The Hamilton Lectures are an endowed series of public talks given
in honor of the late Donald Ross Hamilton.
Hamilton was an
atomic and nuclear experimental physicist, who made major
contributions to the Physics Department and to the
University.
Donald Hamilton was born on September 5, 1914 at Hartford, Vermont.
He attended public schools there, and in new York City, but his heart
lay in the rugged hills of West Virginia, his ancestral home. He was
graduated from Princeton in 1935 with highest honors and during his
whole subsequent career was a loyal and enthusiastic supporter of the
University. His Ph.D. degree he received in 1939 from Columbia University,
where he worked with Professor I.I. Rabi on an extremely difficult thesis
problem. He then spent a year at the Society of Fellows of Harvard
University. During World War II he was associated with the M.I.T.
Radiation Laboratory and with the Sperry Gyroscope Company. He
served his country by turning his scientific talents to the development
of microwave generators for radar purposes. his important contributions
are recorded in a volume of the Radiation laboratory Series of which he
is a co-author. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1946, was Cyrus Fogg
Brackett Professor of Physics from 1955 until 1957 and served as Dean of
the graduate School from 1958 and 1965 when failing health compelled him
to resign the appointment.
Donald Hamilton loved teaching and before he was laid low by his
physical affliction he was a great teacher. Even afterwards he
conducted lively seminars in his home for his thesis students.
His interests in research and teaching were not narrowly limited
to his own speciality, and he would subordinate his research
interests when he felt the call of other loyalties - to his
Country, to his University and to his Department. Thus is 1958
when he accepted the position of Dean of the Graduate School, it
was out of a sense of duty and loyalty and with the realization
that his position as a scientist would suffer.
Under his supervision, systematic growth of the Princeton
Graduate School was carried forward with full time enrollments
rising from about 800 to 1100. The first women were admitted as
degree candidates. Fellowship awards were more than doubled. new
graduate student housing was achieved. Fresh graduate programs
were begun in the Biochemical Sciences, Comparative Literature,
East Asian Studies, Linguistics, and Slavic Languages and
Literatures.
As Dean, Donald Hamilton had an influential hand in all these
developments. Here, as in other parts of his career, he was
interested in the pursuits of humanists no less than those of
scientists. He saw us all as engaged in a common cause, and he
sought always to support and strengthen that cause, the pursuit
of learning and the life of the mind, throughout the University.
His even quick and curious mind, his constant concern for others,
and the clarity and firmness of his judgment contributed much to
the central policy councils of the University during his
deanship.
Donald Hamilton contributed his talents to the support of the
Princeton University Press. He served on the Editorial Board for
four years and was a Trustee vigorously working for the welfare
of the Press from 1954 until his death.
His own characterization of physics as "the Queen of the Sciences
and most liberal of the Arts" epitomized his views. For Donald
Hamilton, physics was much more than a discipline to which he had
a professional commitment. He viewed the study of science as a
religious pursuit of the most fundamental of questions, the
nature of man's relationship to the Universe, while history was
for him the no less important study of man's relationship to man.
He once wrote of himself: "I am a physicist - one who communes
with nature, one who struggles to glimpse the great
invariants of
the Universe, a follower of humble men like Galileo and
Einstein. - But my love of nature in the abstract combines with a
fondness for the human race, that noblest of the phenomena of
nature."
Donald Hamilton's good influence among us as teacher, scholar,
administrator, and friend will continue to be felt for years to
come. He was a rare person whose memory will live long in the
hearts and minds of all who knew him.
The above is an excerpt from the "Memorial Service for Donald
Ross Hamilton", by H.S. Bailey, Jr., R.H. Dicke, R.F. Goheen and
A.G. Shenstone, 6 January 1972., ed. Robert L. Cope.
