How has the department changed over the course of those 15 years? Chaikin: I’ve had lots of previous appointments as well. So, I’m a Silver Professor of Physics at NYU. OK, so to start, would you tell me your title and institutional affiliation? Chaikin: Paul, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so happy to be here with Professor Paul Chaikin. OK, this is David Zierler, oral historian for the American Institute of Physics. At the end of the interview, Chaikin reflects on some of the remaining mysteries in the field, and he describes his interest in pursing research on self-assembly among soft condensed matters. Chaikin describes the famous experiment that discovered that M&M shapes (ellispoids) provided the most efficient and minimal negative space in packing applications, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at NYU. He discusses his joint appointment with Penn physics and the research laboratory at Exxon, and he explains his move to Princeton, which was just starting to develop a program in soft matter physics. Chaikin explains what it would take to solve the many-body problem of nonequilibrium phenomena, and he describes the delicate nature of collaborating with biologists while ensuring they don’t overtake the field. ![]() He describes his first postgraduate work at UCLA where he developed an expertise in thermoelectric power, and he describes the intellectual and technological developments that paved the way for the creation of soft matter physics as a distinct field. Chaikin explains his reasoning to pursue a graduate degree with Bob Schrieffer at Penn, where he did his thesis research on the Kondo effect in superconductors. He discusses his undergraduate education at Caltech, he conveys how special it was to learn from Feynman and Pauling, and he explains the fields that would go on to form his area of specialty, soft matter physics. ![]() In this interview, Paul Chaikin, Silver Professor of Physics at NYU, recounts his childhood in Brooklyn and he describes his early interests in math and science and his education Stuyvesant High School. Disclaimer: This transcript was scanned from a typescript, introducing occasional spelling errors. Please bear in mind that: 1) This material is a transcript of the spoken word rather than a literary product 2) An interview must be read with the awareness that different people's memories about an event will often differ, and that memories can change with time for many reasons including subsequent experiences, interactions with others, and one's feelings about an event. Please contact us for information about accessing these materials. ![]() For many interviews, the AIP retains substantial files with further information about the interviewee and the interview itself. If this interview is important to you, you should consult earlier versions of the transcript or listen to the original tape. The AIP's interviews have generally been transcribed from tape, edited by the interviewer for clarity, and then further edited by the interviewee. This transcript is based on a tape-recorded interview deposited at the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics. ![]() This transcript may not be quoted, reproduced or redistributed in whole or in part by any means except with the written permission of the American Institute of Physics.
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