Arthur von Hippel: The Scientist and the Man
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Arthur von Hippel:
The Scientist and the Man Frank N. von Hippel
Abstract “We will not be intimidated!” is one of the mottos Arthur R. von Hippel lived by. From refusing to salute Hitler to starting a unique interdisciplinary university laboratory—the Laboratory for Insulation Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—von Hippel followed his principles, laying the foundations for modern materials research and distinguishing himself as a pioneering scientist, an inspirational mentor, and a devoted family man. This article shows the personal and professional contexts within which von Hippel—the namesake of the Materials Research Society’s highest award—emerged as a scientific leader and role model of interdisciplinarity, as seen through the eyes of his son, Frank N. von Hippel, physicist, professor of public and international affairs, and co-director of the Program on Science & Global Security at Princeton University. Keywords: Arthur R. von Hippel, dielectrics, interdisciplinary, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, materials engineering, materials research, MIT.
Introduction Arthur R. von Hippel was born in Rostock, Germany, on November 19, 1898, and died in Newton, Mass., on December 31, 2003, at the age of 105. During his long life, he joined in Germany’s pre–World War I youth rebellion against the social stratification of Victorian Germany; spent two years as a German artilleryman on the French border during World War I; opposed the Communists and then the Nazis before leaving Germany in 1933 to teach in Istanbul and then to perform research in Niels Bohr’s institute in Copenhagen; and joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1936, where he built the Laboratory for Insulation Research, developed dielectrics for radar and other World War II applications, and laid the foundations for modern interdisciplinary materials science and engineering. All this with half a lifetime still before him. His pioneering role in materials research inspired the Materials Research Society to name its highest honor after him and to make him the first recipient of the Von Hippel Award in 1976. Since 1978, MRS has annually recognized a distinguished materials researcher for those
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qualities most prized by scientists and engineers: brilliance combined with a vision that transcended the boundaries of conventional scientific disciplines.
Arthur R. von Hippel:The Man Wandervögel My father was always interested in fostering the careers and well-being of his co-workers, whom he considered his friends rather than his subordinates. This was a departure from the Victorian “upstairs–downstairs” culture into which he was born and the German tradition that deemed the professor lord of his institute. The development of this enlightened attitude may have started when von Hippel and his two older brothers joined Germany’s pre–World War I youth movement, the self-styled Wandervögel (“birds of passage”). Groups of teenagers from upper-crust families wandered the country, sleeping in barns and helping wit
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