Physiologist Nello Pace, Ph.D.

¹an accelerator in which particles move in spiral paths in a constant magnetic field

²a isotope of hydrogen, having twice the mass of ordinary hydrogen (protium); "heavy hydrogen"

³incorporated with a radioactive isotope to make a substance traceable

⁴a small amount of radioactive materials used in place of stable forms of the same element to track a biological or chemical process

⁵the Manhattan Project—the U.S. Government's ultrasecret project to develop an atomic bomb

⁶an abnormality of the eye in which the lens becomes partially or completely opaque

⁷U.S. chemist, born 1912; discovered plutonium in 1940 and played a key role in the discovery of more than half a dozen new elements through the 1950s

⁸the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers organization set up to administer the development of the atomic bomb under the ultrasecret Manhattan Project. Originally headquartered in New York, it was moved to Washington, DC, and finally to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in the summer of 1943. In 1947 it became the Atomic Energy Commission.

⁹For the transcript of the interview with Tobias, see DOE/EH-0480, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years; Oral History of Biophysicist Cornelius A. Tobias, Ph.D. (July 1995).

¹⁰The U.S. Army Air Corps became the U.S. Air Force, a separate military service, on September 18, 1947.

¹¹The bends are caused by tiny air bubbles released into tissue by a too-rapid decrease in air pressure after staying in a compressed atmosphere, such as the too-rapid ascent of a diver from deep in the sea to normal atmosphere at sea level. It is potentially fatal. Aviators experience a similar phenomenon in ascending too rapidly to high altitude in an unpressurized cockpit without the protection of a pressurized flightsuit. In this circumstance, aviators are at high risk of blacking out and losing control of their aircraft.

¹²Director of the Division of Medical Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He operated a clinic at Donner Laboratory, where he treated leukemia and polycythemia vera patients with radioactive phosphorus. For a colleague's recollection of Dr. Lawrence's clinic, see in the interview with Dr. John Gofman (DOE/EH-0457, June 1995), the sections "From Research to Laboratory Production of Plutonium," "Medical Treatments With Radioactive Phosphorus (32P)," "Conflict Between University of California San Francisco and Berkeley," "Heparin and Lipoprotein Research With Human Subjects," and "Radiophosphorus Therapy for Polycythemia Vera."

¹³a laboratory set up at the UC Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley during the 1930s specifically to conduct experiments in medical physics

¹⁴an exclusive social club in the San Francisco area, known for back-to-nature retreats to Bohemian Grove (north of San Francisco, in the Russian River country) and the power and influence of its members

¹⁵now Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, a National Laboratory under the U.S. Department of Energy; originally founded by Ernest Lawrence as the UC Radiation Laboratory in 1936

¹⁶an instrument for detecting ionizing radiation, used chiefly to measure radioactivity

¹⁷the atomic bombs dropped by U.S. bombers over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 6 and August 9, 1945, respectively

¹⁸Both General Douglas MacArthur, who was Commander-in-Chief Southwestern Pacific, and Admiral Chester Nimitz, CINCPAC, had been informed by the War Department of the existence and impending use of the atomic bomb in late July 1945. See William Manchester, American Caesar, Boston: Little, Brown and Co. (1978), p. 438. MacArthur was greatly angered on being informed that General Eisenhower and several other commanders had learned of the atomic bomb much earlier than he. See Michael Shaller, Douglas MacArthur, the Far Eastern General, New York: Oxford University Press (1989), p.117.

¹⁹a commercial airliner; the military transport variant was known as the C-47.

²⁰General Leslie R. Groves, U.S. Army, took command of the Manhattan Engineer District in 1942 and led it to completion of the Manhattan Project.

²¹the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, site of research involving plutonium and human subjects

²²plural of half-life, the time required for half the atoms of a radioactive substance to decay

²³University of California at Los Angeles

²⁴diagnostic and therapeutic medical techniques using radionuclides or radioisotopes

²⁵For an extended review of the use of radioiodine to treat thyroid disorders, see see DOE/EH-0465, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years; Oral History of Dr. Nadine Foreman, M.D. (July 1995).

²⁶a mountain in eastern California, in the Sierra Nevada; 14,495 feet (4,418 meters)

²⁷Berge later interviewed Siri for this publication series, but the resulting transcript was unusable as it is full of lacunae.

²⁸tracked, all-terrain vehicles with covered cabs for use in arctic areas

²⁹Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California

³⁰the Andes mountain range in the western part of South America

³¹Carbon-12 is the ubiquitous stable isotope; Pace probably meant carbon-11, which has a half-life of 20.4 minutes.

³²a condition of pallor, very low blood pressure, feeble rapid pulse, decreased respiration, restlessness, anxiety, and sometimes unconsciousness that may be experienced by someone who has just been severely or extensively burned

³³the U.S. Marine Corps' Cold Weather Training Facility in northern California, near Bridgeport

³⁴During World War II, the Manhattan Project had built a vast complex of highly classified facilities in and near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to process uranium for use in atomic bombs. The Atomic Energy Commission took control of these facilities upon its creation and, today, they belong to the Department of Energy.

³⁵Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, founded in 1919 by Herbert Hoover and located at Stanford University, Stanford, California. Hoover researchers conduct interdisciplinary research in the social sciences and public policy.

³⁶For the transcript of the interview with Durbin, see DOE/EH-0458, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years; Oral History of Dr. Patricia Wallace Durbin, Ph.D. (June 1995).

³⁷University of California at San Francisco

³⁸For the transcript of the interview with Gofman, see DOE/EH-0457, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years; Oral History of Dr. John W. Gofman, M.D. (June 1995).

³⁹Gofman addresses the background radiation in his interview, under the section, "Concern Over Low-Dosage Harm; Public Acceptance of Nuclear Energy."