Harold Lewis

If my memory doesn't fail me, I was his T.A. for a Solid State Physics class. Professor Lewis is a great guy. The Wikipedia note is here. The Oral History Archive transcript is here.

From this interview:

``Well, I have trouble with the chronology of those days, knowing when people appeared. I went to a cocktail party the other day, and said to somebody, "I remember your having arrived fairly recently; how long have you been here?" And he said, "Well, it's not quite 20 years." We did reasonably well reasonably fast, and it builds on itself, of course. In the academic world your reputation out of town never grows as fast as your capability in town, so I think it's really only been in the last five or ten years that people have begun to notice that we're a first rate operation. And of course now, with the Institute for Theoretical Physics — and people going through that who come from all over the world — I think the word has gotten around. Everybody now knows. But that wasn't true ten years ago. ''

Recently Andrew Rivkin wrote a piece on Hal's complaints, read it here. He resigned to the American Physical Society, read his reasons here.

What can I add?

I may not agree with his viewpoints, but I respect his courage in expressing them. I felt proud then, when he took all those trips to Washington to tell the big honchos the truth. I feel even more proud now, to witness his unwavering courage and critical mind.

The Physics Department at UCSB was a great place in the 70s. We didn't know, nor care to know, what place we were in. Now we know, the UCSB Physics Graduate Program is one of the five best such programs in the US.

With people like Hal, there is not much surprise.

Keep the great work guys!