Pupin Hall
Encyclopedia
Pupin Physics Laboratories, also known as Pupin Hall is home to the physics
and astronomy departments of the Columbia University
in New York City
and a National Historic Landmark. It was built in 1925-1927 to provide more space for the Physics Department which had originally been housed in Fayerweather Hall, and named for Serbian physicist Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, who graduated with honors in 1883 at Columbia College
, after his death in 1935. The building is located on the south side of 120th Street
, just east of Broadway
. It has been named a National Historic Landmark
for its association with experiments relating to the splitting of the atom, achieved in connection with the later Manhattan Project
.
By 1931, the building which later became Pupin Hall was a leading research center. During this time Harold Urey
(Nobel laureate in Chemistry) discovered deuterium
and George Pegram was investigating the phenomena associated with the newly discovered neutron
. In 1938, Enrico Fermi
escaped fascist Italy
after winning the Nobel prize for his work on induced radioactivity. In fact, he took his wife and children with him to Stockholm and immediately emigrated to New York. Shortly after arriving he began working at Columbia. His work on nuclear fission, together with I. I. Rabi's
work on atomic and molecular physics, ushered in a golden era of fundamental research at the university. One of the country's first cyclotron
s was built in the basement of Pupin Hall, where parts of it still remain. The building's historic significance was secured with the first splitting of a uranium
atom in the United States, which was achieved by Enrico Fermi in Pupin Hall on January 25, 1939, just 10 days after the world's first such successful experiment, carried out in Copenhagen
, Denmark
.
Pupin Hall is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (also known as Michael I. Pupin), a Serbian-American scientist and graduate of Columbia. Returning to the university's engineering school as a faculty member, he played a key role in establishing the department of electrical engineering. Pupin was also a brilliant inventor, developing methods for rapid x-ray photography and the "Pupin coil," a device for increasing the range of long-distance telephone
s. After his death in 1935, the university trustees named the newly constructed physics building the "Pupin Physics Laboratories" in his honor.
The building was declared a National Historic Landmark
in 1965. In 2009 the American Physical Society
named Pupin Hall a historic site and honored Isidor Isaac Rabi
for his work in the field of magnetic resonance.
to develop the first nuclear weapon. It is connected to the university tunnels, from which one can occasionally access the Manhattan Project's leftover cyclotron and other historic research facilities. Sadly, many of these have been sealed off since the 1980s, when Ken Hechtman
wrought havoc with nuclear materials he stole from Pupin's basement.
Other discoveries and breakthroughs achieved in Pupin include:
, but got blocked by the construction of Dodge in the 1960s. The entryway smells like chlorine because Uris Pool has an exit stairway leading into Pupin's entry.
The Rutherfurd Observatory is on top of Pupin, which is convenient for the Astronomy Department professors who also work in Pupin. However, the night sky in New York is sometimes too bright for it to be used. Instead, astronomical observers may opt to use the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
. Nevertheless, the Astronomy Department hosts bi-monthly Public Observing Nights.
Columbia University Physics Department
thumb|Pupin Hall, home of the Physics Department The Columbia University Physics Department includes approximately 40 faculty members teaching and conducting research in the areas of astrophysics, high energy nuclear physics, high energy particle physics, laser and condensed matter physics, and...
and astronomy departments of the Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and a National Historic Landmark. It was built in 1925-1927 to provide more space for the Physics Department which had originally been housed in Fayerweather Hall, and named for Serbian physicist Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, who graduated with honors in 1883 at Columbia College
Columbia College of Columbia University
Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...
, after his death in 1935. The building is located on the south side of 120th Street
120th Street (Manhattan)
120th Street runs from Riverside Drive, overlooking the Hudson River, to the East River, through the New York City borough of Manhattan. It traverses the neighborhoods of Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Spanish Harlem; the street is interrupted by Morningside Park...
, just east of Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
. It has been named a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
for its association with experiments relating to the splitting of the atom, achieved in connection with the later Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
.
By 1931, the building which later became Pupin Hall was a leading research center. During this time Harold Urey
Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934...
(Nobel laureate in Chemistry) discovered deuterium
Deuterium
Deuterium, also called heavy hydrogen, is one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen. It has a natural abundance in Earth's oceans of about one atom in of hydrogen . Deuterium accounts for approximately 0.0156% of all naturally occurring hydrogen in Earth's oceans, while the most common isotope ...
and George Pegram was investigating the phenomena associated with the newly discovered neutron
Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic hadron particle which has the symbol or , no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton. With the exception of hydrogen, nuclei of atoms consist of protons and neutrons, which are therefore collectively referred to as nucleons. The number of...
. In 1938, Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
escaped fascist Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
after winning the Nobel prize for his work on induced radioactivity. In fact, he took his wife and children with him to Stockholm and immediately emigrated to New York. Shortly after arriving he began working at Columbia. His work on nuclear fission, together with I. I. Rabi's
Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance.-Early years:...
work on atomic and molecular physics, ushered in a golden era of fundamental research at the university. One of the country's first cyclotron
Cyclotron
In technology, a cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator. In physics, the cyclotron frequency or gyrofrequency is the frequency of a charged particle moving perpendicularly to the direction of a uniform magnetic field, i.e. a magnetic field of constant magnitude and direction...
s was built in the basement of Pupin Hall, where parts of it still remain. The building's historic significance was secured with the first splitting of a uranium
Uranium
Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...
atom in the United States, which was achieved by Enrico Fermi in Pupin Hall on January 25, 1939, just 10 days after the world's first such successful experiment, carried out in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
.
Pupin Hall is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin (also known as Michael I. Pupin), a Serbian-American scientist and graduate of Columbia. Returning to the university's engineering school as a faculty member, he played a key role in establishing the department of electrical engineering. Pupin was also a brilliant inventor, developing methods for rapid x-ray photography and the "Pupin coil," a device for increasing the range of long-distance telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
s. After his death in 1935, the university trustees named the newly constructed physics building the "Pupin Physics Laboratories" in his honor.
The building was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1965. In 2009 the American Physical Society
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
named Pupin Hall a historic site and honored Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance.-Early years:...
for his work in the field of magnetic resonance.
Advances in research
The building is a landmark due to the advances in nuclear research made there during the Manhattan ProjectManhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
to develop the first nuclear weapon. It is connected to the university tunnels, from which one can occasionally access the Manhattan Project's leftover cyclotron and other historic research facilities. Sadly, many of these have been sealed off since the 1980s, when Ken Hechtman
Ken Hechtman
Ken Hechtman is a freelance journalist from Canada who achieved brief international prominence in late 2001. Afghanistan's Taliban government captured him as a suspected United States spy while he researched a story for the Montreal Mirror. Afghanistan tried, acquitted, and released him after a...
wrought havoc with nuclear materials he stole from Pupin's basement.
Other discoveries and breakthroughs achieved in Pupin include:
- The discovery of deuterium by Harold UreyHarold UreyHarold Clayton Urey was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934...
- The investigation of neutron phenomena by George Peagram
- The construction of one of the country's first cyclotrons (it remains in the basement)
- January 25, 1939: the first splitting of a uranium atom in the United States, by Enrico FermiEnrico FermiEnrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
Features and layout quirks
The current entrance to Pupin is on the 5th floor from the plaza above Dodge Physical Fitness Center. This means that many of the seminar rooms in Pupin on floors 2-4, while above ground, are below campus level and, therefore, windowless. The original entryway was on the first floor from the GroveThe Grove
The Grove may refer to:Canada* Lakefield College School , a boarding schoolUnited Kingdom* The Emirates Stadium, sometimes called "The Grove" in reference to its pre-sponsorship name, "Ashburton Grove"...
, but got blocked by the construction of Dodge in the 1960s. The entryway smells like chlorine because Uris Pool has an exit stairway leading into Pupin's entry.
The Rutherfurd Observatory is on top of Pupin, which is convenient for the Astronomy Department professors who also work in Pupin. However, the night sky in New York is sometimes too bright for it to be used. Instead, astronomical observers may opt to use the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
The Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory is a research unit of Columbia University located on a campus in Palisades, N.Y., north of Manhattan on the Hudson River.- History :...
. Nevertheless, the Astronomy Department hosts bi-monthly Public Observing Nights.
See also
- Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
- Columbia University Physics DepartmentColumbia University Physics Departmentthumb|Pupin Hall, home of the Physics Department The Columbia University Physics Department includes approximately 40 faculty members teaching and conducting research in the areas of astrophysics, high energy nuclear physics, high energy particle physics, laser and condensed matter physics, and...
- Michael I. Pupin
- I.I. Rabi
- Enrico FermiEnrico FermiEnrico Fermi was an Italian-born, naturalized American physicist particularly known for his work on the development of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile-1, and for his contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics...
- National Historic Landmarks