Norman Ramsey personal archive, 1919-2010 and undated

The Norman Ramsey personal archive documents Ramsey’s academic, scientific, and professional career as a physicist, with the heaviest concentration of material dating from 1945 to 1987. The collection is a valuable resource for research in the development of the field of high energy physics in the twentieth century and focuses on Ramsey’s work in nuclear physics, molecular beam resonance, radar, nuclear magnetic moments, radiofrequency, spectroscopy, masers, and nuclear scattering. Aside from his research activities, Ramsey served as president of the Universities Research Association and was instrumental in the establishment of the National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois; was named the first scientific advisor to NATO in 1958, and was a leader in international scientific collaboration. The collection documents Ramsey’s involvement as a researcher, teacher, writer, advisor, consultant, and administrator, revealing his leadership roles in scientific discovery, academic freedom, and the intersection of the two fields. Letters, reports, memoranda, and other records illustrate how scientific ideas and concepts develop and how academic organizations, learned societies, and government agencies influence scientific research and development. Ramsey was a prolific researcher, correspondent and author, and thus much of the collection consists of correspondence, published and unpublished articles, lectures, and course materials produced during his career. Researchers should note that there is some overlap of subject matter among the accessions. There is very little information available about Ramsey's involvement in the Manhattan Project or his activities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Letters, meeting minutes, reports, and other records chronicle Ramsey’s association with several leading government and scientific organizations including the Universities Research Association (president, 1966-1983), the American Physical Society (president, 1978), the American Institute of Physics (chairman, governing board, 1980-1986), and the General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission (member, 1960-1972). It should be noted that access to Universities Research Association files in this collection requires written permission from the organization. Additionally, Ramsey’s efforts in formulating high energy physics national policy, research guidelines, and procedures; his advocacy of federal support for scientific research; and his work to improve the training and education of physicists is documented in this collection.

Lecture notes, reports, lab notebooks, memoranda, and letters document Ramsey’s teaching, scientific, and administrative career at Harvard University, highlighting his contributions to the planning and construction of the Cambridge Electron Accelerator, his experimental research in nuclear physics, molecular beams, nuclear magnetic moments, spectroscopy, masers, and nucleon scattering, and his managerial skills in developing and supporting the Harvard Department of Physics in such areas as the recruitment and retention of faculty, the improvement of the physics curriculum, and the acquisition of funding for research programs. The growth of the physics program at Harvard University, the scientific interaction and relationship of the University with government and industry, and the mutually supportive role of science teaching and research at the college and university level are illustrated in this collection. Also documented is Ramsey's role as an advocate of academic freedom, as he fiercely defended the activities of fellow Harvard physics professor and accused Joseph McCarthy target Wendell Furry to both the Harvard Board of Overseers and more publicly to the American public on the Meet the Press television program in 1953. Letters expressing support and sentiments against Ramsey following his appearance on Meet the Press and Ramsey's personal notes on the Furry case are found in the collection.

Letters and notebooks in the collection document Ramsey’s early physics research, including magnetic resonance and nuclear scattering experiments, as an undergraduate and graduate student at Columbia University (1931-1935), the University of Cambridge (Clare College, 1935-1937), and the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1939-1940), with some of the leading physicists of his generation including Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898-1988), Paul Dirac (1902-1984), Max Born (1882-1970), and John Cockcroft (1897-1967). Additionally, Ramsey’s war related efforts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory (1940-1942) helping develop radar systems for military applications; his work as a radar consultant to the Secretary of War and to the Army Air Corps (1943-1943); and his participation in the Manhattan Project which led to the development of the atomic bomb (1943-1945) is chronicled in this collection. Meeting minutes, letters, and memoranda also examine Ramsey’s efforts to reestablish the molecular beam research program at Columbia University after World War II. Data books from 1942 to 1987 detail Ramsey’s high energy physics research at Columbia University (1942-1947) and at Harvard University (1947-1987) in several topical areas including molecule nuclear interaction, electric dipole moments, separated oscillatory fields, nuclear magnetic shielding, and quantum mechanics. Containing notes, formulas, calculations, graphs, letters, reprints, and descriptions of research, the data books reveal the scientific experiments undertaken by Ramsey, his methods and procedures, and his instructions for the use and operation of scientific apparatus.

Publications and semi-published literature chronicles Ramsey’s scientific and technological investigations from molecular beams to particle physics, including the precision measurement of electric and magnetic properties of nucleons, nuclei, atoms, and molecules. Reports, articles, and reprints document Ramsey’s development of experimental methods involving molecular beam resonance and successive oscillatory fields which advanced the development of scientific techniques in radiofrequency, microwaves, and laser spectroscopy; the invention of the hydrogen maser, which served as the fundamental basis for the development of the atomic clock; the improvement of special practices for low energy and molecular beam electric resonance experiments; and the accurate measurement of nuclear, neutron, and magnetic moments. Additionally, operation manuals written by Ramsey outline the use of equipment for high energy particle accelerators at Harvard University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the National Accelerator Laboratory (later known as the Fermi National Accelerator or Fermilab). Ramsey’s experimental study of new phenomena and general physics principles including his examination of the electric dipole moment of the neutron, molecular beam measurements of molecules, and nuclear magnetic resonance, which became the basis of magnetic resonance imaging (M.R.I) for medical diagnosis and magnetic resonance microscopy in research, are described in the literature. Although many of the publications in the collection pertain to Ramsey’s physics research, several include Ramsey’s reflections on general topics including the effect of new technologies in the teaching of physics, the need for a special tax to combat pollution, the role of basic science in national development, and the relationship of technology to economic growth. Articles include Ramsey’s reminisces and anecdotes about events in which he participated including the establishment of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Radiation Laboratory, and the Universities Research Association. Ramsey’s discourses on the history of atomic clocks, the early years of magnetic resonance, radiofrequency spectroscopy, and molecular beam research are included among the publications in this collection. Articles, reports, transcripts, news clippings and reel-to-reel audio tapes document Ramsey’s involvement in refuting Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charges that Harvard was harboring communists, including Associate Professor Wendell H. Furry, a professor in Harvard’s physics department, during the McCarthy Era (1950-1956); while letters, meeting minutes, and reports examine Ramsey’s service on a congressional study committee in 1979 that evaluated purported evidence that an additional shot was fired from the grassy knoll in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

The printed materials in this collection from 1935 to 2008 including articles, reprints, manuscripts, book chapters, congressional testimonies, speeches, and newsletters, authored by other scholars, document scientific discoveries in the field of high energy physics, principally in the second half of the twentieth century. Generally used by Ramsey to support his research and teaching activities, the printed materials enable researchers to understand how scientific ideas and concepts originated, to trace scientific innovation in the field of physics, and to recognize historical patterns and long-term trends in science and technology.

This collection also contains a limited amount of personal records pertaining to Ramsey including biographical sketches, honorary degrees, photographs, news clippings, and photocopies of patents. A collection of oral histories documenting Ramsey’s accomplishments as a researcher, teacher, and administrator from the 1940s to 2000s is also found in this collection.