The Early History of Cryogenic Research at Yale

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The Early History of Cryogenic Research at
Yale Professor Robert G. Wheeler Harold
Hodgkinson Professor emeritus of Engineering and
Applied Physics, and Professor Emeritus of
hysics Wed, March 22, 2006 at the Engineering
Student Center, Dunham Lab, Yale
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Arriving at Yale- as provided by Russell
Donnelly, Univ. of Oregon, (the graduate student
junior to R.G. Wheeler) I arrived at Yale in
September 1952 having done a masters thesis in
nuclear physics at McMaster University in
Hamilton Canada. I was sure I didnt want to do
a PhD in nuclear, and it was my luck to be C.T.
Lanes TA. I liked him immediately and asked to
join his group. The faculty then were C.T. Lane,
Lars Onsager and Henry Fairbank. Bill Fairbank
was teaching at Amherst. There were half a dozen
students in the group and Lane had each one teach
the next student to come along. So I was trained
by Bob Wheeler, and in turn I trained David
Lee. How lucky is that ?
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Lars Onsager and C. T. Lane
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PhD Family Tree of Russell J. Donnelly and Robert
Wheeler Advisors Lars Onsager (1903-1976)-Donnell
y Cecil Taverner Lane. CT (1904-?). Onsager
did not attend graduate school or study
theoretical chemistry or physics. It might be
said that his mentor would have been Peter
Debye. Lane studied at Munich with Walther
Gerlach (1889-1979). Gerlach collaborated with
Stern in the celebrated experiment named for
them. Gerlach studied at Tübingen with Louis
Carl Heinrich Paschen (1865-1947). Paschen in
turn studied at Strasbourg under August Adolph
Kundt (1839-1894) Kundt obtained his doctorate
in 1864 at the University of Berlin under
Heinrich Gustav Magnus (1802-1870). Magnus
studied at Berlin with Eilhard Mitscherlich
(1794-1863) Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848)
Swedish prominence in chemistry began with the
work of experienced mining chemists, who
discovered many elements. The earliest I could
find was Georg Brandt (1694-1768) who
discovered cobalt in 1730.