Guide to the George Placzek papers
MEM.PLACZEK

Summary Information

Repository
Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center
Title
George Placzek papers
ID
MEM.PLACZEK
Date
1932-1955
Extent
2.0 linear feet
Language
English
Language of Materials note
Materials in English, French, and German.

Preferred Citation

The suggested citation for the material is "[item], George Placzek collection, Box [box number], Courtesy of The Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA."

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Biographical Note

Theoretical physicist George Placzek was born on September 26, 1905, in Brno, Moravia, an area that is now the Czech Republic. His childhood was spent in Brno and Alexovice, where the Placzek family owned a textile factory. After receiving his PhD from University of Vienna in 1928, Placzek traveled throughout Europe for ten years, working alongside many of the era’s foremost scientific minds, including Enrico Fermi in Rome, Peter Debye and Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig, and Lev Landau in Russia, with whom he derived the Landau-Placzek formula for the ratio of diffusions of light. In 1932, Placzek landed at Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen Institute, where he remained until 1939, when he and many of his colleagues fled Europe for the United States. Placzek was a professor at Cornell University from 1939 to 1942, after which he worked for the General Electric Company until his arrival at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1948. In 1952, Placzek was granted Permanent Member status at the IAS, which he held until his death.

Placzek’s contributions to nuclear theory were substantial: his work with Bohr resulted in the first paper published on the general theory of neutron-based nuclear fission and, later, the discovery of the role of Uranium-235 in creating a nuclear reaction. During the Second World War, Placzek became involved in the Manhattan Project, heading up the Theory Group at Chalk River Laboratories in Montreal and assisting with the final work at Los Alamos. At the IAS, Placzek worked on neutron scattering problems, an understanding of which is crucial to many fields in physics. Placzek died in Zurich on October 9, 1955, at the age of 50.

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Scope and Contents

The George Placzek papers include correspondence, work papers, manuscripts, administrative and financial material, and other printed matter related to George Placzek’s professional and personal activities. Some material relates to research undertaken for the Manhattan Project; documents concerning post-war declassification are also heavily represented. Notable correspondents include J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Hans Bethe.

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Arrangement note

The collection is arranged into twelve subseries, including three subseries of correspondence, arranged alphabetically by correspondent, and three subseries of unarranged papers. Other series are: financial records and accounting; IAS administrative papers; work papers; physics concepts; and declassified documents and declassification correspondence.

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center

Historical Studies-Social Science Library
Einstein Drive
Princeton
NJ, 08540
609-734-8375
archives@ias.edu

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open without restriction.

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Collection Inventory

Correspondence, 1948-1953 1948-1953 
Box

Correspondence concerning meeting in Basel and Como 1949 

 1

A 1950-1952 

 1

American Physical Society Correspondence 1951-1952 

 1

Atomic Energy Commission Correspondence 1949-1952 

 1

B 1948-1954 

 1

Brookhaven circulars Undated 

 1

Brookhaven National Laboratory correspondence 1949-1952 

 1

C 1949-1952 

 1

Statistical Laboratory, Berkeley, California 1950-1951 

 1

Carbide and Carbons Chemicals Corporation correspondence 1952 

 1

D 1952 

 1

E 1951 

 1

F 1950-1951 

 1

G 1949-1950 

 1

General Electric 1948-1951 

 1

R. C. Gibbs, National Research Council 1949 

 1

H 1950-1952 

 1

Indian thesis 1948-1949 

 1

J 1951 

 1

K 1950-1952 

 1

L Undated 

 1

Los Alamos consultant (administrative) 1949-1952 

 1

M 1950-1952 

 1

N 1952 

 1

National Research Council of Canada 1951 

 1

O 1949-1950 

 1

Oak Ridge National Laboratory 1949-1951 

 1

P 1949-1952 

 1

R 1950-1952 

 1

S 1950-1952 

 1

T 1950-1952 

 1

U 1950 

 1

Leon Van Hove 1950-1952 

 1

W 1949-1952 

 1

Westinghouse Electric Corporation 1950-1952 

 1

Pending 1949 

 1

Financial records and accounting 

Files under documents Undated 
Box

Institute - documents 1949-1950 

 1

Institute - accounts 1949-1950 

 1

Oak Ridge - Travel Accounts 1949 

 1

Publications lists 1949-1952 

 1

French seminar 1950 

 1

Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, Carbide and Carbon Chemicals Division 1949-1952 

 1

Book bills 1949-1951 

 1

Travel accounts 1949 

 1

Correspondence, 1945-1949 1945-1949 

Unanswered 1949 
Box

A-K 1946-1949 

 1

Books 1949 

 1

Frederic de Hoffman 1949 

 1

General Electric 1946-1948 

 1

L-Z 1945-1949 

 1

File categories Undated 

Correspondence, 1949-1955 1949-1955 
Box

A 1954 

 1

American Physical Society 1954-1955 

 1

American Mathematical Society 1954 

 1

Atomic Energy Commission 1954 

 1

AEC foreign travel 1951, 1954 

 1

B 1953-1955 

 1

Niels Bohr 1950-1952 

 1

Brookhaven National Laboratory 1954 

 1

Brookhaven scientific correspondence 1954 

 1

C 1954 

 1

Chalk River Scientific Correspondence 1954 

 1

Piero Caldirola 1954 

 1

D 1953-1955 

 1

B. Davison 1954 

 1

Frederic de Hoffman 1949-1955 

 1

E 1953-1954 

 1

F 1953-1954 

 1

Federation of American Scientists 1951, 1955 

 1

B. Ferretti 1950-1953 

 1

G 1954 

 1

Eugene Guth 1951 

 1

H 1954 

 1

Clyde A. Hutchinson 1953-1955 

 1

K 1954 

 1

L 1954 

 1

Los Alamos administrative correspondence 1953-1955 

 1

Los Alamos consultant services 1951, 1954 

 1

M 1954-1955 

 1

Harvey F. Matthiesen 1951 

 1

A. Messiah 1950-1952 

 1

B. R. A. Nijboer 1951 

 1

Oak Ridge Scientific 1951-1953 

 1

P 1953, 1955 

 1

Pauli 1952 

 1

Physical Review correspondence 1951-1954 

 1

Physical Review reviews 1952, 1954 

 1

R. E. Peierls 1953-1954 

 1

R 1953-1954 

 1

S 1953-1954 

 1

Sigma XI correspondence 1954 

 1

Societa Italiana di Fisica 1954 

 1

Superintendent of Documents 1954 

 1

G. L. Squires 1952-1954 

 1

Van Hove 1954-1955 

 1

Guy von Dardel 1951, 1953 

 1

W 1953, 1954 

 1

G. C. Wick 1950-1954 

 1

Victor F. Weisskopf 1954, 1955 

 1

Z 1953 

 1

Unarranged papers 1952-1953, undated 
Box

Addresses Undated 

 1

Insurance/TIAA 1952-1953 

 1

Reprint lists Undated 

 1

Book catalogs 1953, undated 

 1

IAS administrative papers 1948-1955 
Box

Calculator 1951 

 1

Circulars 1952, 1954 

 1

Institute, Summer 1954 1954 

 1

List of own papers Undated 

 1

Mailing lists Undated 

 1

IAS Report of the Director 1948-1953 

 1

Reprint requests 1951-1955 

 1

Retirement fund 1954 

 1

Staff and members list 1954 

 1

Timetables (train) 1954 

 1

Sigma XI notices 1952 

 1

Work papers Undated 

Unarranged Undated 


    Box
Mixed materials   2
    Box
Mixed materials   2

Box

N. Bohr, R. Peierls, and G. Placzek Undated 

 2

Declassified documents and declassification correspondence 1946-1948, undated 
Box

British reports - G. Placzek 1946-1948, undated 

 2

Chalk River 1946-1947 

 2

Correspondence about declassification/declassified materials 1946-1948, undated 

 2

Declassification bulletin, work papers 1947, undated 

 2

Declassification forms Undated 

 2

Atomic Energy Commission lists of declassified documents 1946-1947 

 2

Unarranged papers 1946-1949, undated 
Box

Unarranged materials Undated 

 2

Assorted declassification documents 1946 

 2

Unarranged materials 1946, undated 

 2

Unarranged materials 1946, 1947, 1949, undated 

 2

Work papers Undated 

 2

Div. lecture notes Undated 

 2

MT-6, Placzek (C. Hibbert) 1947, undated 

 2

Work papers Undated 

 2

Work papers Undated 

 2

Physics concepts 1932-1951, undated 
Box

Integrals 1947 

 2

Crystals, old Undated 

 2

Davison - Placzek notes Undated 

 2

Heavy osc. Undated 

 2

Light scattering Undated 

 2

Angular correlations, notes 1932-1935, 1950 

 2

Order-disorder seminar Undated 

 2

Scattering by molecules 1951 

 2

Correlation of momentum Undated 

 2

To be sorted out (work papers) 1952, undated 

 2

Work papers with colleagues Undated 
Box

Messiah Undated 

 3

Eckstein Undated 

 3

Unarranged papers 1938-1948, undated 
Box

"Specificity of Interaction between Large Rigid Molecules ... Synchronized Anharmonic Vibrators" Undated 

 3

"Directory of Nuclear Physics Research Work," Office of Naval Research 1947 

 3

International reports 1939, 1946 

 3

Assorted work papers and typed manuscripts 1938, undated 

 3

Prints and graphs Undated 

 3

Typed manuscripts, prints Undated 

 3

Work papers Undated 

 3

"The Open Mind," address by J. Robert Oppenheimer 1948 

 3

Papers by others 1944, 1946, undated 

 3

Receipts, Atomic Energy Commission declassified lists 1946-1948 

 3