Description
The Robert Bigham Brode papers including correspondence, course materials, notebooks, administrative files and artifacts.
Background
Among one of the first individuals to be conferred a PhD in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1924, Robert
Bigham Brode had an illustrious career that included receiving a Rhodes Scholarship, a National Research Fellowship, a Guggenheim
Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship. One of triplets born in 1900 in Walla Walla, WA (Wallace was a chemist and Malcolm
was a biologist), he earned his bachelor’s degree from Whitman College, where his father was a biology professor, in 1921.
His early research concerned the structural similarities in the external electrons of molecules such as nitrogen and carbon
monoxide. Brode taught at U.C. Berkeley from 1927 until 1967, and focused his research primarily on cosmic rays. From 1942-1946,
he worked at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico. At the
latter, Brode was in charge of the “fusing group” on the Manhattan Project.
Extent
10 cartons, 1 cardbox, 1 oversize folder (13 linear feet)
Restrictions
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the Head
of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000. Consent is given on behalf of The
Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission from the copyright
owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner. See:
http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/reference/permissions.html.
Availability
Collection is open for research.