After working eight additional years in various student/junior-researcher positions in physics after obtaining my B.S. degree at U-Mass-Lowell in 1961, it was with great pleasure and a benign relief to finish my doctoral thesis at the Pennsylvania State University, PSU, in the fall of 1969. A real whiz-kid might have accomplished the associated requirements in three to four years of effort, but I was not that whiz-kid. Much of this learning was a long slog that only a decided commitment – come hell or high water – could overcome.
I remain grateful for the kindness and the financial support that I received over the years from three PSU departments, namely, the staff at the Physics Department plus several professors in the Electrical Engineering and the Nuclear Engineering departments. Without their dedicated guidance, I might have ended up as “an also-ran”, but without a negotiable advanced degree in my pocket.
In many ways, a Ms. or a Ph.D. degree from an accredited university opens up career opportunities to the new graduate that simply would not exist otherwise. In my case, it meant work experience at the Lawrence-Livermore Radiation Laboratory followed by a one-year stint at the Max-Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, and, later, an opening career at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque.
I, sometimes, pinch myself in disbelief that a poor, street urchin born on the wrong side of the street in Lowell, Massachusetts, and raised by under-educated, French-Canadian parents could make it through the many hassles that children of recent immigrants often experience. Yet, this transformation did happen with the goodwill of an important, but small, number of dedicated helpers including my parents, Claire (Charbonneaau) Bolduc and Alexander Bolduc. Of course, the folks at the Lowell Technological Institute, LTI, also spurred me on with four years of challenging instruction into the world of science, math, and engineering.
Finally, the proof of the pudding in such an academic adventure is to produce peer-reviewed papers published in international scientific journals such as the Physics of Fluids and the Journal of Applied Physics.
Two such examples are given below.
A) Interaction of an Obliquely Incident p-Polarized Plane Electromagnetic Wave with a Hot Plasma Half-Space by P. E. Bolduc and E. H. Klevans, Physics of Fluids, Vol. 14, No. 2, February 1971, (p 378 – p 386)
B) Magnetic Focusing of a Relativistic Electron Beam: Experiment by P. E. Bolduc & E. L. Patterson, Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 43, No. 10, 1972
Note: The second cited reference given above can be expanded by any reader having an annual subscription to the magazine called the “Journal of Applied Physics”. This expanded view is shown below.
ABSTRACT
A magnetic mirror is used to control and focus a 2.0‐MeV 70‐kA electron beam. Mirror ratios of 3.7 and 5.9 and magnetic fields of 2.0, 2.5, and 5.0 kilo-Gauss are used. 500‐μ air pressure is used in the drift tube to minimize the beam’s electrostatic and magnetic self‐forces. The surface‐energy deposition in a sample placed at the peak of the 3.7 to 1 bottle is approximately twice as large as that obtained with beam self‐focusing without an external field. The fluence and energy as a function of axial position in the region of low‐gradient Bz agree with the results of adiabatic theory and are found to be independent of magnetic field strength and nearly independent of mirror ratio for the selected ranges. Reproducibility in delivered energy, fluence, and surface‐energy deposition is significantly greater than that obtained without an external magnetic field. The induced Bz field due to beam rotation or plasma diamagnetism is approximately 1% of the applied field.
REFERENCES
1. A. J. Toepfer, Phys. Rev. A 3, 1444 (1971). Google ScholarCrossref
2. M. Andrews, J. Bzura, H. Fleischmann, and N. Rostoker, Phys. Fluids 13, 1322 (1970). Google ScholarScitation
3. H. Davitian, J. Bzura, W. Gardner, S. Linke, I. Vitkovitsky, and L. Levine, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 15, 1452 (1970). Google Scholar
4. J. R. Freeman and J. W. Poukey, following paper, J. Appl. Phys. 43, 4010 (1972). Google ScholarScitation
5. D. L. Johnson, Record of 11th Symposium on Electron, Ion and Laser Beam Technology (San Francisco Press, San Francisco, 1971), p. 445. Google Scholar
6. T. H. Martin, Sandia Laboratories Report No. SC‐RR‐69‐241, 1969 (unpublished). Google Scholar
7. K. Siegbahn, Alpha, Beta and Gamma Ray Spectroscopy (North‐Holland, Amsterdam, 1966), Vol. 1, p. 4. Google Scholar
8. D. A. Hammer, W. F. Oliphant, I. M. Vitkovitsky, and V. Fargo, J. Appl. Phys. 43, 58 (1972). Google ScholarScitation
9. F. C. Perry and L. D. Buxton, Record of 11th Symposium on Electron, Ion and Laser Beam Technology (San Francisco Press, San Francisco, 1971), p. 81. Google Scholar
10. J. E. Boers, Record of 11th Symposium on Electron, Ion and Laser Beam Technology (San Francisco Press, San Francisco, 1971), p. 527. Google Scholar
© 1972 The American Institute of Physics.Typical Summary of a Scientific Paper Appearing in a Journal Article
For any reaader, who might not be familiar with the accepted protocols of science-based magazines, these are outlined below:
1) A brief title, which describes for the reader, the overall issues and concepts related to the paper.
2) An abstract, which details the critical conditions under which the experiment was conducted or, in the case of a theoretical study, the principal physical/chemical assumptions regarding the work. In the present case, these details would include the temperature, pressure, radiaion levels in rads, a calorimetric measurement, magnetic and electric field strengths, peak accelerator voltage and maximum pulsed currents, all associated with the study.Finally, the results or conclusions of the work are spelled out in a summary fashion.
3) A list of related studies (References), which the reader can use to evaluate the pros and cons of the present study in comparison with other published results.
Final Comment
Over the past century and longer, these protocols have become the standards of scientific and engineering reporting to the whole wide world.