Interview in five sessions, May-July 1998, with Barry C. Barish, Linde Professor
of Physics emeritus and director of LIGO [Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory] 1994-2005.
Recalls undergraduate education, Berkeley; graduate work on Lawrence
Radiation Laboratory cyclotron; postdoc work on bevatron. Meets Alvin
Tollestrup, comes to Caltech as postdoc, 1963. At Brookhaven National
Laboratory. At Stanford Linear Accelerator Center with Henry Kendall, Richard
Taylor, and Jerome Friedman. With Frank Sciulli, proposes neutrino experiment
for Fermilab; work on tau leptons at SLAC. Move to Cornell.
Discusses history of magnetic monopoles and his work on monopoles at Caltech
in 1980s. Discusses history of SSC [Superconducting Super Collider]; problems
with Standard Model of Particle Physics; Aspen conferences to plan SSC;
selection of Texas site. Involvement of Samuel C. C. Ting. Devises SSC
experiment, with W. J. Willis. SSC’s defeat in Congress (1993). Discusses his
work in Italy on monopoles, in Gran Sasso tunnel. MACRO [Monopole
Astrophysics Cosmic Ray Observatory] detector.
Discusses history of LIGO. Bar detector experiments of Joseph Weber. Initial
meetings at Caltech. Hiring of Ronald W. P. Drever. Rochus E. (Robbie) Vogt as
head, 1987. Disastrous technical review and project review, 1992-93. He takes
project over from Vogt in February 1994. Discusses problems he encountered
and lack of evolution between 1989 and 1994. Discusses LIGO’s technical
difficulties and evolution of its organizational structure. LIGO Laboratory and
LIGO (construction) Project. Establishment of LIGO Scientific Collaboration.