Robert McNees
Physicist and chemist Esther Conwell was born #OTD in 1922. Her work with Weisskopf on the scattering of electrons by impurities in semiconductors was essential to understanding transistors, and to the development of integrated circuits.
Images: AIP, Ryan K. Morris Photography
Robert McNees
The Conwell-Weisskopf theory was developed in 1943, over the course of only a few months. It was considered so important that it was classified as part of the war effort, and not published until 1950.
Ref: https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.77.388
Robert McNees
Conwell’s AIP oral history is a remarkable read. Not just for the science and insights about being a woman in the field, but also for observations about social hierarchies in academia, industry, and unique places like Bell Labs that straddled the two.
https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/29913
Robert McNees
There is loads of stuff in here. For someone who put up with so much, Conwell is admirably charitable in her descriptions of people and their motivations.
But when the conversation gets around to Shockley she wastes no time explaining that he "went off the deep end."
Conwell explains that Shockley was advocating eugenics earlier than a lot of people realized.
Robert McNees
This bit where Conwell recalls calmly demolishing Marcel Schein at her Ph.D. oral exam is truly superb:
“But he did not cover himself with glory in that exchange. It’s a moment that I have treasured.”
If I could lift one saying out of the mid-20th century and deposit it in the modern vernacular, this is it.
OddOpinions5
@mcnees
Given that Bell Labs, like PARC was driven by de facto monopoly profits, do you think in 20 years we will talk about Google or Meta labs the same way ?
Robert McNees
@failedLyndonLaRouchite Idk. Ten years ago I would have said “no.” With quantum computing, though, we may look back on Google and a few other places as playing a Bell-like role in their development. But even then, Google and Microsoft doesn't give folks quite as much leeway to explore.
Robert McNees
“He did not cover himself with glory in that exchange” is a marvelously charitable description of mansplaining but also a very satisfying roast of the mansplainer. This was in the early to mid 40s; the "No. I wrote the article.” of its day.
The AIP oral histories are all great, but this one is especially good. Conwell is a splendid narrator. If you have a bit of time it really is worth reading the whole thing.
https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/29913
Robert McNees
Conwell's career began at a time when women were largely locked out of academia. Aside from a few stints as a visiting professor (Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1962, then MIT in 1972), she spent most of her career in Industry and places like Bell Labs.
Esther Conwell accepted her first permanent academic position in 1998, when she joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Rochester. She was in her mid-70s and had been running a National Science Foundation center there since 1991.
Robert McNees
In 2009, Esther Conwell was awarded the National Medal of Science for her contributions to understanding electron transport in semiconductors.
She narrates most of this lovely little video about her career and contributions:
Chirp! is a social network. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.1-beta0, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All Chirp! content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.