Monday, September 05, 2005
Albert Boni
Amazing People I Have Known
.
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CONTENTS:
Albert Boni, innovative publisher
Jewel of the Sea, Princess of Korea ("Amy Lee")
Milton Avery, prominent artist
Carol Bacher, "Jewish-American Princess"
Stanford Ovshinsky, inventor of hybrid car battery
Joan Rivers, TV star
Thitima, my former grad student
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ALBERT BONI, Publisher
(Article about him: N.Y. Times, December 1, 1965.
Obituary: N.Y. Times, August 1, 1981.
Also, obit. of his brother Charles, tells a lot about Albert: N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1969, page 27. And there is still more in the N.Y. Times Book Review "Firebrand," about Horace Liveright, July 16, `995, page 11. Also, some more in article about his pioneering Modern Library company, in N.Y. Times Book Rev., Dec.6, 1992, page42.)
[ NOTE: Because I used an old version of Microsoft Word in a new computer to make this blog, some quotation and apostrophe punctuation might come out looking quite strange, with weird symbols here. ]
When I was getting my Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Rutgers, I worked summers in the transistor lab at ITT. Part of the job involved microsopic photography (with "photoresist") and the elimination of vibrations (from footsteps, passing trucks, etc.) that was required for it.
My Rutgers Ph.D. research was on the chemistry of photography. I grew crystals that were isolated from vibrations, using springs and blown-up inner tubes that I had learned about from the transistor industry. I had to examine my new crystals, using a special microscope I had devised.
My professor, Dr. Peter A. van der Meulen ("P.A"), was hired as a consultant by a really amazing person named Albert Boni. Both of their families had come from Holland, and both worked on special photographic methods. Boni was very wealthy and wanted to invest in a new lab, to make improved microfilm, so that a lot of bulky books could be stored in archival form, in a much smaller space. My prof was planning to retire, and I was expecting to finish up my Ph.D., so Boni suggested that we all work together — that is, P.A. would retire and then become the boss of Boni’s new lab (near New Brunswick), and they would hire me as their first engineer. I would use my skills in vibrationless microscopy to make super-small microfilms of archival books, and Boni would sell the tiny films to libraries, and to the U.S. Patent Office, etc. (a really huge market).
P.A. had told me about Boni's many literary connections, which had helped get the New York Public Library as a customer. Boni had already started a company, Readex Microprint, which was successful in making and selling moderately small archival microfilms (20 to 1 reduction in size), but he wanted P.A. and me to make even smaller ones (100 to 1 reduction in size).
Of course, Boni had to meet me, and we briefly did. I name-dropped my own literary connections, which he immediately concluded were exactly right for this job (since good scientists were usually very nerdy). He thought those would help a lot in getting along with future customers.
Boni, with his brother Charles, and with a partner named Horace Liveright, had been a pioneering publisher of Hemingway, Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill, Upton Sinclair, Will Rogers, and other literary luminaries. They had started the Off-Broadway theater movement and the first inexpensive paperback books, among other things that later became famous.
As a friendly gesture, but maybe also as a sort of extended job interview, I was invited to a party in Boni’s triplex (three-stories high) penthouse, at the top of a Fifth Avenue apartment building that overlooked Greenwich Village. Several famous Dutch Masters paintings were on the walls, and fortunately I guessed correctly in identifying their styles. Lots of publishing and theater people were present. Boni stuck close to me for a while, to see how I would get along. I shamelessly name-dropped Milton Avery, the Royal Family of Korea, William Bacher (a movie and Broadway play producer whose new musical was just opening — and I had escorted Bacher’s daughter to the opening performance and party!). My connections to all three were through their daughters, but that was OK — Boni was suitably impressed. (The theatrical guests were just as much shameless name-droppers as I was, if not worse!)
P. A. van der Meulen let it be known that I had to sign up with Boni, for my first job after grad school (I needed to have him sign my thesis, of course), so I did. For a month or so, I obtained all the equipment we needed to outfit a vacant garage in Highland Park, NJ, and I set it up and then made our first 100 to 1 microfilms. But we couldn’t publish anything (it was all proprietary secrets).
I had been working summers and part-time at ITT, and I had been thrilled to publish several scientific "papers" that promptly attracted a lot of attention in the tech world. That was what I wanted to continue doing for a few years or decades. Eventually, my ambition was to work at the great Bell Labs, not in some secret little garage. I wanted to create new ideas and designs that people all over the world would then copy and use. I announced that to P.A. and Albert. Boni was astounded that I would pass up the great opportunity that he had offered to me, saying he was disgusted and never wanted to hear from me again.'
Readex was fairly successful, and P.A. and Albert died later. Boni’s son, a newspaper writer on the West Coast, came home and took over the company, which later was bought out by a bigger one.
I went to work for ITT, published a lot, and got hired by Bell Labs, joining the ERC in "Princeton" (really Hopewell), NJ. My work on ceramics became famous in that field (along with my hi-fi research in that field), and I became a "Professor II" at Rutgers (equivalent to Distinguished Professor elsewhere), retiring at age 71.
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS:
Albert Boni, innovative publisher
Jewel of the Sea, Princess of Korea ("Amy Lee")
Milton Avery, prominent artist
Carol Bacher, "Jewish-American Princess"
Stanford Ovshinsky, inventor of hybrid car battery
Joan Rivers, TV star
Thitima, my former grad student
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ALBERT BONI, Publisher
(Article about him: N.Y. Times, December 1, 1965.
Obituary: N.Y. Times, August 1, 1981.
Also, obit. of his brother Charles, tells a lot about Albert: N.Y. Times, Feb. 15, 1969, page 27. And there is still more in the N.Y. Times Book Review "Firebrand," about Horace Liveright, July 16, `995, page 11. Also, some more in article about his pioneering Modern Library company, in N.Y. Times Book Rev., Dec.6, 1992, page42.)
[ NOTE: Because I used an old version of Microsoft Word in a new computer to make this blog, some quotation and apostrophe punctuation might come out looking quite strange, with weird symbols here. ]
When I was getting my Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Rutgers, I worked summers in the transistor lab at ITT. Part of the job involved microsopic photography (with "photoresist") and the elimination of vibrations (from footsteps, passing trucks, etc.) that was required for it.
My Rutgers Ph.D. research was on the chemistry of photography. I grew crystals that were isolated from vibrations, using springs and blown-up inner tubes that I had learned about from the transistor industry. I had to examine my new crystals, using a special microscope I had devised.
My professor, Dr. Peter A. van der Meulen ("P.A"), was hired as a consultant by a really amazing person named Albert Boni. Both of their families had come from Holland, and both worked on special photographic methods. Boni was very wealthy and wanted to invest in a new lab, to make improved microfilm, so that a lot of bulky books could be stored in archival form, in a much smaller space. My prof was planning to retire, and I was expecting to finish up my Ph.D., so Boni suggested that we all work together — that is, P.A. would retire and then become the boss of Boni’s new lab (near New Brunswick), and they would hire me as their first engineer. I would use my skills in vibrationless microscopy to make super-small microfilms of archival books, and Boni would sell the tiny films to libraries, and to the U.S. Patent Office, etc. (a really huge market).
P.A. had told me about Boni's many literary connections, which had helped get the New York Public Library as a customer. Boni had already started a company, Readex Microprint, which was successful in making and selling moderately small archival microfilms (20 to 1 reduction in size), but he wanted P.A. and me to make even smaller ones (100 to 1 reduction in size).
Of course, Boni had to meet me, and we briefly did. I name-dropped my own literary connections, which he immediately concluded were exactly right for this job (since good scientists were usually very nerdy). He thought those would help a lot in getting along with future customers.
Boni, with his brother Charles, and with a partner named Horace Liveright, had been a pioneering publisher of Hemingway, Faulkner, Eugene O’Neill, Upton Sinclair, Will Rogers, and other literary luminaries. They had started the Off-Broadway theater movement and the first inexpensive paperback books, among other things that later became famous.
As a friendly gesture, but maybe also as a sort of extended job interview, I was invited to a party in Boni’s triplex (three-stories high) penthouse, at the top of a Fifth Avenue apartment building that overlooked Greenwich Village. Several famous Dutch Masters paintings were on the walls, and fortunately I guessed correctly in identifying their styles. Lots of publishing and theater people were present. Boni stuck close to me for a while, to see how I would get along. I shamelessly name-dropped Milton Avery, the Royal Family of Korea, William Bacher (a movie and Broadway play producer whose new musical was just opening — and I had escorted Bacher’s daughter to the opening performance and party!). My connections to all three were through their daughters, but that was OK — Boni was suitably impressed. (The theatrical guests were just as much shameless name-droppers as I was, if not worse!)
P. A. van der Meulen let it be known that I had to sign up with Boni, for my first job after grad school (I needed to have him sign my thesis, of course), so I did. For a month or so, I obtained all the equipment we needed to outfit a vacant garage in Highland Park, NJ, and I set it up and then made our first 100 to 1 microfilms. But we couldn’t publish anything (it was all proprietary secrets).
I had been working summers and part-time at ITT, and I had been thrilled to publish several scientific "papers" that promptly attracted a lot of attention in the tech world. That was what I wanted to continue doing for a few years or decades. Eventually, my ambition was to work at the great Bell Labs, not in some secret little garage. I wanted to create new ideas and designs that people all over the world would then copy and use. I announced that to P.A. and Albert. Boni was astounded that I would pass up the great opportunity that he had offered to me, saying he was disgusted and never wanted to hear from me again.'
Readex was fairly successful, and P.A. and Albert died later. Boni’s son, a newspaper writer on the West Coast, came home and took over the company, which later was bought out by a bigger one.
I went to work for ITT, published a lot, and got hired by Bell Labs, joining the ERC in "Princeton" (really Hopewell), NJ. My work on ceramics became famous in that field (along with my hi-fi research in that field), and I became a "Professor II" at Rutgers (equivalent to Distinguished Professor elsewhere), retiring at age 71.
Princess Amy
Her Highness Princess Hai Kyung (Jewel of the Sea) of the Yi Dynasty
also known as Amy Haikyung Lee in the Columbia University staff listing,
and as Princess Haegyung in Korean history books
(searchable in google and in wikipedia as "Yi Haegyeong")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Yi Dynasty (also known in history books as the Joseon Dynasty) was the royal family of Korea from 1392 A.D. until the American installation of democracy in 1945. One of the last members of that Dynasty was Prince Ui, who had many wives, and 27 children. (He was also known in history books as Prince Gang.) After he died, his "official" widow (Amy's mother) became the girlfriend of a general in the very corrupt South Korean army. The general was in charge of all supplies going to the army (guns, tanks, fuel, food, etc.), and he put Amy's mother in charge of the food-supply part of it. Because of food scarcities, she needed to have a special part of the army guarding the supply lines, and it became her own little private army.
Japan had taken over the country (in 1910), and while Ui was still alive, the Japanese insisted that he become a prince in the Japanese royal family. Prince Ui never reconciled himself to that fact, since he hated the Japanese conquerors. During a formal holiday party, he publicly shot the Japanese governor of Korea and escaped to Manchuria, where he had assembled an army of rebels against Japanese rule. He led that army in a revolution, but Japan defeated them. Instead of killing him, the Japanese dragged him back to Korea and insisted that he resume being the prince (very much like MacArthur's insisting that Hirohito remain in place under the American occupation). Amy said that he became a little bit crazy and spent his time siring children. According to Korean folklore, at his funeral, his corpse had an erection that became visible by lifting the middle of the sheet(!).
One of Amy's older brothers had studied the German culture at Heidelberg University, and he became the Japanese ambassador to Germany. The Yi family owned a hotel-size brick building in Seoul, which they leased out as the German embassy in Korea. Another older brother became a general in charge of the Japanese army's tank corps, stationed in Hiroshima. He died there, in the first atomic bomb attack.
Amy got a B.A. degree in music from Ewha Women's College, "the Wellesley of Korea." She was faster than any other Korean female ice skaters, but her family would not let her represent the country in the women's Olympics speed skating event, because it would be undignified for a Princess to lose, in case she did. Amy was very emotional, and both she and another Ewha student fell deeply in love with their music professor. During the war, the two girls followed him to Pusan in the south. When he rejected their declarations of love, they both started to jump into the cold river. However, they couldn't actually go ahead with that icy death, and both ended up laughing deliriously, instead of jumping.
Amy had a lot of sympathy for poor people and gave secret information to the Communist party. During the Communist takeover, she became their Minister of Education. However, she quickly began to see how brutal and deadly the Communists really were, and she then started warning various important people, just before they were about to be assassinated. After a few of them successfully went into hiding, it was realized that Amy had been the "reactionary spy" who had saved those people. Fortunately, she herself got warned in the nick of time, and she escaped, hiding in the attic of a friend's small house. She lived there for a month, subsisting mainly on a gallon can of U.S. Army peanut butter, plus occasional rice and water.
After the U.S. takeover, Amy became the librarian for the large U.S. Army Headquarters in Seoul. My friend Philip Cavanaugh, whom I had previously befriended while we were both in "The States" awaiting further orders, had gotten assigned to be a photographer for the U.N. in Seoul. He took pictures of the evidence of Communist atrocities (many mass killings). In his free time, he often hung around in the library.
After the war was over, competent typists were rare, so I was pulled out of the infantry and assigned to write the "Morning Report" at the 25th Division headquarters. This gave me special privileges, including a lot of free time. Therefore I managed to hitch rides in the ambulance that regularly went down to Seoul, where Phil introduced me to Amy.
The war ended, a week and a half after I got to Korea, and I only went on two "patrols" before all the fighting stopped. A soldier next to me in line (but several yards away) stepped on a landmine. We never heard for sure, but the rumor was that he died later in the hospital. Fortunately, my only injury was temporary loss ofhearing.
Princess Amy had a Steinway grand piano, which she sold for 500 U.S. dollars (a fortune in war-torn Korea), to buy her way to America. She was accepted in grad school (at Baylor, in Texas), and I was scheduled to return home to civilian life (June, 1954), so we planned to meet in New York and possibly get married. My parents were absolutely scandalized that I might marry a non-Jewish girl (and of a different race!), and Amy's mother was even madder.
Amy and I lived together every summer for several years. We never married, because of the extreme opposition from her mother, and also from my own parents (my mother got severely depressed whenever she thought about it).
I married a non-Jewish girl (Elizabeth Davis, Wellesley '60 and Columbia M.A.). My parents pretty much accepted this. in spite of her not being Jewish, because she was plenty high-class enough for them. (In fact, my wife came from a pretty distinguished family --- her father was Vice Pres. of a big ad agency, and her brother is a Harvard Med. School grad and prof. at Columbia Med. Sch., etc., etc.)
I didn't have any contact with Amy Lee until about 50 years later, when we found each other via the internet. My wife never did let me visit Amy. However, by e-mail, I found out that she had become a boss-librarian at Columbia University, in charge of a famous collection of Asian literature, from which she eventually retired a few years ago. She had written an article (in a Korean intellectual magazine) about her father's interesting life. Amy also wrote an article in an American library magazine, about the Columbia collection, and she gave some talks about the collection at universities in California. She went back to Korea once, to donate her Princess ceremonial gowns to a museum there, and also to give a lecture about her father at Seoul National University.
Amy never married, but she had a 30-year relationship with a Caucasian music teacher, who had been the accompanist for her singing recital in Carnegie Hall. He had once gone through a bitter divorce and didn't want to ever marry again. He had taught for a while in Korea, and both he and Amy had many friends among the Asians hanging around Columbia U., and various other artists in that community.
[Literature reference: in either the website http://en.wikipedia.org, or in http://google.com,
search for "yi haegyeong" without the quotation marks.]
also known as Amy Haikyung Lee in the Columbia University staff listing,
and as Princess Haegyung in Korean history books
(searchable in google and in wikipedia as "Yi Haegyeong")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Yi Dynasty (also known in history books as the Joseon Dynasty) was the royal family of Korea from 1392 A.D. until the American installation of democracy in 1945. One of the last members of that Dynasty was Prince Ui, who had many wives, and 27 children. (He was also known in history books as Prince Gang.) After he died, his "official" widow (Amy's mother) became the girlfriend of a general in the very corrupt South Korean army. The general was in charge of all supplies going to the army (guns, tanks, fuel, food, etc.), and he put Amy's mother in charge of the food-supply part of it. Because of food scarcities, she needed to have a special part of the army guarding the supply lines, and it became her own little private army.
Japan had taken over the country (in 1910), and while Ui was still alive, the Japanese insisted that he become a prince in the Japanese royal family. Prince Ui never reconciled himself to that fact, since he hated the Japanese conquerors. During a formal holiday party, he publicly shot the Japanese governor of Korea and escaped to Manchuria, where he had assembled an army of rebels against Japanese rule. He led that army in a revolution, but Japan defeated them. Instead of killing him, the Japanese dragged him back to Korea and insisted that he resume being the prince (very much like MacArthur's insisting that Hirohito remain in place under the American occupation). Amy said that he became a little bit crazy and spent his time siring children. According to Korean folklore, at his funeral, his corpse had an erection that became visible by lifting the middle of the sheet(!).
One of Amy's older brothers had studied the German culture at Heidelberg University, and he became the Japanese ambassador to Germany. The Yi family owned a hotel-size brick building in Seoul, which they leased out as the German embassy in Korea. Another older brother became a general in charge of the Japanese army's tank corps, stationed in Hiroshima. He died there, in the first atomic bomb attack.
Amy got a B.A. degree in music from Ewha Women's College, "the Wellesley of Korea." She was faster than any other Korean female ice skaters, but her family would not let her represent the country in the women's Olympics speed skating event, because it would be undignified for a Princess to lose, in case she did. Amy was very emotional, and both she and another Ewha student fell deeply in love with their music professor. During the war, the two girls followed him to Pusan in the south. When he rejected their declarations of love, they both started to jump into the cold river. However, they couldn't actually go ahead with that icy death, and both ended up laughing deliriously, instead of jumping.
Amy had a lot of sympathy for poor people and gave secret information to the Communist party. During the Communist takeover, she became their Minister of Education. However, she quickly began to see how brutal and deadly the Communists really were, and she then started warning various important people, just before they were about to be assassinated. After a few of them successfully went into hiding, it was realized that Amy had been the "reactionary spy" who had saved those people. Fortunately, she herself got warned in the nick of time, and she escaped, hiding in the attic of a friend's small house. She lived there for a month, subsisting mainly on a gallon can of U.S. Army peanut butter, plus occasional rice and water.
After the U.S. takeover, Amy became the librarian for the large U.S. Army Headquarters in Seoul. My friend Philip Cavanaugh, whom I had previously befriended while we were both in "The States" awaiting further orders, had gotten assigned to be a photographer for the U.N. in Seoul. He took pictures of the evidence of Communist atrocities (many mass killings). In his free time, he often hung around in the library.
After the war was over, competent typists were rare, so I was pulled out of the infantry and assigned to write the "Morning Report" at the 25th Division headquarters. This gave me special privileges, including a lot of free time. Therefore I managed to hitch rides in the ambulance that regularly went down to Seoul, where Phil introduced me to Amy.
The war ended, a week and a half after I got to Korea, and I only went on two "patrols" before all the fighting stopped. A soldier next to me in line (but several yards away) stepped on a landmine. We never heard for sure, but the rumor was that he died later in the hospital. Fortunately, my only injury was temporary loss ofhearing.
Princess Amy had a Steinway grand piano, which she sold for 500 U.S. dollars (a fortune in war-torn Korea), to buy her way to America. She was accepted in grad school (at Baylor, in Texas), and I was scheduled to return home to civilian life (June, 1954), so we planned to meet in New York and possibly get married. My parents were absolutely scandalized that I might marry a non-Jewish girl (and of a different race!), and Amy's mother was even madder.
Amy and I lived together every summer for several years. We never married, because of the extreme opposition from her mother, and also from my own parents (my mother got severely depressed whenever she thought about it).
I married a non-Jewish girl (Elizabeth Davis, Wellesley '60 and Columbia M.A.). My parents pretty much accepted this. in spite of her not being Jewish, because she was plenty high-class enough for them. (In fact, my wife came from a pretty distinguished family --- her father was Vice Pres. of a big ad agency, and her brother is a Harvard Med. School grad and prof. at Columbia Med. Sch., etc., etc.)
I didn't have any contact with Amy Lee until about 50 years later, when we found each other via the internet. My wife never did let me visit Amy. However, by e-mail, I found out that she had become a boss-librarian at Columbia University, in charge of a famous collection of Asian literature, from which she eventually retired a few years ago. She had written an article (in a Korean intellectual magazine) about her father's interesting life. Amy also wrote an article in an American library magazine, about the Columbia collection, and she gave some talks about the collection at universities in California. She went back to Korea once, to donate her Princess ceremonial gowns to a museum there, and also to give a lecture about her father at Seoul National University.
Amy never married, but she had a 30-year relationship with a Caucasian music teacher, who had been the accompanist for her singing recital in Carnegie Hall. He had once gone through a bitter divorce and didn't want to ever marry again. He had taught for a while in Korea, and both he and Amy had many friends among the Asians hanging around Columbia U., and various other artists in that community.
[Literature reference: in either the website http://en.wikipedia.org, or in http://google.com,
search for "yi haegyeong" without the quotation marks.]
Milton Avery
Milton Avery
(Article about him in Time magazine, March 16, 1970, page 58. Also, obit. of Sally Michel Avery, N.Y. Times,Jan. 26, 2003, page 23.)
I was drafted into the U.S. Army, 1952-'54, and while waiting for a specific assignment in Korea, I was temporarily at Ft. Lewis, near Seattle. Another draftee was also there, Phillip G. Cavanaugh. He had been an English major at Columbia ('52, as I had been '52 at Yale), and we became friends. I was sent to the front lines (Yekkogai, above the "38th parallel"), fortunately just a week-and-a-half before the fighting ended. Phil was assigned to be a photographer for the UN, in Seoul. There was an Army library in Seoul, intended to keep the troops out of trouble and reading good books. Phil became friends with a Korean young lady who was the head librarian there, Princess Yi Hai Kyung ("Amy Lee"). I had a lot of free time, after the fighting stopped (most of my year over there), so I visited Phil and/or Amy a lot, especially on weekends. I became Amy’s boyfriend, but Phil stayed loyal to his fiancee at home, March Avery (Barnard '52).
After we came home, I went to Rutgers to work toward an eventual Ph.D., and Phil worked on his at N.Y.U. Amy came to the U.S. and started grad school in music at Baylor, in Texas. We met from time to time in New York, along with March. Phil became a prof. at Wagner College on Staten Island, where his father was a prof., and Phil later moved to City U. of N.Y. and married March.
Milton Avery was just becoming famous as a painter. He had a big one-man show at the Whitney Museum, which was a very great honor, but he didn’t make much money. (I remember going to the Whitney show and being excited to think, "Wow, I know this guy!")
Milton was mainly supported by his wife, Sally Michel, who did regular illustrations for the N.Y. Times Magazine and Book Review and also painted. I used to see her initials on the drawings. (Also, she has something in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in N.Y.)
Milton and Sally had parties in their nice apartment in Greenwich Village, and I felt very good to be a guest at some of them. (I was one of the very few people of my age who were there.) Milton and Sally regularly spent summers at artists’ colonies such as Yaddo, and they had a lot of friends who showed up at the parties. The friends were mostly unsuccessful artists who had to do something else to earn a living, and I remember them as being hyper-intellectual and usually extreme-leftist. I dated Joan Rivers, who was a '52 classmate of March at Barnard, and I took her to one of those parties. Joan was not famous yet, and she was happy to see March again and meet Milton.
After Milton died, his paintings suddenly became worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Sally got rich. A big coffee-table book was written by Robert Hobbs, "Milton Avery," Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1990. There are other books about him. also, in amazon.com.
Phil and March moved into the apartment. March and their son Sean are both painters. (Amy Lee became the librarian of the Korean Rare Books Collection at Columbia University, which her father’s estate had donated.) They had inherited so much money from the Avery estate, that they established the foundation to help struggling young artists. Their son, Sean, is the nearly-full-time administrator of it (although he is also a part-time painter, himself). In recent years, I went to several of the opening-day parties of one-man shows, where galleries were exhibiting paintings by March, and later by Sean.
(Article about him in Time magazine, March 16, 1970, page 58. Also, obit. of Sally Michel Avery, N.Y. Times,Jan. 26, 2003, page 23.)
I was drafted into the U.S. Army, 1952-'54, and while waiting for a specific assignment in Korea, I was temporarily at Ft. Lewis, near Seattle. Another draftee was also there, Phillip G. Cavanaugh. He had been an English major at Columbia ('52, as I had been '52 at Yale), and we became friends. I was sent to the front lines (Yekkogai, above the "38th parallel"), fortunately just a week-and-a-half before the fighting ended. Phil was assigned to be a photographer for the UN, in Seoul. There was an Army library in Seoul, intended to keep the troops out of trouble and reading good books. Phil became friends with a Korean young lady who was the head librarian there, Princess Yi Hai Kyung ("Amy Lee"). I had a lot of free time, after the fighting stopped (most of my year over there), so I visited Phil and/or Amy a lot, especially on weekends. I became Amy’s boyfriend, but Phil stayed loyal to his fiancee at home, March Avery (Barnard '52).
After we came home, I went to Rutgers to work toward an eventual Ph.D., and Phil worked on his at N.Y.U. Amy came to the U.S. and started grad school in music at Baylor, in Texas. We met from time to time in New York, along with March. Phil became a prof. at Wagner College on Staten Island, where his father was a prof., and Phil later moved to City U. of N.Y. and married March.
Milton Avery was just becoming famous as a painter. He had a big one-man show at the Whitney Museum, which was a very great honor, but he didn’t make much money. (I remember going to the Whitney show and being excited to think, "Wow, I know this guy!")
Milton was mainly supported by his wife, Sally Michel, who did regular illustrations for the N.Y. Times Magazine and Book Review and also painted. I used to see her initials on the drawings. (Also, she has something in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in N.Y.)
Milton and Sally had parties in their nice apartment in Greenwich Village, and I felt very good to be a guest at some of them. (I was one of the very few people of my age who were there.) Milton and Sally regularly spent summers at artists’ colonies such as Yaddo, and they had a lot of friends who showed up at the parties. The friends were mostly unsuccessful artists who had to do something else to earn a living, and I remember them as being hyper-intellectual and usually extreme-leftist. I dated Joan Rivers, who was a '52 classmate of March at Barnard, and I took her to one of those parties. Joan was not famous yet, and she was happy to see March again and meet Milton.
After Milton died, his paintings suddenly became worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Sally got rich. A big coffee-table book was written by Robert Hobbs, "Milton Avery," Hudson Hills Press, New York, 1990. There are other books about him. also, in amazon.com.
Phil and March moved into the apartment. March and their son Sean are both painters. (Amy Lee became the librarian of the Korean Rare Books Collection at Columbia University, which her father’s estate had donated.) They had inherited so much money from the Avery estate, that they established the foundation to help struggling young artists. Their son, Sean, is the nearly-full-time administrator of it (although he is also a part-time painter, himself). In recent years, I went to several of the opening-day parties of one-man shows, where galleries were exhibiting paintings by March, and later by Sean.
Carol
Carol Bacher
(Review of “Seventh Heaven,” a Broadway play that her father William A. Bacher produced: N.Y. Times, May 22, 1955, page X-1. More about that play in obit. of actress Gene Tierney, N.Y. Times, Nov. 8, 1991.)
Carol was an exec. of Kenyon and Eckhart, a big ad agency in New York. She was the daughter of William A. Bacher, producer of the Broadway play “Seventh Heaven,” and the hit movie “Leave Her To Heaven.” That movie was the biggest money-maker of the year, around 1960. Her mother got furiously mad at my mother (during lunch) when Mom said that I did not intend to marry Carol.
My feelings about possibly marrying her were similar to what I felt about Joan Rivers (see blog about her, below). In the lobbies of theaters where we went, actors and actresses were always coming over and kissing her "hello." She and her family would always be in the limelight, while I would be in the shadows. I would be like the educated Greek slaves that victorious Romans brought home to educate their children --- maybe attractive people, but always still slaves.
Another factor was that I found it enjoyable to be in cocktail parties, theatrical openings, and various other artsy functions, for a few times. But after those few times, I didn't like it, and I couldn't wait till it all would be over, and I could go back home away from the chatter. I found that I am not very sociable, expecially with those "socialite" types. And I didn't really like country clubs (golf, etc.), sailing, traveling through Europe (after the first few times), or the other things you were supposed to do with your money if you were able to accumulate a lot of it.
However, I did enjoy attending the parties that were held right after scientific meetings, with people who were just like me. And I enjoyed the "work," that is, giving and hearing lectures, the lab work we had done, and the "writing up" of scientific articles and books to report it all. That's where I belonged, even though I had been quite able to "make it" in the socialite world.
So I abandoned ship.
(Review of “Seventh Heaven,” a Broadway play that her father William A. Bacher produced: N.Y. Times, May 22, 1955, page X-1. More about that play in obit. of actress Gene Tierney, N.Y. Times, Nov. 8, 1991.)
Carol was an exec. of Kenyon and Eckhart, a big ad agency in New York. She was the daughter of William A. Bacher, producer of the Broadway play “Seventh Heaven,” and the hit movie “Leave Her To Heaven.” That movie was the biggest money-maker of the year, around 1960. Her mother got furiously mad at my mother (during lunch) when Mom said that I did not intend to marry Carol.
My feelings about possibly marrying her were similar to what I felt about Joan Rivers (see blog about her, below). In the lobbies of theaters where we went, actors and actresses were always coming over and kissing her "hello." She and her family would always be in the limelight, while I would be in the shadows. I would be like the educated Greek slaves that victorious Romans brought home to educate their children --- maybe attractive people, but always still slaves.
Another factor was that I found it enjoyable to be in cocktail parties, theatrical openings, and various other artsy functions, for a few times. But after those few times, I didn't like it, and I couldn't wait till it all would be over, and I could go back home away from the chatter. I found that I am not very sociable, expecially with those "socialite" types. And I didn't really like country clubs (golf, etc.), sailing, traveling through Europe (after the first few times), or the other things you were supposed to do with your money if you were able to accumulate a lot of it.
However, I did enjoy attending the parties that were held right after scientific meetings, with people who were just like me. And I enjoyed the "work," that is, giving and hearing lectures, the lab work we had done, and the "writing up" of scientific articles and books to report it all. That's where I belonged, even though I had been quite able to "make it" in the socialite world.
So I abandoned ship.
Stan Ovshinsky
Stan Ovshinsky, maverick inventor
---------------------------------
After getting my Ph.D. in 1962, I worked at ITT, and they paid $50,000 to Mr. Stanford Ovshinsky for a patent license on his “amorphous semiconductor” technology. ITT engineers watched it being demonstrated in Stan.’s lab, paid the $50 K, and then went home and tried it. But they couldn’t get it to work.
I was then assigned to the project.
Stan was one of history’s greatest con men, although he was also a truly creative scientist to some degree. His amorphous semiconductor device barely worked, but not reliably enough to be useful. However, it had the potential of being very cheap. He got big companies to invest half a billion dollars [see #3 below], over the next 20 years, without ever making a penny of profit. He always promised: “Just one more year of development, and it will revolutionize electronics.”
Stan was a genius at getting famous men (Gen. Colin Powell [#7], and the former Chairmen of GM and Chrysler [#7], and various Nobel Prize winners) to be consultants for his company and to be photogaphed with him, all smiling together. But they were always retired by that time, and feeling somewhat neglected. (Although they had been very successful people, they were not experts in his field.)
Stan had a big press conference and got on the front pages of both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal the next morning! [See #4.] By doing this sort of thing, he always managed to scrape up tens of millions of dollars, just barely before actually going bankrupt, and he was still doing that up until recently [#5]. However, he is now starting to win some big lawsuits (still being appealed) and might eventually collect a lot [#6].
Once, when things were not going well, but it was time for ITT to renew their contract for another year (and another $50K), Stan requested a meeting with the Chairman of ITT, promising to bring wonderful new stuff to demonstrate. I was present, in the luxuriously wood-panelled board room of the ITT building, on Park Avenue in New York City. Stan kept us all waiting, purposely showing up late, and then he made a grand entrance, with a coterie of uniformed Brinks guards, and a leather briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. This contained the new secret formula. But it turned out to be just a mumbo-jumbo chemical recipe, not any demonstration equipment, and we couldn’t tell if it was really any better than the old formula or not. (My boss had told me to keep my mouth shut, so I did.) To my amazement, the ruse worked, and the the ITT top management signed up for another year! (Stan was not an ordinary person. Instead, like Mal McLaren of Rutgers, he was a true genius, able to con people in ways that were almost impossible.)
Working days, evenings, and weekends in the lab, I and the guys who worked for me optimized the alloy, and it began to work better. I developed an electronic circuit that automatically corrected problems [#8], and then the new alloy worked just fine. A little gray cylinder of the alloy was mounted inside a glass “package,” of the standard DO-7 type [#8A]. We built a telephone switching system with that [see #4 again, and then #8B]. But ITT shut down their lab and completely quit the telephone business before we ever got into mass production.
Several times, Stan tried to hire me. For example, after I had quit ITT (instead of transferring to their new lab in England), Stan invited me to visit his company in Detroit, and see what progress they had made. To my surprise, when I got there, it turned out to be another attempt to get me to sign up as one of his engineers. But he never allowed his engineers’ names to appear in print — it was always just “Ovshinsky” — so I didn’t want to become an anonymous worker bee in his hive, and I never joined ECD. (I went to AT&T instead.)
I had designed and built a little aluminum box with switches and lights on the outside, and the DO-7 device plus a battery, etc., inside, and this successfully demonstrated that the device worked reliably. (I got U.S. Patent 3,448,302 on this, automatically cross-licensed to Ovshinsky.) I had given a few of those little demo boxes to Stan, and he used them to sell the concept to several famous companies, raising tens of millions of dollars each time. This allowed Stan's company ("ECD") to stay alive, in spite of the fact that each new investment failed to produce any profits. (The problem was that standard transistors were continually getting cheaper, but Stan wasn’t able to get his own costs down enought to be competitive.)
However, Ovshinsky had cross-licensed the patent rights, with ITT and with Motorola, and he convinced Motorola to deposit my alloy onto the surface of an integrated circuit ("IC"), which was then sold as the first-ever EPROM (electronically programmable read-only memory, now a commonly used device — see #2 ). This was featured on the cover of Electronics Magazine (#2). Even in the year 2003, it is still a contender to become the computer memory device of the future, replacing ordinary RAMs [#4]. The present alloy is almost the same as mine.
The alloy has been changed one more time, to become the material used in all modern CD-RW discs]. It works by the same old principle, except that it makes additional use of a small laser.
If you add it all up (from the news articles), Stan has used up more than half a billion dollars of investors' money, without ever making a penny of profit (#3). (Of course, he drew a high salary from his company, all that time.) However, I think Stan has finally made money from CD-RW memory material, and from the "Nickel-metal-hydride" batteries — possiby to become a lot of money, pretty soon (#5, #6).
Literature References
1. "Bistable Conductor," Alan T. Waterman, Physical Review, Vol. 21, 1923, page 540.
2. "Making It," Anon., Electronics, Sept. 28, 1970, page 4, and photo of ECD memory on cover.
3. "Electronics Pioneer Hunts for Profits," by Barnaby Feder, New York Times, July 28, 1987, page 6.
4. "Next Phase For RAM," by David Lammers, Electronic Engineering Times, June 23, 2003, page 1.
5. "G.M. Signs Electric Car Battery Deal," by Matthew Wald, New York Times, March 10, 1994, page D4.
6. Ovonics Collects Big Bucks From Japanese Battery Makers," Anon., Automotive Industry, Dec. 1997, page 9.
7. "ACS Honors Heroes of Chemistry," Anon., Chemical and Engineering News (Amer. Chem. Soc.), Sept. 4, 2000, page 50.
FOLLOW-UP:
Something potentially very big was announced recently, along the lines of Lit. Ref. 4 above. See
http://iconoclast2.blogspot.com
or click on colored word PRAM below.
PRAM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
After getting my Ph.D. in 1962, I worked at ITT, and they paid $50,000 to Mr. Stanford Ovshinsky for a patent license on his “amorphous semiconductor” technology. ITT engineers watched it being demonstrated in Stan.’s lab, paid the $50 K, and then went home and tried it. But they couldn’t get it to work.
I was then assigned to the project.
Stan was one of history’s greatest con men, although he was also a truly creative scientist to some degree. His amorphous semiconductor device barely worked, but not reliably enough to be useful. However, it had the potential of being very cheap. He got big companies to invest half a billion dollars [see #3 below], over the next 20 years, without ever making a penny of profit. He always promised: “Just one more year of development, and it will revolutionize electronics.”
Stan was a genius at getting famous men (Gen. Colin Powell [#7], and the former Chairmen of GM and Chrysler [#7], and various Nobel Prize winners) to be consultants for his company and to be photogaphed with him, all smiling together. But they were always retired by that time, and feeling somewhat neglected. (Although they had been very successful people, they were not experts in his field.)
Stan had a big press conference and got on the front pages of both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal the next morning! [See #4.] By doing this sort of thing, he always managed to scrape up tens of millions of dollars, just barely before actually going bankrupt, and he was still doing that up until recently [#5]. However, he is now starting to win some big lawsuits (still being appealed) and might eventually collect a lot [#6].
Once, when things were not going well, but it was time for ITT to renew their contract for another year (and another $50K), Stan requested a meeting with the Chairman of ITT, promising to bring wonderful new stuff to demonstrate. I was present, in the luxuriously wood-panelled board room of the ITT building, on Park Avenue in New York City. Stan kept us all waiting, purposely showing up late, and then he made a grand entrance, with a coterie of uniformed Brinks guards, and a leather briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. This contained the new secret formula. But it turned out to be just a mumbo-jumbo chemical recipe, not any demonstration equipment, and we couldn’t tell if it was really any better than the old formula or not. (My boss had told me to keep my mouth shut, so I did.) To my amazement, the ruse worked, and the the ITT top management signed up for another year! (Stan was not an ordinary person. Instead, like Mal McLaren of Rutgers, he was a true genius, able to con people in ways that were almost impossible.)
Working days, evenings, and weekends in the lab, I and the guys who worked for me optimized the alloy, and it began to work better. I developed an electronic circuit that automatically corrected problems [#8], and then the new alloy worked just fine. A little gray cylinder of the alloy was mounted inside a glass “package,” of the standard DO-7 type [#8A]. We built a telephone switching system with that [see #4 again, and then #8B]. But ITT shut down their lab and completely quit the telephone business before we ever got into mass production.
Several times, Stan tried to hire me. For example, after I had quit ITT (instead of transferring to their new lab in England), Stan invited me to visit his company in Detroit, and see what progress they had made. To my surprise, when I got there, it turned out to be another attempt to get me to sign up as one of his engineers. But he never allowed his engineers’ names to appear in print — it was always just “Ovshinsky” — so I didn’t want to become an anonymous worker bee in his hive, and I never joined ECD. (I went to AT&T instead.)
I had designed and built a little aluminum box with switches and lights on the outside, and the DO-7 device plus a battery, etc., inside, and this successfully demonstrated that the device worked reliably. (I got U.S. Patent 3,448,302 on this, automatically cross-licensed to Ovshinsky.) I had given a few of those little demo boxes to Stan, and he used them to sell the concept to several famous companies, raising tens of millions of dollars each time. This allowed Stan's company ("ECD") to stay alive, in spite of the fact that each new investment failed to produce any profits. (The problem was that standard transistors were continually getting cheaper, but Stan wasn’t able to get his own costs down enought to be competitive.)
However, Ovshinsky had cross-licensed the patent rights, with ITT and with Motorola, and he convinced Motorola to deposit my alloy onto the surface of an integrated circuit ("IC"), which was then sold as the first-ever EPROM (electronically programmable read-only memory, now a commonly used device — see #2 ). This was featured on the cover of Electronics Magazine (#2). Even in the year 2003, it is still a contender to become the computer memory device of the future, replacing ordinary RAMs [#4]. The present alloy is almost the same as mine.
The alloy has been changed one more time, to become the material used in all modern CD-RW discs]. It works by the same old principle, except that it makes additional use of a small laser.
If you add it all up (from the news articles), Stan has used up more than half a billion dollars of investors' money, without ever making a penny of profit (#3). (Of course, he drew a high salary from his company, all that time.) However, I think Stan has finally made money from CD-RW memory material, and from the "Nickel-metal-hydride" batteries — possiby to become a lot of money, pretty soon (#5, #6).
Literature References
1. "Bistable Conductor," Alan T. Waterman, Physical Review, Vol. 21, 1923, page 540.
2. "Making It," Anon., Electronics, Sept. 28, 1970, page 4, and photo of ECD memory on cover.
3. "Electronics Pioneer Hunts for Profits," by Barnaby Feder, New York Times, July 28, 1987, page 6.
4. "Next Phase For RAM," by David Lammers, Electronic Engineering Times, June 23, 2003, page 1.
5. "G.M. Signs Electric Car Battery Deal," by Matthew Wald, New York Times, March 10, 1994, page D4.
6. Ovonics Collects Big Bucks From Japanese Battery Makers," Anon., Automotive Industry, Dec. 1997, page 9.
7. "ACS Honors Heroes of Chemistry," Anon., Chemical and Engineering News (Amer. Chem. Soc.), Sept. 4, 2000, page 50.
FOLLOW-UP:
Something potentially very big was announced recently, along the lines of Lit. Ref. 4 above. See
http://iconoclast2.blogspot.com
or click on colored word PRAM below.
PRAM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joan
Joan Rivers
(Typical article, one of very many about her: Time magazine, Oct. 21, 1966., page 61.)
My parents' friends knew lots of "eligible" single girls (intelligent and wealthy), who were suggested to me for blind dates. All were Jewish. Most of them were active in the arts (theater, advertising, publishing, etc.), because my parents friends knew I had knowledge (and connections) in that direction, and thus there might be mutual attractiveness. I did date most of those girls, honestly and open-mindedly looking for a wife, although they all turned out to be too extroverted to suit me.
Even though I was not by nature “extroverted” (unless I made myself act that way), there were some factors that operated in my favor. Evidently there was a scarcity of young men who had good jobs, and were fairly good looking, but were still “sensitive” and interested in the arts. (Most young men seemed to be lacking in either the first or the last of those.) I had a fairly good income (complete with a Jaguar sedan!), and had been in the Army and been to Europe, but I was also compatible with arty types and could “talk their talk,” any time. The girls’ parents were getting desperate for halfway-decent sons-in-law, and I believe the girls could see immediately that their parents would like me.
Joan Rivers (whose real last name was Molinsky) had been in “Second City Review” (along with Woody Allen and several other actors who later became famous), but she was unable to find another theatrical job at the time I took her out on a blind date (around 1962). She was not famous yet. I forget most of the places where I took her, but they worked out just great. One place was a party at Milton Avery’s apt., where Joan and March happily renewed acquaintance, not having seen each other since their friendship at Barnard in the 1950s.
After only a few dates, Joan wanted me to meet her parents. So at the end of an evening out, I took her home to her parents' (big!) house in Scarsdale, or someplace like that (maybe Mamaroneck). But it was very late, and the lights were out because her parents were asleep, so I just left her at the doorstep.
One thing I didn’t like about her (and Carol Bacher) was that any time she saw a male acquaintance (like in a crowd coming out of a theater), Carol and that guy would run up and kiss each other. And of course, there were many other such things that were just "not me."
I was somewhat worried that, if I ever married one of those hotshot women (like Carol Bacher, for instance), I would always be in the shadows while they were in the limelight, and it might get pretty depressing. It turned out that Joan married a lawyer, and after she got super-famous, he got so depressed that he committed suicide. She very publicly announced that she felt extremely guilty about not giving him more attention, and in fact she got depressed about it herself, and news media said she couldn't work for about a year, due to her guilt feelings.
-------------------------
* An ad exec that I met on a similar blind date. She was the daughter of William A. Bacher, producer of the Broadway play "Seventh Heaven," and the hit movie "Leave Her To Heaven." That movie was the biggest money-maker of the year, around 1960. Her mother got furiously mad at my mother (during lunch) when Mom said that I did not intend to marry Carol.
(Typical article, one of very many about her: Time magazine, Oct. 21, 1966., page 61.)
My parents' friends knew lots of "eligible" single girls (intelligent and wealthy), who were suggested to me for blind dates. All were Jewish. Most of them were active in the arts (theater, advertising, publishing, etc.), because my parents friends knew I had knowledge (and connections) in that direction, and thus there might be mutual attractiveness. I did date most of those girls, honestly and open-mindedly looking for a wife, although they all turned out to be too extroverted to suit me.
Even though I was not by nature “extroverted” (unless I made myself act that way), there were some factors that operated in my favor. Evidently there was a scarcity of young men who had good jobs, and were fairly good looking, but were still “sensitive” and interested in the arts. (Most young men seemed to be lacking in either the first or the last of those.) I had a fairly good income (complete with a Jaguar sedan!), and had been in the Army and been to Europe, but I was also compatible with arty types and could “talk their talk,” any time. The girls’ parents were getting desperate for halfway-decent sons-in-law, and I believe the girls could see immediately that their parents would like me.
Joan Rivers (whose real last name was Molinsky) had been in “Second City Review” (along with Woody Allen and several other actors who later became famous), but she was unable to find another theatrical job at the time I took her out on a blind date (around 1962). She was not famous yet. I forget most of the places where I took her, but they worked out just great. One place was a party at Milton Avery’s apt., where Joan and March happily renewed acquaintance, not having seen each other since their friendship at Barnard in the 1950s.
After only a few dates, Joan wanted me to meet her parents. So at the end of an evening out, I took her home to her parents' (big!) house in Scarsdale, or someplace like that (maybe Mamaroneck). But it was very late, and the lights were out because her parents were asleep, so I just left her at the doorstep.
One thing I didn’t like about her (and Carol Bacher) was that any time she saw a male acquaintance (like in a crowd coming out of a theater), Carol and that guy would run up and kiss each other. And of course, there were many other such things that were just "not me."
I was somewhat worried that, if I ever married one of those hotshot women (like Carol Bacher, for instance), I would always be in the shadows while they were in the limelight, and it might get pretty depressing. It turned out that Joan married a lawyer, and after she got super-famous, he got so depressed that he committed suicide. She very publicly announced that she felt extremely guilty about not giving him more attention, and in fact she got depressed about it herself, and news media said she couldn't work for about a year, due to her guilt feelings.
-------------------------
* An ad exec that I met on a similar blind date. She was the daughter of William A. Bacher, producer of the Broadway play "Seventh Heaven," and the hit movie "Leave Her To Heaven." That movie was the biggest money-maker of the year, around 1960. Her mother got furiously mad at my mother (during lunch) when Mom said that I did not intend to marry Carol.
Thitima
Kicked out by Ahmad, saved by Dan
Thitima Suwannasiri was one of our Rutgers grad students from Thailand. She was tiny and had a high, squeaky voice, like Minny Mouse in old cartoon movies. Her Ph.D. advisor was Prof. A.S. (full name deleted, for privacy). He was a very tough and mean guy, from Iran, and two of his brothers were generals in the Iranian army. He and I got along OK, but we didn’t like each other. He thought I was too soft on the students (although I thought I was properly “encouraging” and inspiring to those “students!”). Prof. A.S. was famous in the Department for taking an immediate dislike to certain students and thereafter criticizing and hounding them.
One example was an undergrad part-time technician in his research group, Christian, who got criticized constantly. He eventually got fired from his job, and he then came to me, looking for a new job. I took him in, and he turned out to be very good. While visiting the Department later, his mother came up to me in the hallway, kissed me, and thanked me vociferously for “saving” her son, who she said had gotten seriously depressed while working for A.S., but who really perked up when he had gotten a fresh start with me. Eventually, when Chris got his B.E. degree, I got him a permanent job at Siemens. I saw in the science news that they were expanding their tuner operations, so I prepped him about that particular field of electronics (“surface acoustic wave” piezoelectric tuners for cell phones). He called them and asked for an interview. He had a good interview, and they hired him. Since then he has done very well and is quite happy there. (Chris recently gave me the world-traveler clock in the sunporch.)
Prof. A.S. couldn’t stand Thitima Suwannasiri’s high voice, and she got the hounding treatment, often ending up in tears. She eventually got kicked out of his research group. She came into my office, crying, and saying that she had been a famously outstanding student in Thailand. Her widowed mother had paid for the beginning of her grad studies, and now Thitima would have to go home in conspicuous disgrace --- could I please take her in? I was already pretty old and didn’t want any new students. However, I did have some extra research money and couldn’t bring myself to turn her away.
Thitima was a good student, and she learned from me how to be creative. Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL) needed a consultant in tape casting, to solve a difficult problem in their thin film lithium battery program. The U.S. Government didn’t want the Japanese to dominate the field of lithium batteries, which were becoming so necessary for cellular phones and laptop computers. ORNL wanted to hire me as a consultant, to teach them tape casting and inhibit grain growth. I didn’t want any new consulting jobs, but Thitima had done her Ph.D. research in tape casting, so I got ORNL to hire her.
Thitima easily did the tape casting part, but she had to work hard to solve the grain growth problem. She created a new solution to the problem, and there is her picture on the next page (of my paper-version scrapbook). It’s quite an honor to have your picture in C&E News. I posted that page in the hallway at Rutgers and called the attention of Prof. A.S. to it when he was walking by. He just grunted.
Eight years later (in year 2006), "lithium ion batteries" became very important. But they started to spontaneously catch fire (in Apple computers, for example), and Sony had to have a huge recall and replacement effort. The big battery makers therefore switched to "thin film" lithium ion batteries, licensed from Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL). This is now becoming one of the most important types of batteries in the world. Thitima's "grain growth inhibitor" is one of the key things that made it possible ( ! ) . I'm certainly proud to have been her advisor. (See "Thin-Film Lithium Battery," N.Y. Times, Sept. 6, page C7.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To read about the author of this, search google for "shanefield" and then click on "CV" near the top.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thitima Suwannasiri was one of our Rutgers grad students from Thailand. She was tiny and had a high, squeaky voice, like Minny Mouse in old cartoon movies. Her Ph.D. advisor was Prof. A.S. (full name deleted, for privacy). He was a very tough and mean guy, from Iran, and two of his brothers were generals in the Iranian army. He and I got along OK, but we didn’t like each other. He thought I was too soft on the students (although I thought I was properly “encouraging” and inspiring to those “students!”). Prof. A.S. was famous in the Department for taking an immediate dislike to certain students and thereafter criticizing and hounding them.
One example was an undergrad part-time technician in his research group, Christian, who got criticized constantly. He eventually got fired from his job, and he then came to me, looking for a new job. I took him in, and he turned out to be very good. While visiting the Department later, his mother came up to me in the hallway, kissed me, and thanked me vociferously for “saving” her son, who she said had gotten seriously depressed while working for A.S., but who really perked up when he had gotten a fresh start with me. Eventually, when Chris got his B.E. degree, I got him a permanent job at Siemens. I saw in the science news that they were expanding their tuner operations, so I prepped him about that particular field of electronics (“surface acoustic wave” piezoelectric tuners for cell phones). He called them and asked for an interview. He had a good interview, and they hired him. Since then he has done very well and is quite happy there. (Chris recently gave me the world-traveler clock in the sunporch.)
Prof. A.S. couldn’t stand Thitima Suwannasiri’s high voice, and she got the hounding treatment, often ending up in tears. She eventually got kicked out of his research group. She came into my office, crying, and saying that she had been a famously outstanding student in Thailand. Her widowed mother had paid for the beginning of her grad studies, and now Thitima would have to go home in conspicuous disgrace --- could I please take her in? I was already pretty old and didn’t want any new students. However, I did have some extra research money and couldn’t bring myself to turn her away.
Thitima was a good student, and she learned from me how to be creative. Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL) needed a consultant in tape casting, to solve a difficult problem in their thin film lithium battery program. The U.S. Government didn’t want the Japanese to dominate the field of lithium batteries, which were becoming so necessary for cellular phones and laptop computers. ORNL wanted to hire me as a consultant, to teach them tape casting and inhibit grain growth. I didn’t want any new consulting jobs, but Thitima had done her Ph.D. research in tape casting, so I got ORNL to hire her.
Thitima easily did the tape casting part, but she had to work hard to solve the grain growth problem. She created a new solution to the problem, and there is her picture on the next page (of my paper-version scrapbook). It’s quite an honor to have your picture in C&E News. I posted that page in the hallway at Rutgers and called the attention of Prof. A.S. to it when he was walking by. He just grunted.
Eight years later (in year 2006), "lithium ion batteries" became very important. But they started to spontaneously catch fire (in Apple computers, for example), and Sony had to have a huge recall and replacement effort. The big battery makers therefore switched to "thin film" lithium ion batteries, licensed from Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL). This is now becoming one of the most important types of batteries in the world. Thitima's "grain growth inhibitor" is one of the key things that made it possible ( ! ) . I'm certainly proud to have been her advisor. (See "Thin-Film Lithium Battery," N.Y. Times, Sept. 6, page C7.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(Also see http://jackgotmurdered.blogspot.com for more stories.)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To read about the author of this, search google for "shanefield" and then click on "CV" near the top.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
