Recollections of the Low Temperature Lab in Physics Corner: 1958–1961

Abstract

In fall 1958 Bill Little joined the Physics Department as an assistant professor and initiated research in low temperature physics at Stanford. He installed a helium liquifier in the basement of the High Energy Physics Laboratory, where the Mark III electron linear accelerator was located. At that time the Physics Department was located in Physics Corner, the northwest front corner of the main quadrangle. There Bill created the first lab for low temperature research in the basement in a large, mostly underground room. It had small windows up near the ceiling that looked out just above ground level on the two sides of the corner of the quad. There was a small enclosed space in the corner of the room in which Bill installed a large, high capacity vacuum pump used to lower the temperature in the liquid helium cryostats. Along the north side of the large open room Bill situated benches and equipment that he and his graduate students used for their initial experiments. Some space along the west side and three small partitioned rooms along the south wall he reserved to be used by William Fairbank, who would be joining the faculty in fall 1959. The people and their activities in that lab during the following few years constitute some of my fondest memories. My recollections of some of them are offered here as a tribute to Bill Little, who contributed so much to the excitement we all experienced there.