their electronic components, which he had drawn from the Cavendish stores. He was clearly pleased with the gently teasing tone which permeated his letter, the text of which is reproduced below.
Ray Dolby then showed me the reply (below) he had received from the Chief Engineer, a Mr. J. Browning.
Ray Dolby was clearly delighted he had met his match in style of letter-writing!
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