Era 3: Section 3
1979-1990: Expansion into Microelectronics and Energy
Standards and Recommended Practices
Although the establishment of standards was a driving force during the early days of the Society, activity had waned during Eras 2 and 3. The second edition of the “Vacuum Hazards Manual” was finally published in 1979, after many delays and the “Glossary of Terms” was completed, but there was no new activity. The existing standards were reprinted by General Electric and were also available through the Technical Information Center at Oak Ridge. Until 1981, all new AVS members received a copy of the standards; after 1981, they could have a copy sent to them on request. In 1983, these were being mailed by Walt McCain from Detroit at $0.80 per copy because the New York post office charged $1.15!
New procedures for the Standards Committee were approved in 1981; these outlined the steps to ensure broad consensus before approval of documentary standards and recommended practices. However, there was little other activity, although a workshop on standard leaks was held during the 1981 Symposium; it was organized by Charles Tilford. In 1983, after he complained to the Board about the lack of significant activity, the Standards Problems Committee was formed, with Susan Allen as Chair. It reported that the standards were sorely out of date with the most recent having been issued in 1973. In fact, at an AVS Board meeting in May, 1984 there was even a sentiment to abolish the Standards Committee altogether. Fortunately, Don Santeler, a former President and a spokesman for the vacuum technology segment of the Society, was attending a concurrent Chapter meeting and, during a coffee break, gave a most persuasive argument that standards were a very important activity and that more should be done in this area.
As a consequence of his advocacy, at the next Board meeting, John Sullivan was asked to chair the Standards Committee and revitalize its operation He proposed changes in the mode of operation of the Committee, which were soon published in a Chapters and Divisions newsletter, soliciting comment. The procedures proposed were in part a response to the possibility of financial exposure of the Society as a consequence of promulgating “standards.” The caution was well founded, since in 1982 the Supreme Court of the United States had confirmed the imposition of a crushing settlement on the non-profit American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Inc., in favor of the Hydrolevel Corporation, resulting from the promulgation of a standard by ASME that was ruled to have unfairly excluded a particular product.
By 1985, sub-committees were working on standards for “Pump Speed Measurements”, “Leak Rate Standards” and “Pumping Hazardous Gases”. At a Board meeting in February 1985, John Sullivan recommended that the name of the Standards Committee be changed to the Recommended Practices Committee, and discussed its intended mode of operation. The group would work to establish a practice, which would then be published in the JVST as a technical review for the purpose of gathering comments from all interested parties. After reconciling the published document with any comments, a final version would be published as an AVS Recommended Practice. Thereafter, it was hoped to develop a standard, in cooperation with ANSI. Sub-committees were charged with generating the draft which would be published in the JVST. The change in the name of the standing committee required a change in the Constitution , which was approved by the membership.
In 1986, a round robin on Calibrated Leaks was started and four practices were being drafted. Over the next few years there was a lot of activity with occasional hiccups. Two chairs of sub-committees went into private business in 1987 and had to be replaced because of the Committee’s policy that proprietors of their own business could not be members of the committee. The Committee was diligent; the draft of the “Recommended Practice on Pumping Hazardous Gases” required fifty pages in JVST! In 1990, five Recommended Practices on totally new topics and eight replacements of 1976 standards were gathered together in a bound volume; all of these had been published in JVST before completion of the final version. Three more drafts were still in preparation at that time.
In 1990, Dana Hanschulz proposed that AVS form a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to ANSI. He was concerned that the ISO/TC 112 Committee on Vacuum Standards, which had been dormant since 1974, but was now active under Soviet chairmanship, could conclude standards without significant input from the USA or Europe.
Two new divisions were formed during this era, bringing the total to seven. The activities of each division is given in detail separately. In 1984, the first issue of the Chapters and Divisions Newsletter was distributed to the chairs of all the Division and Chapter Chairs by the editor, Hugh Garvin. The objective was to provide better communication of AVS activities and Board actions, but it did not seem to improve the situation significantly; it was stopped at the end of 1989.
The Fusion Technology Division was founded in 1980, due largely to Manfred Kaminsky, who served as the first chair in 1981 after Don Mattox had been appointed the interim chair in 1980. The Division serviced a fairly small, but very active, group of workers in aspects of fusion programs. The initial membership of 100 grew to 430 in 1981. Plasmas were of course a topic of interest for both fusion and semiconductor processing applications and the division members were polled in 1986 to determine if they would agree to a name change to embrace plasmas which were not involved in fusion. The proposal for the expansion was initially made by Fred Dylla, who was chair in 1984 and supported by the 1986 chair, Angus Hunt who wrote an article in the Newsletter setting out the argument for the change; plasma-material interactions were very important not only for fusion reactors (i.e. wall effects) but in accelerator beams, sputtering, etc. and fusion was too narrow a field to attract many papers. The change to the Plasma Science and Technology Division (PSTD), and the new by-laws, was approved by the Division membership and became official on January 1, 1986. The scope of the Division was expanded to include general plasma-materials interactions, plasma diagnostics, plasma-assisted etching and coating, and plasma processing technology. Robert Langley was the first chair of the expanded division.
In 1985, the LRPC suggested that a new Division be established based upon the activities of the E-42 Committee on Surface Analysis of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), which, for eight years, had sponsored joint technical sessions at AVS Symposia. The sessions at the 1984 Symposium in Reno had been very well attended and the LRPC foresaw a growing field. The by-laws of the new Applied Surface Science Division (ASSD) were approved in December 1985. Cedric Powell played a major role in its formation and was the first chair.
The VMD had organized its annual conference, ICMC, for several years but the costs had increased and its budget reserve in 1988 was only $40,000 whereas the conference budget was almost $250,000. The Division made a request to the Board, and received, a loan of $30,000 to provide the cash flow needed for the conference. VMD reported a $20,000 surplus from the ICMC in 1989 and, having established a much stronger financial situation, the loan was returned to AVS in 1990.
Several new chapters were formed during this era but several chapters found it difficult to maintain programs in the latter half of the decade as industrial research activity changed and reorganized. This led to the cancellation of annual symposia and some chapters ceased to operate. In 1980, the annual symposium of the Pacific Northwest Chapter had to be postponed for another reason, the eruption of Mt St Helens!
There were also some administrative changes during this era. In 1982, the Regional Area Groups existed only on paper but had no practical function since the Chapters reported directly to the Board. When the Uniform Chapter by-laws were revised in 1985, based on the recently revised New Mexico Chapter By-laws, the RAGs were deleted. After 1979, there was a one time charge of $10 for an additional chapter membership rather than an annual dues. In 1984, a Town Hall meeting was held in Florida to discuss the requirements to safeguard the Society’s tax-exempt status. Each chapter was invited to attend and present their financial structure and status; 18 of the 21 attended. A tax lawyer, John Taggart, from Windell, Max, Davis and Ives, a law firm used by AIP for over 30 years, presented the guidelines. He recommended that a chapter’s reserve should be 50% of annual expenses but anything over twice the annual expense should be forwarded to National. This was certainly not popular with certain chapters, and was not enforced!
In 1979, the By-laws of the Greater New York Chapter were changed to make it a general chapter instead of a chapter of the Thin Film Division. The new Arizona Chapter was approved in 1980 as recalled by Bill Kotke. “During the preceding winter, a small group of people gathered for an evening meeting hosted by Bill Dugger, a long time sales representative for Varian in the Southwest, with the aim of generating interest in the formation of an AVS chapter in Arizona. The AVS Board was contacted regarding our interest in forming a chapter and a convenient opportunity to present our idea came when the board was meeting in Albuquerque that spring in conjunction with the New Mexico Chapter’s annual symposium. Bill Dugger volunteered to appear before the board, since he would be in attendance at the vendor exhibit anyway. Bill often recalled how he was grilled by Charlie Duke regarding the viability of a Chapter in Arizona. Nonetheless, the Arizona Chapter was born.“ A vacuum technology course by Bill Brunner in the fall of that year provided income for the organization of the first annual symposium at the Safari Resort in Scottsdale in the spring of 1981. The timing was chosen to help entice people from colder climates to attend!. Although the three day long symposium format worked well in the beginning, it soon became apparent that attendance at such a lengthy event could not be maintained. Over the years the Chapter’s symposium evolved into a shorter event. During the late 80s and early 90s there was heavy involvement from students and faculty at Arizona’s three major universities (University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona State University in Tempe, and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff).
The Tennessee Valley Chapter was formed in 1979 and encompassed Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. It was launched following a petition submitted to the Board by twelve members located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The first organizational meeting was held on May 9, 1979 with Edward Stickle serving as the first Chair, and the fledgling chapter’s first dinner meeting was held on June 14 with the AVS President, C. B. Duke, as the guest speaker. The first election occurred in November of 1979 with Ed Stickle elected Chair and John Noonan Vice-Chair.
The Western Pennsylvania Chapter was formed in 1987. Jack Singleton recalls that the initial impetus came from Irwin Richman of Advent Associates, Ltd. in the spring of 1987. A questionnaire, sent to the approximately 125 AVS members living in the Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia area, elicited a typical 20% response, all in favor of the concept. The petition for the formation of the chapter was accepted by the AVS Board of Directors in the fall of 1987. Irwin Richman was the provisional Chair, pending a chapter election. An inaugural dinner meeting, with Joseph Greene as the speaker, was held on March 1998, with 39 people in attendance. The Chapter hosted two further dinner meetings, and a program of three short courses in that first year. In addition, a one day symposium on “Deposition of Diamond and Diamond-Like Carbon” was organized at Pennsylvania State University by Russell Messier and S.V. Chrishnaswamey and attracted about 100 attendees. The chapter was off to a great start. In each of the following years, through 1997, the Chapter successfully hosted one or more dinner meetings, and an annual short course offering, plus a number of one-day symposia and some plant visits.
The Ohio Chapter was formed in 1980 but the transfer of members left the Indiana Chapter with only 32 members! Since 1987, the Ohio Chapter was run as two groups based in Cleveland and Dayton respectively.
The Texas Chapter was formed in 1981.
In 1983, the ANL/NAL Chapter was renamed the Illinois Chapter. In 1987, the North Central Chapter was renamed the Michigan Chapter; the original name was inappropriate after the formation of the Ohio and Wisconsin chapters.
In 1985, the Pacific Northwest Chapter made a donation to the Portland Community College and the chair, Mike Bayne, presented a plaque to commemorate the event; the college requested that this be retained by the Chapter.
In March 1986, 40 people attended a Town Hall meeting in San Jose, on the day before a Board meeting, to discuss Chapter and Division issues. One result was that the Society booth at the1987 symposium was staffed by representatives from the Chapters and Divisions, who took short shifts, in an attempt to encourage interactions with the attendees.
In 1987 The Northern California Chapter initiated an effort to fund a facility at the Valley Campus of Chabot College (now Las Positas College) in Livermore, to be dedicated to the teaching of vacuum technology. The chapter initially made a substantial cash contribution to the fund. By November of that year the fund exceeded its goal by virtue of a single contribution from the MDC Vacuum Products Corporation. This left the Chapter free to concentrate its efforts to equip the new facility. A second initiative of the Chapter was a long-time commitment to The Exploratorium in San Francisco, for help in the design and procurement of the exhibits in the areas of interest to the Society. In 1986 the Northern California Chapter assembled a series of experiments in vacuum technology for use at the high-school level, which proved very popular. In 1989, the Chapter offered training to other chapters in running a business office and organizing one-day meetings; it would even pay the travel costs to the Bay area! Both the Rocky Mountain and Mid-Atlantic Chapters were planning to set up business offices and took up the offer.
The Greater New York Chapter reported very poor attendance at a number of one-day symposia in 1989 and, as a result, had decided to scale back their meetings. This corresponded to a change in the industrial landscape in the area; RCA had closed down and Bell Labs were split up and reorganized. However, in 1990, the chapter organized a Saturday Science Club, which was described in a Newsletter article, and the members involved came from SRI and AT&T, which were formerly RCA and Bell Labs.
In 1990, G. Chen informed the Board that the Wisconsin Chapter was inactive and should transfer its remaining funds to AVS. Caroline Aita, who had ended her term as Chapter Chair in 1986, noted that she had been unable to find a successor. The Central Indiana Chapter could also not find a volunteer in 1990.
In 1987, Tim Simpson, who was involved in videotaping courses, was planning to form an AVS chapter in Australia but the Board informed him that they would not recognize a chapter outside North America. In 1988, the LRPC suggested that student chapters be initiated but it was not until 2002 that these were approved in the AVS By-laws.
Government Interactions
During this Era, the Society has had two unfortunate interactions with agencies of the United States government as a consequence of strained East-West relationships.
A major problem involved the “First International Conference on Bubble Memory Materials and Process Technology” in 1980, which was organized by the Society. In February, 1980, and in the March Newsletter, John Vossen reported that the State and Commerce Departments had raised the issue of foreign national attendance and he had assured them that AVS would comply with reasonable rules. However, the guidelines developed by the Commerce, State, Justice and Energy Departments and Intelligence Committee stated that individuals and their employers would be held accountable for releasing information not already in the public domain; their definition of an “open” meeting was that only material already in the public domain could be presented. This was detailed in the State Department ITAR regulations published in the C&E News of January 5, 1981. In the March Newsletter, John noted that, on the grounds that oral exchanges of sensitive information constituted proscribed export of technical information, AVS was ordered to “dis-invite” all registrants from Eastern Europe and China, which was done but three Chinese registrants had already left. They were not allowed by the FBI agents in Santa Barbara to attend the first day of the conference. However, the State Department did not want to antagonize China and were to be allowed to enter on the second day but only if they signed a “letter of assurance”. This letter had been dictated by the Department of Commerce and all non-US citizens had to sign it; it was an agreement to withhold any information from nationals of eighteen countries, including China! When it was reported in the press that the Chinese had signed, the Chinese mission in New York sent agents to arrest the three Chinese for treason! John informed the mission that they had not signed the letter!
This affair has been discussed in detail by Vossen, who gives a thorough analysis of the problems involved in the control of information transfer. This incident was the beginning of a confrontation between government agencies and the whole scientific community, in which the government sought to hold the sponsors of conferences responsible for controlling both the attendance and the content of the papers presented. In the July, 1981 Newsletter, Ted Madey commented that the ITAR restrictions should permit open technical conferences since the government’s main concern was the release of detailed manufacturing information, which was well protected by the industries. However, a SPIE meeting in August, 1982 was essentially ruined by the forced withdrawal of about 100 papers because of this issue.
It may now be hard for people to understand why the US government agencies were so concerned about the magnetic bubble conference but, at the time, this technology was being touted as a major breakthrough for computer memory. This is a good example of the inability of scientists and bureaucrats alike to forecast how the technology world evolves! Although there was much discussion as to whether AVS should participate in the Second International Conference on Bubble Memory Materials and Process Technology in 1981, the Board agreed to do so; it was attended by 60 people, without incident.
At the 1983 Symposium in Boston, the Society suffered yet another unwanted interaction with a government agency. Late on the afternoon of Thursday, November 3, an East German physicist, Alfred Zehe, was arrested by the FBI on espionage charges. Zehe, an exchange scholar at the University of Puebla, in Mexico, was said to have been under surveillance for some time, and was alleged to be engaging in espionage. Subsequent information suggested that he was the victim of a “sting” operation, in which a civilian employee of the U.S. Navy had offered to sell classified information to German Democratic Republic (i.e. East Germany) embassies, first in Washington, D.C., and later in Mexico City. Zehe was reportedly asked by the G.D.R. embassy in Mexico City to evaluate the information as a technical expert; his presence at the Symposium appeared to be totally unconnected with the espionage charges. Although Zehe could have been picked up at any time, the FBI perhaps chose the Symposium as a high profile site to highlight the dangers of espionage. The fact that local television cameras were on hand to record the event adds some credence to this interpretation! Details of a number of somewhat bizarre incidents surrounding the arrest have been published [Physics Today, April 1980, p81; Science 222, 904 (1983)]. After the symposium, the FBI requested a copy of all Symposium registrations but AVS refused. After the arrest, Zehe was first held without bail for seven months and was then allowed to remain in an apartment in Boston while awaiting trial. In 1985, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of espionage and was then allowed to leave the country without trial. Ed Sickafus recounted the event in the March 1984 Newsletter and pointed out that the FBI could have walked into the Symposium and registered like anyone else but instead, prior to the Symposium, they demanded registrations under false names at the New York office! Nancy Hammond required that they register as did all attendees; they paid the registration fee in cash!
Perhaps reflecting these two incidents, AVS provided $2,000, in 1984, towards a study by the National Academies of Science and Engineering of “The Impact of National Security Controls on International Technical Transfer”!
Interactions with Societies
The main interaction with other societies in North America of course continued to be with AIP. The number of AVS representatives on the AIP Governing Board increased to three when the membership exceeded 5,000.
There were discussions with other organizations about cooperating in various ways. Some of these resulted in sessions at the Symposium or, as at the Symposium in Atlanta, parallel conferences. In 1981, AVS was a cooperating organization with SPIE for the International Technical Symposium and Instrument Display but AVS declined to co-sponsor with SPIE the 3rd Symposium on Optical Mass Storage in 1984 because it had insufficient interest for AVS members. In 1986, there was a meeting with SPIE to discuss restarting some cooperation which had broken off in 1983. However, in 1986, an offer from SPIE to co-sponsor a “Semiconductors and Semiconducting Structures” symposium was declined because the subject was too close to both EMPD interests and the PCSI conference topics.
In 1986, MRS suggested cooperation with AVS to provide a national voice on materials. There was already an association of twenty societies, not including MRS, in the Federation of Materials Societies (FMS), which was a 501.[c].(3) organization formed in 1972. In 1990, FMS invited AVS to become a member and Harland Tompkins represented AVS at the “11th Biennial Conference on National Materials Policy” organized by FMS. AVS did join the FMS in Era 4. Another group called “Materials Panel” was organized by H Kaufman with the intention of influencing government, but AVS chose not to be involved since this activity was already covered by the FMS. In 1989, a meeting was also held with the American Chemical Society, the American Ceramic Society and the Metallurgical Society, to discuss the formation of an umbrella organization for materials societies. While it was decided to attend any future meetings, it was clear that this was not an alternative to AIP membership.
International Interactions
The main IUVSTA interaction during this era was the hosting of the IVC and ECOSS with the Symposium in Baltimore in 1986. As a result of the success of that joint meeting, AVS made a total payment of over $100,000 to IUVSTA instead of the $25,000 which had been agreed prior to the meeting; this larger figure was half of the surplus from the meeting.
AVS members had a continuing part in the activities of IUVSTA. Jim Lafferty was President of IUVSTA from 1980-1983 and Ted Madey was Secretary General from 1986-89, when he was elected to be President for the 1992-5 triennium, and thus served as President Elect in 1989-92. Maurice Francombe served as the AVS Councillor from 1977 till he resigned in 1981 due to commitments at Westinghouse. Len Beavis was appointed to serve out the remainder of Maurice’s term and then served two more terms until 1989. When the IUVSTA statutes were altered in 1986 to permit an Alternate Councillor to represent the member society if the Councillor was unable to attend a meeting, John Thornton was appointed the Alternate Councillor for 1986-89, but he died in 1987.
AVS took over the administration of the IUVSTA Medard W Welch Scholarship in 1979 from the Institute of Physics in Britain. Peter Hobson was appointed Administrator, with the responsibility of publicizing the scholarship, vetting the applications and coordinating the selection of the scholar with the IUVSTA trustees. Bill Westwood took over from Peter in 1986; the files were moved from the east end to the west end of Ottawa! In 1983, Lyn Provo took over as editor of the IUVSTA Bulletin from the retiring editor, K. Poulter, and AVS agreed to pay the mailing cost, which was $2060 per year for the four issues.
A China/South America Interactions Committee was set up in 1980, with Ted Madey as chair, to deal with technical societies which were not IUVSTA members; this became the Foreign Interactions Committee in 1985 and then the International Interactions Committee in 2002, since “foreign” was considered politically incorrect. Ted Madey recalls that, in 1980, he spent considerable time putting together a list of members who spoke Spanish and Portuguese but he got no response when he sent the list to people in Latin America; he realized that the scientists there spoke English and wanted to hear the leading scientists, irrespective of language. When the committee was established, Brazil and Mexico were not IUVSTA members but the Brazil Vacuum Society (BVS) joined IUVSTA in 1980 and the Mexican Vacuum Society (MVS) in 1986. However, the Committee continued to deal mainly with these two societies. This has involved funding the travel of speakers and course instructors to the annual meetings of both the BVS and the MVS. Talks have been given by a number of people at many of these meetings and courses have been presented several times. In 1986, Larry Kazmerski translated his vugraphs into Portuguese for a course he presented at the BVS conference; he first had to learn Portuguese! In 1990, the Board voted to support only AVS members to attend these meetings; the MVS had invited non-AVS members as speakers and expected AVS to pay their expenses! The MVS were given permission in 1984 to translate the “Handbook of Vacuum Leak Detection" into Spanish. In 1987, there was a request from the MVS for used equipment to be used in universities and Len Brillson undertook to test whether this was possible with some surplus equipment from Xerox. Even before the equipment was ready for pick-up by the MVS, he experienced problems because US universities also wanted it! In fact, IBM had established a procedure for US universities to bid for used equipment. The Committee decided that there was no useful role for AVS in equipment transfers!
An interaction with China began after a copy of the JVST issue containing the proceedings of the 1980 Symposium was sent to the Chinese Vacuum Society (CVS). After a discussion between Ted Madey and the Chinese during the 1981 Symposium, an exchange of journals was arranged. In 1982, as part of a plan to encourage vacuum societies in developing countries, the Board agreed to an expenditure of up to $3,000 to send one or two people to a CVS meeting in China; it was expected that their institutions would pay some of the costs. However, the China-Taiwan issue again caused some concern and it was decided that it was prudent to have discussions with the CVS before sending anyone to China. After complaining about the mailing address used by Taiwan authors on their papers, the Chinese authors did not attend the 1983 Symposium. Their position was that they could not participate in a meeting in which the addresses suggested the existence of two Chinas or one China and one Taiwan. In 1985, there was a CVS request for AVS courses in China but there was no agreement on financial arrangements. In 1986, the CVS invited AVS to send seven or eight speakers to a joint symposium in Beijing in September, 1987; their expenses within China would be paid by the CVS. A “call for papers” in the Newsletter resulted in twelve speakers being selected; the President, President-Elect and Meetings Manager also attended. In the two and a half day “1st Chinese American Symposium on Vacuum & Surface Science”, eleven AVS and ten Chinese scientists presented papers; there were 100 Chinese attendees, 40 of them from Beijing. Paul Holloway recalls being surprised by the interest they showed; one old lady had traveled by train for 48 hours to attend! The CVS presented a flower painting on silk and a painting of the Great Wall to Marion Churchill for her assistance in the organization. In 1988, there was a proposal for a reciprocal meeting with the CVS, either during the ICMC or associated with a joint symposium of AVS and the Vacuum Society of Japan which was to be held in San Jose in March, 1989, along with the Northern California Chapter meeting. The CVS opted to participate in the San Jose meeting and AVS provided partial financial support for the Chinese speakers.
In 1989, there was a proposal from the USSR for a joint meeting in the same style as the Chinese interaction. There were actually two organizations in the USSR; the Soviet National Committee for Vacuum Science and Technology and the Section of Vacuum Apparatus and Instrument Construction. After a meeting with these two competing interests, there were no further action! In 1990, Jim Lafferty organized a “People to People” visit to the USSR by a delegation of 26 AVS members and spouses.
The annual President’s Address was published in JVST from 1979 to 1981 during the Era and is very useful as a historical record of AVS activities.
The 30th anniversary of the Society in 1983 was cause for some celebration and several activities were planned. One of these was a re-enactment of the Magdeburg Hemispheres demonstration, and a committee, chaired by Don Meyer, was set up in 1981 to make the arrangements. Boston’s Museum of Science and the New England Chapter of the AVS sponsored the re-enactment. They were informed that the original hemispheres could not leave the museum in Germany but that a replica was available. The replicas were displayed, prior to the Symposium, at Boston's Museum of Science and also at the Symposium, but they were not used for the demonstration because of the possibility of damaging them. Mars Hablanian oversaw the making of a steel demonstration pair that would withstand the re-enactment which took place on October 22, 1983, Ted Madey arranged to have the event recorded on video and the tape of the re-enactment was shown at the history exhibit during the Symposium. Six horses, three on each side, failed to separate the hemispheres on the first three attempts but they were successful on the fourth try. Fred Wehner had viewed a re-enactment in Magdeburg in 1981; the horses easily pulled the hemispheres apart! Fred noted that the horses were able to get good traction because sand had been put down especially for the re-enactment. He concluded that they did not separate in the original demonstration because the horses could not get good traction on the cobblestones and he believed that von Guericke must have taken this into account in staging the demonstration! Small glass versions of the hemispheres are displayed in the AVS office in New York. The 1983 re-enactment was described in detail by M. H. Hablanian and C.H. Hemeon in “Comments about Magdeburg Hemispheres Reenactment ”[“History of Vacuum Science and Technology”, eds. T.E. Madey and W.L. Brown (American Institute of Physics, 1984) p. 61-63]. An edited version, by T.E. Madey, provides details of the event.
A unique exhibit of historic vacuum apparatus, including the replica Magdeburg hemispheres, was on display, for six weeks prior to the Symposium, in the Museum of Science in Boston and, during the Symposium, in the Exhibit area. It included early vacuum pumps and chambers, X-ray tubes, mass spectrometers, etc. Some of the items were on loan from the Smithsonian Institution.
Ted Madey also suggested that interviews with founders of AVS should be recorded on video tape. Both MRS and AIP already had oral history programs and the former was supervised by a professor of history! Jim Lafferty took charge of this project and recorded a number of interviews with founders, past Presidents, Award winners, etc.
The History of Vacuum Science and Technology was published to commemorate the 30th anniversary of AVS; it was edited by Ted Madey and Bill Brown and contained the text of seven review talks, which were given at the Boston Symposium, on aspects of vacuum, photos of the historical equipment exhibit, and a collection of historical papers, including von Guericke’s account of the Magdeburg hemispheres experiment, a proposal for high speed transportation through a pneumatic tube, and a 1962 paper on “Ultrahigh Vacuum” by H.A. Steinhertz and P.A. Redhead.
In 1984, it was suggested that historical vacuum equipment should be collected for a possible future museum display. Some artifacts had already been collected by individual members and Ed Graper undertook to provide storage space at his facility in Goleta, California. Additional items were added to the collection in the next few years.
In 1986, Ted Madey purchased, on behalf of AVS, two historical books by Schotti and Papin. A Rare Books Committee was then formed to locate and purchase other books related to vacuum which were of historical interest; it was later absorbed by the Committee on Vacuum History, now the History Committee, when it was formed in 1987. In 1990, the Committee initiated planning for events for the 40th anniversary symposium in Orlando.
