¶ Gravity
Index Entry
Gravity:
"I met an old friend yesterday, Cyril Stanley Smith. I first knew him in 1950 when he was the director of the Institute for the Study of Metals at the University of Chicago. It was in his institute that the first Enrico Fermi atomic pile was assembled, erected, and operated. Cyril Smith was one of the original Manhattan Project scientists. For a number of subsequent years he has been professor of the History of Science at MIT. He is one of the world’s great metallurgists.
"I discussed with him yesterday unique metallurgical techniques I had experienced in connection with producing my automobiles, bathrooms, and aeronautical structures. In producing these prototypes I always had occasion to take on metal craftsmen called ‘hammer men.’ The best hammer men have been Polish-Americans. They inherited their craft as the best of the early armor makers of Europe. I said to Cyril, ‘I don’t think any of those sheet metal workers ever think of what they are doing in the way you and I would think about what their work does to the atoms.’ Cyril’s said, ‘You mean “in the ways the atoms accommodate their work.”’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what I should have said.’
¶ Citations
- RBF Ltr. to Annie Dillard, 12 Jun’74
