Their son, mostly for fun, writes this collection of vignettes about two prominent scientists. The forward includes a description of the two, summarizing their character and their careers. The summary contains an explanation of the title, Entropy Squared. The forward ends with remarks about the accuracy of the vignettes. Some vignettes include a representation of the impact on the son and some have historical significance. The first two sections concern Göttingen, Germany, from where "that American", Joe, as a fellow student put it, acquired his wife. The first section of Göttingen vignettes is from the time of meeting and from visits until World War II. The second is from after the War. Maria's career at Sarah Lawrence College separates sections of their supporting the World War II war effort, Joe at the Ballistics Research Laboratory of Aberdeen Proving Grounds and Maria with the Manhattan, nuclear bomb, Project. The Sarah Lawrence College section goes beyond memories because biographers have said little about Maria's time at Sarah Lawrence. Sections concerning each are followed by a section on Maria receiving of the Nobel Prize. The conclusion is a memorial to Joe.

Son of (Entropy)

Personal Memories of a Son of a Chemist, Joseph E. Mayer, and a Nobel Prize Winning Physicist, Maria Goeppert MayerBy Peter C. Mayer

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Peter C. Mayer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2069-7

Contents

Introduction, Who Are Entropy and Entropy?............................ixChapter 1. The Beginning, Göttingen Pre-WWII.....................1Chapter 2. Göttingen, Afterwards.................................12Chapter 3. Aberdeen and War Stories...................................15Chapter 4. Maria's Time at Sarah Lawrence College.....................28Chapter 5. The Manhattan (Nuclear Bomb) Project.......................40Chapter 6. Joe........................................................48Chapter 7. Maria......................................................59Chapter 8. The Prize..................................................78Chapter 9. Memorial...................................................82References and Acknowledgments........................................87

Chapter One

The Beginning, Göttingen Pre-WWII

The Hollisters

My father, while dining in the Göttingen Ratskeller ...

Oh! For those who are unfamiliar with German towns, the translation for Rathaus is city hall, but various characteristics give the Rathaus a different meaning. As an example, the Rathaus is usually a grand old building, often only second in grandeur to the cathedral. Usually, the Rathaus cellar contains the Ratskeller, a quality restaurant, often the best in town. Joe spent enough time in the Ratskeller to acquire a favorite waiter. As late as 1950, Joe had this waiter serve us.

While dining in the Göttingen Ratskeller, my father noticed an American couple enjoying themselves and speaking German. (My mother would correct the story with, "you said 'a California couple.'" Dad tended to avoid Americans; they interfered with his goal of learning German, and he didn't like chronic complainers. He approached the couple and was given ice cold shoulders. His thoughts: "What a nice looking couple, but they are most unpleasant," or something less kind. Later, the couple, Joe and Kay Hollister, approached my father and asked him to join them. They, too, did not like chronic complainers.

Kay would party with her husband and Joe in bars where no respectable German lady would go. My mother said she would never have gone to these bars. Kay would walk home, sometimes singing and at times with a Joe on each arm.

Later, while my father was introducing my mother to the American West, they wrote every Hollister in the Santa Barbara phone book. Each put their letter in Joe Hollister's box at the Hollister Estate Company—a pretentious name for Hollister Ranch—office. My parents received a letter from Kay that included the instruction to stop at the Gaviota Store for directions on how to get to the ranch house. At the Gaviota Store, the response to the request for instructions to the Hollister Ranch was, "You came from the North? You have been on the ranch for the last one hundred miles."

There were several exchanges similar to, "We would like to have instructions to go the ranch house."

"Why do you want to go to the ranch house? It is on a long, narrow, difficult dirt road. Besides, the road is private."

In exasperation, my father said, "We were told by Joe and Kay Hollister to ask you for instructions."

"Oh yes," the store owner said, taking a deep breath, "Mrs. Kay told me about you."

Later, when showing their children the American West, my parents often stopped to see the Hollisters. As children, both my sister and I liked the couple, and as an adult I would often visit the widow, Kay. While in high school, I worked one summer for Joe Hollister's brother on the Ranch and two years, while in college, I spent Thanksgiving with his brother.

A tale about the lad, Joe Hollister, was the major component of a Joe Mayer this-is-the-way-to-behave lecture.

"When Joe Hollister was about your age, he walked through an open gate that was usually kept closed. He decided to close the gate. Later, his father and other cowboys tried to drive a herd of cattle through the closed gate."

As a lad, I required that the instructional point be explained, "Leave things, in particular doors and gates, the way you found them."

My Father, That American

I was dating the daughter of a fellow student of Maria's at the University of Göttingen. The first thing the daughter said to me after Christmas vacation was "I know who you are!"

"What do you know about me that you did not know before?"

"Well, I know who your father is!"

"Okay Nickie, what's the story?"

"My father said, 'There were few women students at the University of Göttingen and only one really feminine student. That American,'" Joe Mayer, "'came and purchased a car and took her away.'" At one point, she suggested that it was a sports car. I corrected her. The car was an Opal—at the time the cheapest German car—with a bad clutch. As a postdoctoral fellow, my father had a little more money than the graduate students, but more significantly, he had more gumption.

Later Nickie said, "My father said, 'Be sure to tell Maria's son that Joe had an American directness that charmed all of us.'"

Background

Being feminine results from my mother's upbringing. Some biographies credit my grandfather with telling Maria, "I do not want you to be a woman." This claim is garbage. He said, "I want you to be more than a woman." Too many university women at my mother's time chose not to be women, as was often the case among science and engineering majors even a generation and more later.

My grandfather was a pediatrician. To show that he wanted Maria to also be a woman, he had her attend his lectures on child rearing. Further, all his female patients, including my mother, were vaccinated for small pox high on the thigh so the ugly scar—at that time three scars—would not be visible when wearing sleeveless dresses. Surely, he wished—but did not expect—all his female patients to have interests outside the house as well.

For readers who have not had a small pox vaccination, you might ask an older person to show you their now faded vaccination scar. A small pox vaccination is usually given on the outside of the arm below the shoulder. To vaccinate for small pox, one puts a viscous liquid containing the cowpox virus on the skin. Then the inoculator takes a pin or needle and makes numerous pricks or small cuts within a circle under the liquid. The pricks and the reaction leave a nasty pox as a scar. To minimize total scarring, revaccinations were made on top of the old scar. Among most people alive today, the vaccination left a single scar the size of a dime (US ten-cent piece). However, in earlier times the pinpricks were done within three circles, leaving an unattractive triangle of three scars, each about the size of a nickel (a US five-cent piece). Having seen such a triangle of scares on a Palauan lovely, I know they stand out. Palau was a Japanese trust until the end of World War II and Japanese still made a triangle of scars with small pox vaccinations.

Maria's Influence on Men

Confirming Maria's fellow student's observation, a friend of my father's from graduate school told me the following. "I saw Joe with your mother when she was pregnant with one of you (I have a sister). As I approached them, she...