Джон Кларк Слейтер: Американский физик и теоретик

American physicist (1900–1976)

John Clarke Slater (December 22, 1900 – July 25, 1976) was an American physicist who advanced the theory of the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and solids. He also made major contributions to microwave electronics. His scientific autobiography and three interviews present his views on research, education and the role of science in society. Slater was nominated for the Nobel Prize, in both physics and chemistry, multiple times, and he received the National Medal of Science in 1970. In 1964, Slater and his then 92 year old father, who had headed the Department of English at the University of Rochester many years earlier, were awarded honorary degrees by that university. Slater's name is part of the terms Bohr Kramers Slater theory, Slater determinant and Slater orbital.

Slater's father, born in Virginia, who had been an undergraduate at Harvard, became head of the English Department at the University of Rochester, which would also be Slater's undergraduate alma mater. Slater's youthful interests were with things mechanical, chemical, and electrical. When Slater entered the University of Rochester in 1917 he took physics courses and as a senior assisted in the physics laboratory and did his first independent research for a special honors thesis, a measurement of the dependence on pressure of the intensities of the Balmer lines of hydrogen. He was accepted into Harvard graduate school, with the choice of a fellowship or assistantship. He chose the assistantship, during which he worked for Percy W. Bridgman. He followed Bridgman's courses in fundamental physics and was introduced into the then new quantum physics with the courses of E. C. Kemble. He completed the work for the Ph. D. in three years by publishing his (1924) paper Compressibility of the Alkali Halides, which embodied the thesis work he had done under Bridgman. His heart was in theory, and his first publication was not his doctor's thesis, but a note (1924) to Nature on Radiation and Atoms. After receiving his Ph. D., Slater held a Hamard Sheldon Fellowship for study in Europe. He spent a period in Cambridge, England, before going to Copenhagen. He did not have a happy time working with Bohr who he found domineering and regretted that his name was attached to the ill fated Bohr Kramers Slater (BKS) theory. Slater already had the idea that it was the photon that carried radiation energy. As he relates:
Bohr was very nice, he invited me to Christmas dinner, I told him about my [photon] ideas, he felt these were fine, “But, you see, they’re much too definite." Now we cannot have this exact conservation. We must not think too specifically about the photons. We don’t have photons like that.” In other words, he wanted to make the whole thing just as vague as he could. Kramers was always Bohr‘s “yes man” and wanted to do exactly the same thing. He said “This is a fine idea, if we will modify it in such and such ways.” That was the last I saw of it. Bohr and Kramers wrote the paper, they invited me to sign it, the letter to Nature was the first paragraph out of the paper, they invited me to sign it, take it or leave it. This was my experience with Mr. Bohr and Mr. Kramers. Since then, it has developed in a very interesting way, namely, that I was right and they were wrong. They didn’t realize this until Mr. Bothe came along with his experiment showing that the photons were really there. So I completely failed to make connection with Bohr. I could have made connections with Kramers if it hadn’t been for Bohr, but Kramers was completely playing Bohr’s game. On the plus side, Slater's name was now well known by association with Bohr. On returning to America, Slater joined the Harvard Physics Department.

When he became president of MIT, Karl Compton "courted" Slater to chair the physics department. "Administration (of the Department) took up a good deal of time, more time than he (Slater) would have preferred. John was a good chairman." trace the growth and visibility of the Department under Slater's leadership, before World War II, and the ability of the department to contribute to defense during the war. The first two quotations are from chapters written by Compton in the successive reports. The other quotations come from the sections about the department, that Slater wrote. These include statements affecting policies in physics education and research at large, and show his deep commitment to both. 1930: "The selection of Dr. John C. Slater as head of the (Physics) Department will strengthen undergraduate and graduate work the limitation of space has retarded the development of graduate work the total number of undergraduates being 53 and graduate students 16." (p. 21)
1931: "This has been the first year of the Department in charge of its new Head, Professor John C. Slater the subjects actively (researched include) Spectroscopy, Applied Optics, Discharge of Electricity in Gases, Magneto Optical Phenomena, Studies of Dielectrics, and various aspects of modern and classical theoretical physics." (p. 42)
1932: In the list of papers published by MIT faculty, items 293 to 340 are listed under Department of Physics. (p. 206 208)
1933: "The George Eastman Research Laboratory, into which the Department moved at the beginning of the year, provides for the first time a suitable home for research in Physics at the Institute". Slater states that outside recognition is shown by holders of six National, an International, and a Rockefeller Research Fellowship choosing to come to the department. Slater describes the dedication of the Laboratory, the hosting of meetings of the International Astronomical Union, the American Physical Society, and a Spectroscopic conference, and ends: "In general the year has been one of settling down to work under satisfactory conditions, after the more difficult transition of the preceding year." (p. 96 98)
1934: "A number of advances in undergraduate teaching have been made or planned." Among the "most conspicuous events" in the department, "we acted as host" to meetings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and a national Spectroscopic Conference, where "the main topic was relation to biology and related fields." Advances in research have been "taking advantage of the unusual facilities" in the department, and include the work of Warren on structure of liquids, Mueller on dielectric properties, Stockbarger on crystal physics, Harrison on automating spectroscopic measurement, Wulff on hyperfine structure, Boyce on spectra of nebulae, Van der Graaff on high voltage and nuclear research, and Stratton and Morse on ellipsoidal wave functions. (p. 104 106)
1935: Considerable attention is given to major improvements in undergraduate teaching. The extensive comments on research mention the arrival of Robley Evans and his work on a field new to the department—radioactivity, with special attention to nuclear medicine. (p. 102 103)
1936: "The most important development of the year in the Department has been the growing recognition of the significance of applied physics. There has been a tendency in the past among physicists to take interest only in the direct line of development of their science, and to neglect its applications." Slater develops this theme at length, and describes actions within the undergraduate, graduate and faculty work of the department and at the national level to develop Applied Physics. The description of the flourishing basic research refers to ten different areas, including the upsurge in work on radioactivity. (p. 131 134). 1937 to 1941: These continue in the same vein. But world affairs begin to impact. The 1941 report ends: "The X ray branch had as a guest Professor Rose C. L. Mooney of Newcomb College, who was prevented by the war from carrying on research in Europe under a Guggenheim Fellowship As the year ends, the National Defense effort is beginning to claim the services of a number of staff members. Presumably the coming year will see a large intensification of the effort, though it is hoped that the interference with the regular research and teaching will not be too severe." (p. 129)
1942: This told a very different story. The defense effort had begun to "involve a considerable number of personnel, as well as a good deal of administrative work. With the opening of the Radiation Laboratory of the National Defense Research Committee at the Institute, a number of members of the Department's staff have become associated with that laboratory" followed by a list of over 10 senior faculty who had, and several more gone to other defense projects. (p. 110 111)
1943 to 1945: Slater took leave of absence as chair, to work on topics of importance in radar. The American Mathematical Society selected him as the Josiah Willards Gibbs lecturer for 1945. 1946: Slater had returned as chair. He starts his report: "The year of reconversion from war to peace has been one of the very greatest activity. Physics during the war achieved an importance which has probably never before been attained by any other science. The Institute, as the leading technical institution of the country and probably the world, should properly have a physics department unequaled anywhere." He lists plans to meet this objective, that proliferate his administrative responsibilities. (p. 133 143)
Setting up interdepartmental laboratories, by restructuring existing laboratories using, as a model, the conversion of the Radiation Laboratory into the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) by Julius Stratton and Albert Hill. Financing student assistantships and helping shape the role of government financing on an unprecedented scale. Overseeing Robley Evans' Radioactivity Center (containing a cyclotron) and Van de Graaff's High Voltage Laboratory. Recruiting physicists familiar with the Manhattan project to build the Laboratory for Nuclear Science and Engineering. This was directed by Jerrold Zacharias. Its first members included Bruno Rossi and Victor Weisskopf. Setting up the Acoustics Laboratory, directed by Richard Bolt, and the Spectroscopy Laboratory directed by the chemist Richard Lord. 1947: With the hiring of staff and building of laboratories well in hand, Slater begins: "The year in the Physics Department, as in the rest of the Institute, was one of starting the large scale teaching of returned veterans and other students whose academic careers had been interrupted by the war." He goes on to discuss the needs of students, in the entire Institute, for Physics courses and laboratories, with particular mention of the upsurge in electronics and nuclear science, and he reports briefly on the developments following from his previous report. (p. 139 141)
1948: Slater begins "The current year is the first since the war in which the department has approached normal operation. No new major projects or changes of policy have been introduced." But the department that he has built is vastly different from what it was when he started. Sixteen master's degrees and 47 doctor's degrees were granted. Twenty five Ph. D. recipients got academic appointments in MIT and other universities. Research flourished, and many scientists visited from European universities and elsewhere in the U. S. (p. 141 143)
1949: The new styled 'normalcy' continued. "The approach to a steady postwar state continued with few unusual occurrences." The graduate curriculum has been revised and cryogenics enhanced. The continued growth of staff, research grants, industrial contacts and volume of publication are treated as matters of continuity, recognizing at the end, that: "The administrative load of the department has grown so much (it became) wise to appoint an executive officer". Nathaniel Frank, who had worked with John Slater for nearly two decades accepted the post. (p. 149 153)
1950: The future of the department had been set. There were "few unexpected changes". And with the continued growth, "almost every research project in the Department has concerned itself with undergraduate research". (p. 189 191)
1951: Jay Stratton writes "Professor John C. Slater resigned as Head of the Department of Physics and has been appointed Harry B. Higgins Professor of the Solid State, the first appointment which will carry the title Institute Professor. Professor Slater has been granted a leave of absence for the coming year to carry on research at Brookhaven National Laboratory." (p. 30)

Throughout his Chairmanship, Slater taught, wrote books, produced ideas of major scientific importance, and interacted with colleagues throughout the local, national and international scientific communities. At the personal level, Morse states: "Through most of (the 1930s) he looked more like an undergraduate than a department head he could render his guests weak with laughter simply by counting in Danish."

In the 1962 President's Report, Jay Stratton wrote (on p. 17) "A faculty committee under the chairmanship of Professor John C. Slater has taken primary responsibility for planning the facilities in the new Center for Materials. These include a new Cooperative Computing Laboratory completed this year and equipped with an I. B. M. 709 Computer". The center was set up, in accordance with Slater's plans. It "supported research and teaching in Metallurgy and Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering", But in the same year, the CMSE staff included 55 professors and 179 graduate students. directed by Slater, Koster, Wood and Barnett, (2) the computer aided design team of Ross, Coons and Mann, (3) members of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, (4) Charney and Phillips in theoretical meteorology, and (5) Simpson and Madden in geophysics (from 1964 President's report, p. 336 337). Slater died in Sanibel Island, Florida in 1976.

Slater's concern for others is illustrated by a dialog that Richard Feynman relates. It took place at the end of Feynman's undergraduate days at MIT, when he wanted to stay on to do a Ph. D. "When I went to Professor Slater and told him of my intentions he said: 'We will not have you here'. I said 'What?' Slater said 'Why do you think you should go to graduate school at MIT?' 'Because it is the best school for science in the country' 'That is why you should go to some other school. You should find out how the rest of the world is.' So I went to Princeton. Slater was right. And I often advise my students the same way. Learn what the rest of the world is like. The variety is worthwhile."

From the memoir by Philip Morse: "He contributed significantly to the start of the quantum revolution in physics; he was one of the very few American trained physicists to do so. He was exceptional in that he persisted in exploring atomic, molecular and solid state physics, while many of his peers were coerced by war, or tempted by novelty, to divert to nuclear mysteries." it can be said that the contributions of John C. Slater and his students in the SSMTG and the Quantum Theory Project laid the foundations of the density functional theory approximation in quantum theory. Slater's papers were bequeathed to the American Philosophical Society by his widow, Rose Mooney Slater, in 1980 and 1982. In August 2003, Alfred Switendick donated a collection of Quarterly Reports of the MIT Solid State and Molecular Theory Group (SSMTG), dating from 1951 to 1965.