13 THINGS THAT DON'T MAKE SENSE (Book Review) - II

Fritz Zwiki, a Swiss though born in Bulgaria,* knew my wife, from Latvia, through the International Students Association, who was the periodical librarian and thought the world of him.  I had thought he discovered the Super Nova; however, I was to learn that it was the greater frequency of them that he discovered.*  When I arrived at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), I was told that the famous astronomer Fred Hoyle was giving a talk at the Physics Building so I went.  At the end Richard Fineman,** also of Caltech, made some sort of statement that I have forgotten that ended with, "Isn't that so, Fritz?"  To which Zwiki replied, "That is the sort of drivel I have come to expect of Hoyle of late."  Zwicki was hostile to anyone whom he thought was a competitor but was very nice to all the support personnel.  One day he came to my office with a fossil (I guess I was the only person around) and asked me what it was. After examining it, I had to tell him I didn't know (I did know 200 fossils).  He said, "Are you a Geologist?" I answered  that I was.  Then he said, "Do you think you are a good geologist/"  I said I thought so.  Of course then came, "Then why don't you know what this fossil is?"  So I had to tell him that there were thousands of fossil names and that I could identify 200 which I thought was a lot.  Actually Zwicki and I became sort of friendly as I guess he decided I was no competition for him, but I steered clear of the topic of astrophysics.

I was a post-doctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory and in my investigations I used a piece of equipment called a mass spectrometer at the near-by Department of Terrestrial Magnetism that I thought had the most romantic name of a laboratory that I ever heard of.  It gave visions of someone standing in a room with his hands on a huge lever which, at some appointed time, he would pull and reverse the magnetism of the world.  In actual fact no terrestrial magnetism was done there (I believe there never had been either), at least while I was around and for decades after.  Well I would run across Vera Rubin,*** perhaps best known for her work on Dark Matter and the Rotation Problem. Now and then I would talk to her and found her to be a very approachable, sweet, middle-aged lady.  Of the three pepole covered here, I probably knew Vera Rubin the best.  In addition to her science, she has three sons and a daughter, all of whom got Ph.D.s (two in geology, my major), and is also a remarkably efficient and good cook.  A wonder woman indeed.

Richard Fineman, the darling of the students, whom I heard give his famous talk in 1959 called "There is plenty of room at the bottom"**** about things like there are plenty of atoms on the head of a pin to put the Encyclopedia Britannica.  He worked on the Manhattan Project as a young scientist and shared a Nobel Prize on quantum electrodynamics.**  Like Zwicky, I would talk to him occasionally at the International Students Association (name approximate) but not about physics.  I wouldn't say I was one of Fineman's friends, though I did have some personal acquaintance with him.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Zwicky; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_supernova_observation
** https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Richard_Feynman
 *** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin
**** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_Plenty_of_Room_at_the_Bottom