Physics Tank razed to
pave way
for completion of SEQ
BY LISA TREI
Ken Sherwin knew time was
running out in early August as he struggled to remove
wooden planks from a bookshelf in the Physics Tank. The
following day, this white-haired consultant, a retired
lab technician, said the electricity was scheduled be
turned off, leaving the officially named Bloch Auditorium
in the dark for good.
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On Aug. 18, a demolition
crew moved in with a wrecking machine to chew up the
walkway roof and columns surrounding the 40-year-old
lecture hall. A few days later, the noisy machine, which
maneuvered across the ground like a crab, started
pounding away at the concrete walls of this squat, round
building that has been a base for physics students for
decades.
"Almost from the day
it was built, architects have wanted to get rid of
it," 77-year-old Sherwin said as he wiped his hands
on his stained work pants. "[The tank] doesn't blend
in. It doesn't have a tile roof."
Removal of the tank, built
in 1957, will clear the way for a palm-lined pathway
leading from the Inner Quad to the new Science and
Engineering Quadrangle, or SEQ, which is scheduled to be
fully completed in 1998. University Architect David
Neuman says the new quad will restore the intent of
architect Frederick Law Olmsted's 1888 plan for the
layout of the university. "[The tank] is sited in
the wrong place," Neuman said. "As a piece of
architecture, I find it rather unattractive and not in
keeping with Stanford's traditional architecture."
The tank and the adjoining
Varian and McCullough buildings were designed by
architect Gardner A. Dailey. Professor Emeritus Arthur
Schawlow said budget constraints at the time meant that
the tank was completed with few decorative frills. Trees
were planted around it to soften its stark lines.
"They called the tank the 'hatbox,'" Schawlow
said. "The physics building [next door] was the
'shoebox.' "
In 1992, following a
renovation project, the tank was dedicated as the Felix
Bloch Auditorium. Bloch, who died in 1983, taught at
Stanford for a half century and in 1952 became the
university's first Nobel laureate. According to a 1989
proposal calling for the tank's name change, Bloch's work
on the theory of metals in 1929 laid the foundation for
the development of semiconductors, which in turn led to
the development of the transistor, the integrated circuit
and, ultimately, the personal computer. "His work
made possible the creation of the computer industry and
through it, Silicon Valley," the proposal read.
A metal plaque outside the
tank commemorates the scientist and his lifelong
achievements. Physics department administrator Rosenna
Yau said the plaque, which features a smiling professor
Bloch, will be hung in a classroom in the new SEQ
Teaching Facility when it opens this fall. Longtime
visiting professor Jerry Fisher, who worked with Bloch at
Stanford, said the university should be sure to honor
this longtime faculty member after his namesake building
is demolished. Schawlow added, "Bloch is probably
the greatest scientist Stanford ever had."
The tank's utilitarian
design inspired mixed feelings about its demise among
longtime users of the building. With its two windowless
lecture halls, each seating 150 and 300 people, and a
prep room in between, the tank was an efficient place to
work, Fisher said. "I've taught a lot of lectures
and that's the best setting I've ever seen," he
said. "It's just a shame [it's being
demolished]."
But Professor Doug
Osheroff, a 1996 Nobel laureate in physics, recognizes
that the tank didn't offer ideal conditions for everyone.
"The seats were very uncomfortable, especially for
people with short legs," he said. "The
air-conditioning was never under control. When I wanted
to do some kinds of demonstrations I couldn't because of
the breeze [inside]."
The department's new,
smaller digs, which it will share with biologists and
chemists, are set to open during the Fall Quarter.
Construction delays mean that during the first few weeks
of term, classes will be scattered across campus. "A
lot of demos won't be shown," Yau said. "But
we're working to have as little disruption as possible
for the students."
While the tank turns into
just a campus memory, tales linked with it endure.
Schawlow recalled walking into an undergraduate lecture
in 1981 after being informed that he had won a Nobel
Prize. "I told [the students] there's still a lot of
beautiful things left to be discovered," he said.
In one memorable
demonstration, Schawlow said Professor Emeritus William
Little used a blowgun to fire a projectile at an object
dropped from a balcony in the lecture hall. "Bill
Little found a coonskin cap and left it around for those
demonstrations," he said.
In 1961, the American
Rocket Society held a partly secret conference in the
tank called "Guidance, Control and Navigation."
The three-day meeting included classified sessions on
such subjects as "Inertial Guidance for Ballistic
Missiles and Space Probes." Registration for the
conference was $10 for society members and $1 for
students. A single room in Stern Hall cost just $5 a day.
Besides its place in Cold
War trivia, the tank commands a spot in folk music lore.
Martin LaPointe, an introductory lab supervisor and
longtime employee, said that a young Joan Baez, the
daughter of visiting physics professor Albert Baez, used
the tank's sound system to practice singing and playing
her guitar when the hall wasn't filled with students.
Meanwhile, Sherwin, who
has been on campus seven years longer than the tank, said
he will probably leave when the new construction project
is finished because his experience will no longer be
needed. "It's like being a museum curator," he
said as he walked past one-time state-of-the-art
demonstration tools, including some dating back to the
1920s. "Most of this stuff is so obsolete it's
pathetic." Sherwin said a lot of the pieces would be
ditched because the department's new teaching rooms have
less space.
Although Sherwin is not
happy about the changes, alumnus Peter Allen, former News
Service director and a Farm resident since the 1930s,
says he backs the SEQ project. Allen's link to Felix
Bloch dates back to a morning in 1952 when the newly
named Nobel Prize winner said he wanted to finish an 8
a.m. lecture before speaking to a gaggle of reporters on
site.
"I think it's
important to [finish the SEQ] so that the humanities and
sciences have a passageway," Allen said. "It
helps [promote] intermingling between the two
disciplines. If we don't do anything, there's a
barrier." SR
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