Raymond Thayer Birge

Raymond Thayer Birge
Birge in 1954
Born	March 13, 1887 Brooklyn, New York,U.S.
Died	March 22, 1980(1980-03-23)(aged 93) Berkeley, California,U.S.
Education	University of Wisconsin
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Syracuse University University of California, Berkeley

Raymond Thayer Birge(March 13, 1887 – March 22, 1980) was an Americanphysicist.

Career

Born inBrooklyn, New York,into a family of academic scientists, Birge obtained his doctorate from theUniversity of Wisconsinin 1913. In the same year he married Irene A. Walsh. The Birges had two children, Carolyn Elizabeth (Mrs. E. D. Yocky) and Robert Walsh,Associate Director of theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratoryin 1973-1981. After five years as an instructor atSyracuse University,he became a member of the physics department atUniversity of California, Berkeley,where he remained until he retired, as chairman, in 1955.

On his arrival at Berkeley, Birge sought collaboration with theBerkeley College of Chemistry,then under the leadership ofGilbert N. Lewis.However, Birge's championing of theBohr atomled him into conflict with the chemists who defendedLewis' earlier theory of thecubical atom.Birge was unafraid of scientific controversy and persevered with his course on atomic structure, attracting futureNobel LaureatesinchemistryWilliam Francis GiauqueandHarold Clayton Urey.His work onmolecular spectraincluded the development of theBirge-Sponer method,which was later generalized by theLeRoy-Bernstein theory.

Birge's later work arose from his initial bewilderment at the variety and inconsistency among measurements of thefundamental physical constants.His interest led to a broad mastery of all branches of the physical sciences and gave fruit with many publications, in particular, a 1929 paper inReviews of Modern Physicsthat recommended a standard set of values for the constants based on earlier published results. There ensued a frustration with the conventional methods ofstatisticsas applied inphysical sciencewhich led to a collaboration withW. Edwards Deming.Following their 1934 joint paperinReviews of Modern Physics,their approaches diverged withDemingfollowing the work ofWalter A. Shewhartwhile Birge became interested in the more conventional statistical approaches ofleast squaresandmaximum likelihood.Birge's interest instatisticsled him to the investigation ofparapsychologyin which he conducted many experiments without finding any conclusive results.

Leadership of Berkeley Physics Department

Birge was an active administrator and was the architect of the department's prestige, seeking out physicists such asRobert OppenheimerandErnest Lawrenceand guiding the department through its golden years of the 1930s and through the changes brought on byWorld War II,theManhattan Project,and the birth of "Big Science."

In the late 1930s, Birge opposed the creation of an assistant professorship forOppenheimer'sassociateRobert Serber,writing another colleague that "one Jew in the department is enough."Both Oppenheimer and Serber were Jewish.

During theMcCarthy erain 1949, theRegents of the University of Californiaenforced an anti-communistoath to be signed by all employees. Though an outspoken critic of the oath,after much searching of conscience, Birge decided that his loyalty to the department and the university demanded that he sign and fight from within forfreedom of speech.Many of his colleagues did not sign and were dismissed.

Death and honors

Birge died inBerkeley, California.His honors include:

• President of theAmerican Physical Society;
• Member of theNational Academy of Sciences;
• Member of theAmerican Philosophical Society;and
• Honorary degree of LLD from theUniversity of California, Berkeley.

In December 1964, the new physics building onBerkeley campus,Birge Hall,was dedicated to Raymond Birge.

External links

• Berkeley biography
• Guide to the Raymond Thayer Birge PapersatThe Bancroft Library
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir