Industrialist Ivor Eintvold was something of an amateur scientist himself. He endowed the foundation that bore his name with ample funds for extensive research in the new physics. It occupied a large new building on the outskirts of Boston and was loosely affiliated with one of the nearby universities. Eintvold had established the foundation shortly after the Great War in an effort to give science a free hand to develop without having to fulfill military commitments. The only stipulation he made with respect to the investigations into the new physics pursued there under his auspices was that he be informed of any discoveries having commercial possibilities.
Originally Dr. Pearson’s position in the foundation was designated as research assistant in which capacity he and other assistants worked with Dr. C. T. Lambertsen in his pioneer investigation into gamma rays. For three years they sought to unravel the basic nature and properties of these electromagnetic emissions, which are the primary and most obvious characteristic of radioactivity. As any radioactive substance breaks down into more stable elements, there is an emission of “pure” electromagnetic energy in the form of gamma rays that possess a remarkable penetrating power. For a long while scientists were unable to verify experimentally that any weight was actually lost in the reduction of radioactive substances, a weight loss which one would expect from Einstein’s formula e=mc2. Already Steve had, with others, postulated the existence of subatomic particles to account for this very minute weight loss and several other phenomena. The whole issue involved him deeply until 1929 when, partially as a result of their work, the government of the United States began using gamma rays to detect internal defects in opaque objects. In that same year Dr. Lambertsen died and Dr. Pearson stepped into his position as research physicist, heading a team of brilliant young assistants and dividing his time now between the study of cosmic rays and the study of the structure of nuclei. Their previous work with gamma rays had laid the groundwork for the field toward which most of the world’s theoretical physicists were now turning their attention.
During Stephan Pearson’s school years most physicists had assumed that cosmic rays were electromagnetic waves on the order of X-rays and gamma rays. But in 1927, just as Steve was beginning his research into gamma rays, an Amsterdam physicist proved that they were particles because they responded to the latitude effect. Around the turn of the decade a world survey was being carried out to determine the exact nature and intensity of cosmic rays and their possible influence on life on earth. Dr. Pearson and his team were major players in this survey.
The results of the survey were fascinating in and of themselves and led to several discoveries of special interest to nuclear physicists. Among other things, it was ascertained that cosmic rays are composed of 92% ordinary protons, 7.5% alpha rays (i.e. helium nuclei), and 0.5% heavier nuclei which all together impact on the earth’s atmosphere with an energy equal to the average starlight. These rather commonplace particles are, however, traveling at accelerated velocities which to this day cannot be approximated even in the largest accelerating equipment made by man. Furthermore (and this was of particular interest to nuclear physicists), very few of these original particles ever reach earth because they collide in the upper atmosphere with other particles and produce a secondary radiation that does reach the earth. Today we know that the Van Allen Belt also runs some interference for the earth. At any rate, this secondary radiation revealed to scientists for the first time a number of previously unknown particles, including a positive electron (i.e. a particle with the same mass as an electron but having a positive charge), so-called “V-particles” which have a mass greater than the mass of protons, and later eight or ten varieties of mesons. In addition, these upper atmospheric collisions form free neutrons which bombard surrounding matter to produce radioactive elements such as H3 and C14. By this examination of the atmosphere, scientists were set on the trail of many phenomena later to be discovered also in the nucleus of the atom, and several possibilities for methods of examining nuclei were suggested to them. The cyclotron, for example, was a noteworthy result of observing the effect of neutrons on surrounding material in secondary radiation.
Dr. Pearson worked assiduously on behalf of this survey and followed its proceedings with keen concern. It occurred to him that whereas Dr. Einstein had associated particles (photons) with light waves, a wave nature now had to be associated with particles. Beams of electrons were behaving like light, responding to defraction and the interference effect. The more involved he became in his work with nuclei, the more he realized how indebted he was to his earlier study of relativity with Dr. Einstein in Germany. For the particles with which he was now dealing were moving at such high velocities that they required the correction of relativity to be analyzed accurately.
For fourteen years Dr. Stephan Pearson was on the front lines of research through his association with the Eintvold Foundation. His colleagues, especially Dr. A. E. Niessen, his only close friend during this period, all assert that he labored with undeterred diligence, as though driven by an inner compulsion. They say that although he was engaged in what could be termed “pure research,” he never lost sight of the potential benefits for mankind of what he was doing. This perspective betrayed itself in virtually everything he wrote, even in unapologetically complex publications intended only for the eyes of fellow scientists. I certainly make no pretense of having unraveled the technical content of the main body of his works, but I can easily discern what I might call a prophetic tinge to them. In his three books and the numerous articles dating from this period in his life, he invariably gets around to a consideration of the practical application of their research to some aspect or aspects of human well-being. He did have the satisfaction of living long enough to see some of these projected benefits become realities.
Aided by his dedicated famulus, Dr. Niessen, and his entire team, he made bold strides into the unknown and probed into many mysteries that had beggared explanation until then. There is a bit of the romantic in every research scientist, whether he wants to admit it or not. And that element of the romantic is woven around the fact that the nature of his work demands the same unwavering devotion demanded by a true and lasting love affair.