Pierce Describes Accommodations of New Physics Lab---Is Now Completed

The following article was written especially for the Harvard Crimson by G. W. Pierce, Rumford Professor of Physics, and Director of the Cruft Memorial Laboratory.

I have been requested by the CRIMSON to give a note on the New Research Laboratory of Physics. This building, though not yet formally turned over to the University, is practically completed and furnished. Professor Theodore Lyman '97, William Duane '93, P. W. Bridgman '04, E. C. Kemble, Otto Oldenberg, G. W. Pierce, Dr. J. H. McLeod, H. R. Mimno, and a dozen or more research students have already moved in from the Jefferson and Cruft Laboratories. Professor F. A. Saunders still has his principal headquarters in Jefferson, but will come into the new building in June. Professor E. L. Chaffee is on leave of absence. His equipment has been moved for him.

The Research Laboratory of Physics was built and endowed with a donation of $400,000 by the General Education Board and $650,000 by other friends of the University. The building has a floor area of about 45,000 square feet, consisting of five stories including the basement. It has about 100 rooms, and fills a space between the Cruft Laboratory and the Jefferson Laboratory, so as to join the three buildings into a unit structure. The east end of the Jefferson Laboratory is to be remodelled during the coming summer in order to make the physical union of the three buildings closer.

The Research Laboratory contains a conference room for the reception of visiting physicists and for the meetings of the teaching staff. It has also a large library room with shelves for about 8000 volumes for the use of research students. (The Tutorial library will remain in the Jefferson Laboratory.) The conference room and library rooms of the new building are artistically panelled in oak, and will be appropriately furnished. The general hallways and professors' offices have rubber tile flooring, celotex acoustic ceilings, and plastered walls painted. The office furniture comprises metal desks and tables, aluminum chairs, and oak or metal bookcases and filing cases. The laboratory rooms have painted concrete floors and ceilings and painted tile walls. Furniture for laboratories consists of oak tables and chairs and metal apparatus cases.

The lighting of the building is adequate and agreeable, electric wiring and plumbing equipment for research being unusually complete and convenient. The new building contains no lecture rooms, class laboratories, power plant, or machine shops. These facilities, remaining in the two older laboratories, have been enlarged to supply also the needs of the research laboratory. Research work will also continue in the older buildings.

In the new building the southern half was especially designed for the character of research heretofore done in the Jefferson Laboratory.

Although class-rooms are omitted from the Research Laboratory to Physics, the students in courses, especially graduate students, will be encouraged to observe and follow the various investigations so far as may be done without too great interference with apparatus of a delicate character.

The building and equipment will be inspected by the Board of Overseers and the Visiting Committee of the Division of Physical Sciences on Tuesday, May 12