Melba Phillips, who grew up on a farm in Indiana at the turn of the twentieth century, was one of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s first graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. Together they discovered the Oppenheimer-Phillips Process, which explained a particular kind of nuclear reaction. In this episode, we explain what that is, with a little help from generative AI. Phillips did not follow Oppenheimer to Los Alamos, and was vocal in her opposition to nuclear weapons. During the McCarthy era, she lost her teaching job, and did not return to academia until 1957. In 1962, then in her mid-fifties, she finally became a full professor at the University of Chicago.
Melba Phillips in the front seat of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s car in Berkeley. We think the shadow on the car is Oppenheimer taking the picture. Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Gift of Melba Phillips.
Adam Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Randy Mills, retired professor of social sciences, Oakland City University
Jill Weiss Simins, historian, Indiana Historical Bureau
PRODUCERS
Joe Armstrong
Joe Armstrong is a musician, educator, radio and podcast producer and host who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He has released two albums, with a third due out on vinyl in July, 2024.
Deborah Unger
Deborah Ungercovered technology for Business Week magazine in New York and San Francisco. More recently she worked for Transparency International, the anti-corruption organization, and strategy+business magazine.
ART
Art Design: Keren Mevorach. Credit Pach Brothers, NY, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
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