Biographical Information for:
LAWRENCE H. JOHNSTON
Professor of Physics, emeritus,
University of Idaho, Moscow Idaho 83843
Born 1918, in China, of Presbyterian missionary parents.
Christian tendencies by osmosis, but committed My life to Jesus at
age 18. Failed to rebel against parental worldview..
Church preference: Presbyterian, when an evangelical one can be
found. Best I've found: First Pres Hollywood, First Pres Berkeley
Married, wife = Mildred (Hillis). 5 adult (now) children.
PROFESSIONAL
Wartime Research: (before finishing grad school)
1940-43, MIT Radiation Laboratory. Developing microwave radar.
"Ground-Controlled-Approach" radar blind landing system for air-
planes. US Patents 2,555,101 and 2,585,855 (with Luis Alvarez)
1944-45, Los Alamos Laboratory. Work on A-bombs
Invent exploding bridgewire detonators for coordinated timing of
the Implosion "Fat Man" type of bomb. US Patent 3,040,660
(This type bomb was used at Trinity test, and later dropped on Nagasaki)
Fly on B-29 missions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, measuring bomb
energy yields.
1945-50 Graduate School, U of Calif. at Berkeley. Ph.D. thesis:
Scattering of Protons by Protons. Thesis advisor: Luis Alvarez.
Development of the Alvarez-type proton linear accelerator, at
Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
1950-60 Department of Physics, University of Minnesota. Asst =>
assoc prof. Built a 68-Mev proton linear accelerator; did proton-
proton scattering experiments, to characterize the nucleon-
nucleon force profile.
1960-64 Physics Laboratory, Aerospace Corp. Learning the
techniques of Far Infrared Radiation phenomena.
1964-67 Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Working on building
2-mile long, 20GeV electron linear accelerator. Head of
Electronics Department.
1967-88 Professor, Department of Physics, U of Idaho. Nuclear
Physics, far infrared lasers; Molecular Spectroscopy in the
submillimeter wavelength region, using Stark effect. Development
of the HCN submillimeter wave molecular laser.
Retirement, 1988.
Honors:
Phi Beta Kappa
Elected Fellow, American Physical Society 1953
Elected Fellow, American Scientific Affiliation, about 1952
(but I let my membership lapse, so now I'm just a member!)
INTERESTS / ACTIVITIES IN RETIREMENT:
Camping, fishing, travel
Biblical Archeology: Two trips to Israel, Visiting Scholar at the
Albright Institute for Archeological Research, Jerusalem.
Promoted successfully a Geophysical Tomography technique
for Archeologists to "Look before you dig" (acoustic waves)
worked on a "dig", near Beth Shan.
Biology: guided study, seminars. Special interest in Origin of
Life studies
Intelligent Design Paradigm - I think this is a much more viable
explanation for the complexity of life's history than Darwinnian
mechanisms, which connot generate complex specified information,
as shown by the "No Free Lunch " theorems of Bioinformatics.
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Home Address: 917 E. 8th St, Moscow, Id 83843
phone: (208) 882 2765
email: <johnston@uidaho.edu>.
homepage: http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/
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