UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #650
WEINMAN, JAMES A.
				
WEINMAN, James A. (1930- )
Graduate student; Research associate; Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
At UW: 1952-1957; 1963-1966; 1966-1991

Interviewed: 2003	
Interviewer: Mailed-in interview
Length: 2 hours, 49 minutes

Background; James Weinman talks about his undergraduate education at Illinois Institute of Technology, his masters at University of Illinois, and PhD in physics at UW. He talks about Raymond Herb, his expedition to Antarctica, and appointment to UW. He talks about teaching graduate students and undergraduate students, advising graduate students, his research, the facilities, and changes in meteorology. He talks about positions he held outside of academia, his current position at University of Washington, his reasons for leaving UW, and his retirement.
Keywords: Physics, Meteorology, Antarctica, NASA

Interview Session (December 20, 2003): Tapes 1-2

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:09	James Weinman was born in 1930 to two German immigrants. He remembers being surprised in kindergarten to learn that other children spoke English, not German.

00:01:52	JW always did well in school. In high school, he had several friends who shared similar scientific interests and aptitudes.

00:03:43	While in high school, JW worked in a radio factory. This experience made him realize that if he did not continue his education, he would be doomed to a lifetime of monotonous factory work. JW's parents had not attended university, but a cousin had attended the Illinois Institute of Technology. He talks about how he financed his education by working part-time.

00:05:12	JW was counseled to enter physics because so many returning veterans were taking the available positions in electrical engineering departments. His part-time job in a chemical laboratory sparked an interest in physical chemistry. JW learned a lot from talking to the industrial chemists in the laboratory, many of whom were highly trained Jewish scientists who had been expelled from Germany.

 00:08:09	JW remembers that it was challenging to have returning veterans as classmates because they were extremely serious about their education. He enjoyed studying in an atmosphere in which academic success was valued. In high school it had been considered bad form to excel.

00:09:56	Although the physics program at the Illinois Institute of Technology was not very strong, students were fortunate to have graduate students from the University of Chicago as teaching assistants. Because the department was small, students were encouraged to take courses in other departments. JW graduated with a broad scientific education.

00:11:42	JW's academic record was sufficient, but not outstanding. He knew he needed a B average to attend graduate school, and therefore made sure he always maintained this average. One semester he earned all As and received a scholarship, but he decided it would be financially advantageous to spent more time at his job and to let his grades suffer.

00:12:58	When JW graduated in 1950 at age 20, he decided to earn a Masters at the University of Illinois. He taught himself quantum mechanics in order to prepare himself for a course on nuclear physics. Because no quantum mechanics textbook existed at the time, he read original articles and notes in German, French and English.

00:15:07	JW earned his Masters in one year, and was then offered a position at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.  Through his work JW became acquainted with James Hillier, who worked at RCA Laboratories in Princeton, NJ, and who became JW’s mentor. JW developed a technique to help separate iron particles.

00:17:13	JW filled out his physics education by taking courses in solid-state physics and quantum mechanics at the University of Pennsylvania and at Temple University. After a year at the Franklin Institute, JW decided to return to school.

00:18:09	JW's work with electron microscopy at the Franklin Institute had inspired an interest in electron optics. A professor at the University of Illinois recommended either the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the University of Wisconsin as the best places to study. JW explains that he chose UW because students seemed to have a good balance between work and leisure. Raymond Herb offered JW a research assistantship.

00:20:50	JW greatly enjoyed his graduate training at UW. He fondly remembers attending luncheons at which faculty members talked about their work. Herb had his advanced graduate students teach his junior students, which helped the junior students adjust to graduate school. JW later tried to emulate Herb’s approach to teaching and mentoring.

00:24:34	Herb was trying to build a new type of particle accelerator. Because he wanted students to obtain experience with both science and technology, he loaned students out to other professors. JW talks about his work on nuclear reactions for Hugh Richards. He spent a year writing his thesis on a topic proposed by Richards. Most of his time at UW was spent developing ion sources for the tandem accelerators in Herb's lab.

00:26:19	JW also worked with a senior graduate student studying doubly-charged alpha sources.

00:26:45	JW learned the importance of developing techniques that could be used by other researchers. After completing his thesis, he worked in Herb's lab for a year as a post-doctoral fellow.

00:28:00	Before taking up this post-doctoral position, JW took a break to measure gravity at the southern tip of South America and in Antarctica as part of the International Geophysical Year (1956-57). JW describes his voyage to the Antarctic.

00:30:32	JW was asked to smuggle in scientific equipment for a Brazilian researcher working in Sao Paulo. He explains that Brazilian customs officials would not allow the materials into the country.

00:31:44	JW talks about his work in Antarctica. He notes that a colleague who participated in the scientific expedition wrote a book describing various scientific expeditions to Antarctica.

00:33:47	After his post-doctoral fellowship, JW found a position in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D.C. JW's wife finished a PhD in horticulture at UW, and then accepted a position working in the US Department of Agriculture.

00:35:14	The Department of Terrestrial Magnetism had done pioneering work in nuclear physics before World War II. Merle Tuve, the director of the laboratory, was fiercely independent and did not want to accept federal money. He therefore shifted the laboratory's emphasis from nuclear physics to numerous other small projects in newly emerging areas.

00:37:00	JW and his colleagues ate lunch together once a week. Notable biologists and geophysicists came in to speak at these lunches.

00:37:58	When the nuclear program was terminated, JW shifted to a position in the nuclear physics group at Argon Laboratories. JW explains why he left this position.

00:41:29	JW and his wife decided they could afford a pay cut and move back to academia, where they would become part of a younger, more vibrant community. In 1963, they returned to Wisconsin where JW joined Verner Suomi's research group as a post-doctoral fellow. JW's task was to trouble-shoot Suomi's ideas. He notes that 80% of Suomi's ideas were worthless, but that the other 20% were "damn good."

00:44:18	When JW decided he no longer wanted to work for Suomi, he started up his own research program. He proudly remembers that his first research project, to measure the amount of sunlight scattered by fog, involved $40 worth of equipment.

00:45:33	End of side.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:45:35	JW says that being awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation was crucial to his advancement at UW. His background in mathematics created a niche for him in the department.

00:46:28	JW taught physical meteorology and radiation courses. He explains that he did not enjoy teaching undergraduate meteorology students because they preferred to learn old-fashioned, subjective means of weather prediction and he wanted to teach them newer, numerical approaches involving computers.

00:48:59	JW enjoyed teaching a general 100-level course for non-scientists. Some students chose to do optional projects on topics that interested them. JW describes some of the projects his students completed. He remembers one student from the 1960s who enjoyed the course so much that he offered JW a joint of marijuana after it ended.

00:52:30	JW earned tenure in three years. He remembers being astonished by how little paperwork he had to fill out when he first arrived. He later learned that during the McCarthy era, faculty members were required to sign a loyalty oath on their faculty employment form. The faculty got around this requirement by no longer offering employment forms to new faculty.

00:54:32	When JW first arrived at the university, the department was located in the attic of Science Hall. It also had space in some commercial buildings near campus.

00:55:30	JW relates a humorous anecdote concerning the funding of the new meteorology building.

00:56:47	The lower seven floors of the new building were devoted to the Space Science and Engineering Center. The upper floors were given to the meteorology department.

00:59:05	JW explains that he was happy in the department until the 1970s, when he became dissatisfied by his salary and felt isolated from the rest of the department. During the anti-Vietnam protests he became disillusioned with the university because it refused to help the department protect its valuable equipment from protesters.

01:01:30	JW talks about his reaction to the bombing of Sterling Hall and his attitude toward his Air Force students. He regrets that Air Force students were reviled by other students.

01:05:25	JW discusses the politicization of the faculty during the Vietnam war. He did not believe the university ought to take a stance on the government's foreign policy.

01:06:57	There was one woman and one minority faculty member in the department.

01:08:33	Chairs generally served for six years.

01:09:32	In the late 1980s, after China opened up, the department received an influx of students from the Chinese mainland. JW explains why he found these students a poor addition to the department.

01:11:50	When JW was a graduate student, he and other graduate students frequently worked in the evenings. As a faculty member, he was often the only person working in the building during the evenings.

01:13:20	JW was frustrated over the years to find that his salary did not keep up with inflation, and that new faculty members in the department earned almost as much as he did. In 1978, he left the department to take a position as head of the climate and radiation branch at NASA. He did not enjoy being an administrator and returned to the university after several years.

01:14:29	JW notes that the ability of meteorologists to forecast the weather precisely and for several days in advance was improving at this time. He became interested in numerical weather forecasting. A cultural divide in the discipline of meteorology opened between those who opted for numerical approaches and those who used old-fashioned, qualitative forecasting.

01:16:55	JW stayed at UW for another ten years. He explains how his dissatisfaction with the university led him to accept a position as head of the microwave remote sensing branch at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 1987.

01:19:13	He discusses another position he held as vice president for applied remote sensing at the Applied Research Corporation. Microwave remote sending allowed one to measure rainfall and soil moisture. JW talks about an attempt to predict locust infestations in Africa using rainfall measurements.

01:21:42	JW also collaborated with a Brazilian scientist to develop the field of meteorology in Sao Paolo state in Brazil. He discusses a trip he took to Indonesia to give a short course on radar.

01:24:20	In JW's opinion, faculty governance generally worked well at UW. He found it superior to an autocratic system, such as that used by the federal government.

01:25:43	JW talks about serving on the library committee. He recalls that one legislator calculated that the library contained six books for every student, which he believed was all the books a student might need to read.

01:26:33	JW talks about his honors and professional organization memberships.

01:28:43	He retired from the university in 1991 and from NASA in 2003. He now lives in Washington and has several students at the University of Washington. JW makes general comments about his experience at UW.

01:31:14	End of side. End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

01:31:21	JW explains he will continue his self-interview by expanding on the comments he made on the first tape.

01:31:48	JW now has an office at the University of Washington.  He notes that in sharp contrast to his earlier career at UW, there are now many female students in atmospheric sciences.  JW talks about the growing specialization of meteorology; the analysis of data using computers is now the major focus of the field, and the acquisition of data is relegated to technical people who build instruments.

01:34:43	JW is pleased that while NASA was formerly focused on instrumentation, it now emphasizes information management.  The management of large databases is becoming the main obstruction to advancing knowledge, in JW’s opinion.

01:36:10	A concern that people have raised is American students’ lack of interest in science.  JW predicts a decline in the living standard of Americans and a decline in the relative significance of the United States if scientific work continues to shift to developing countries.  He talks about his efforts to encourage his son to study science.

01:39:08	JW believes that all students in the liberal arts should take some core courses in the sciences.  On the other hand, he does not advocate a narrow, specialized technical training, such as that obtained by students in Southeast Asia.

01:40:14	JW comments on how much he enjoyed the environment around Madison.  The university had excellent facilities for recreational athletics.

01:42:03	JW talks about the Faculty Wives Club, through which he met faculty from other departments.  On one occasion he invited John Rankin from the medical school to give a lecture for a course on air pollution.  JW found Rankin’s talk about indoor air pollutants eye-opening.

01:43:21	JW frequently worked with people from other departments, such as Grace Wahba from statistics, Frederick Roesler from physics, and Roland Chin from electrical engineering.  He mentions how much he admired Robert Parent from electrical engineering.

01:45:49	JW talks about his collaborations with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and mentions his students Ellis Remsberg and Chris Kummerow.

01:49:11	He discusses some of his other graduate students, including Robert Fox and Ed Eloranta, and describes the research they conducted.

01:54:08	JW talks about his research on double scattering by fog or cloud droplets, and explains how it relates to earlier work he did as a nuclear physics student on polarized ion sources.  He discusses the research his graduate student Ken Kunkel conducted on light scattering through clouds.

01:57:04	JW describes a procedure he developed for computing solar radiation from clouds.

02:02:38	JW resumes his early discussion of the 100-level course he taught.

02:04:30	A formative influence on JW’s career was Hendrick van de Hulst, an astronomer at the University of Leiden.  Van de Hulst encouraged and guided JW once he shifted from nuclear physics to atmospheric sciences.  JW remembers skating with van de Hulst on Lake Mendota, and describes the sport of skate-sailing.

02:08:29	He talks about his graduate student Richard Savage’s research on microwave radiative transfer, work that was funded by WARF.  Other graduate students who worked on this topic were Roger Davies and Mrs. R. Wu.  JW had begun working with Wu while he was in China in 1981.  He comments on his experience in China.

02:15:35	End of side.

Tape 2/Side 2

02:15:38	JW talks about his post doctoral fellow Roy Spencer and their collaborative research on how ice in the upper layers of the atmosphere prevents radiation from escaping from the lower layers.  This work demonstrated that previous algorithms for measuring rainfall were inadequate.  JW became frustrated at the Department of Defense’s refusal to accept and act on his findings.

02:19:26	Another graduate student, William Olson, worked on topics relating to microwaves.  Olson later worked at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  JW talks about several other students and their research on clouds.  Computers at the time were unable to distinguish between satellite images of clouds and of sea ice.  JW developed an approach using artificial intelligence that allowed computers to make this distinction accurately.

02:25:55	JW talks about some work he did to transfer satellite images in the early days of facsimile machines.

02:30:28	During a trip to the Amazon with his family, JW picked up a case of chickenpox. He discusses the research he did while in the Amazon.  A number of students from South America ended up coming to UW because of this trip.

02:34:40	JW was a participant in BOMEX (Barbados Oceanic Meteorological Experiment).

02:38:43	He talks about his collaborations with Dutch scientists and students.  He continues to discuss his graduate students and their research.

02:43:01	The university missed a tremendous opportunity in the 1980s to correct salaries that had been slipping because of inflation, in JW’s opinion.  He says that Chancellor Donna Shalala instead spent money on politically fashionable programs that did not address the university’s day-to-day needs.  It was his frustration with this aspect of the university that finally drove him to leave the university.  JW expresses his dismay that the Wisconsin State Legislature has not adequately funded the university.

02:46:08	JW was irritated that the university did not provide a cost-of-living adjustment to offset inflation.  The longer he remained at the university, the more his salary fell behind.  He notes that it was particularly galling to find that new faculty hires were earning almost as much as he did, despite his seniority.

02:47:06	JW talks about shortcomings in the way funding is distributed.  Because each department is given a fixed amount of money, faculty must compete for salary increases, which harms the sense of collegiality in the department.  JW opines that “Those who were in cliques within the department fared better than those who were not.”  JW and two other colleagues believed their salaries suffered as a result of never having been elected chair.

02:48:59	JW says that overall his experience at UW was positive.

02:49:56	End of side.  End of tape.

END of Oral History #650