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MSS 94
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Title: Keith A. Brueckner Papers
Identifier/Call Number: MSS 94
Contributing Institution:
Mandeville Special Collections Library
La Jolla, California 92093-0175
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
18.4 Linear feet
50 archives boxes
Date (inclusive): 1949 - 1983
Abstract: Keith A. Brueckner (1924- ), a theoretical physicist, has worked in academia and as a consultant to government and industry.
His research has focused on many-body theory and laser fusion. Throughout his career, Brueckner has consulted with numerous
federal and private agencies on research related to national defense.The bulk of the material was created during the 1970s.
Correspondence, memoranda, reports, financial records, contracts and proposals, notes and calculations, lectures, itineraries,
and calendars form this collection. Administrative materials, such as memoranda, financial records, and itineraries relating
to Brueckner's responsibilities at UCSD and KMS form the largest parts of the collection.
Creator:
Brueckner, Keith A.
Additional material related to Keith Brueckner can be found in RSS 1009, Administrative Records of Keith A. Brueckner, located
in the Mandeville Special Collections Library, UCSD.
Scope and Content of Collection
The Keith A. Brueckner Papers date from 1949 to 1983 and consist primarily of administrative and financial records: memos,
reports, professional correspondence, contracts, vouchers, expense statements, and travel itineraries generated from Brueckner's
duties in three major capacities -- as instructor, administrator and research scientist at UCSD; as consultant for government
and industry; and as Technical Director with KMS, a private corporation whose scientific pursuits included laser research.
Series Descriptions
The Keith A. Brueckner Papers are organized into the following ten series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL; 2) CORRESPONDENCE; 3)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO; 4) PROPOSALS; 5) WRITINGS, TALKS AND LECTURES; 6) CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS; 7) ORGANIZATIONS;
8) CONSULTING; 9) KEITH A. BRUECKNER AND ASSOCIATES; and 10) KMS.
SERIES 1: BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL
This series contains Brueckner's employment information (including biographies and job applications), calendars from 1967-1977,
awards, and news clippings documenting his work as a prominent theoretical physicist and UCSD campus administrator.
SERIES 2: CORRESPONDENCE
The CORRESPONDENCE series is arranged chronologically from 1959-1984. This series includes requests for reprints, permission
to duplicate published articles and figures, inquiries and responses to physics problems, and correspondence regarding Brueckner's
role as Dean of the School of Science and Engineering and as Vice President and Director of Research at the Institute of Defense
Analysis. Correspondence is also located in the CONSULTING series, KABA series and KMS series. Correspondence regarding Brueckner's
involvement with JASON can be found in the Institute for Defense Analysis correspondence (CONSULTING series).
SERIES 3: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
This series is divided into four subseries: A) Administrative Materials, B) Committees, C) Course Materials, and D) Subject
Files.
A) The Administrative materials subseries consists of graduate student, postdoc and visiting professor files, and Brueckner's
travel records.
B) The Committees subseries contains meeting minutes and documents from UC system-wide committees and from committees exclusive
to UCSD with which Brueckner was involved. Material in this subseries was generated between 1967 and 1977 and includes material
from the Academic Senate - San Diego Division, the UC Academic Planning Committee and the UC Board of Patents.
C) Brueckner's course material, from classes he taught between 1966 and 1977, includes lecture notes, exams, homework problems,
and course summaries. Also included in this subseries are UCSD Physics Department materials regarding Professor Meldner's,
Professor Ma's, and Professor Chen's courses between 1971 and 1977.
D) The fourth subseries contains security information, news clippings regarding the campus, a written history of the Institute
for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences, records from Brueckner's personal library, and miscellaneous notes.
Files related to Brueckner's laser research at UCSD's Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Sciences (IPAPS) may be found
in the CONSULTING series, Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) materials.
SERIES 4: PROPOSALS
This series is arranged into 9 subseries, alphabetically by the name of the organization with which Brueckner had proposal
contracts. Contained in this series are administrative records from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the Army
Research Office (ARO), the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the Austin Research Association (ARA), the Department of Energy
(DOE), the Energy Research and Development Association (ERDA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Office of Naval
Research (ONR). The final subseries in this series contains proposal evaluations written by Brueckner. Other proposals are
located in the KMS series.
SERIES 5: WRITINGS, TALKS AND LECTURES
This series is arranged into five subseries: A) Manuscripts and Typescripts, B) Classified Reports, C) Reprints, D) Referee
Reports, and E) Publisher's Files. Brueckner's manuscripts, typescripts and reprints are arranged alphabetically by title
and were written/published between 1964 and 1981.
The Classified Reports subseries does not contain written reports. Included in this subseries is a bibliography of Brueckner's
classified reports, a distribution list, inventories, logs, and receipts of classified reports prepared for the Institute
for Defense Analysis and UCSD.
The Referee Reports subseries contains reports by Brueckner on papers and theses that were written between 1975 and 1977.
The final subseries, Publisher's Files, contain material regarding Brueckner's editorial duties with Academic Press (1963-1976),
negotiations with publishers and royalty statements (1963-1968). Writings may also be found in the KMS series.
SERIES 6: CONFERENCES AND MEETINGS
This series includes administrative materials from conferences and meetings that Brueckner attended between 1964 and 1981.
Materials are arranged alphabetically by the name of the sponsoring institution or organization and include invitations, brochures,
travel arrangements, and correspondence regarding his attendance. Manuscripts from presentations at conferences and meetings
are located in series five, WRITINGS, TALKS AND LECTURES. Meetings and conferences may also be found in the KMS series.
SERIES 7: ORGANIZATIONS
This series contains Brueckner's membership records from the many organizations with which he was affiliated from 1961 to
1980. Arranged alphabetically by the name of the organization, this series includes material from the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, American Alpine Club, American Institute of Physics, American Physical Society, National Academy of Sciences,
and the National Research Council.
SERIES 8: CONSULTING
This series documents Brueckner's consultation contracts with various government departments, including federal advisory committees
as well as private corporations. Arranged alphabetically, this series contains Brueckner's administrative records and correspondence
from over 30 organizations with material dating from the mid 1950s to 1980. Also included in this series, filed within the
Institute of Defense Analysis correspondence, is correspondence regarding Brueckner's involvement with the government sponsored
research group JASON.
SERIES 9: KEITH A. BRUECKNER AND ASSOCIATES
This series contains general accounting records, correspondence and writings from Brueckner's consulting business KABA. Included
in this series are expenses and reports for contracts with Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), La Jolla Institute,
Physical Dynamics, Inc.(PDI), UCSD, and Xonics, Inc. The majority of KABA's consulting dealt with fusion research.
SERIES 10: KMS
This series contains all of the files kept on KMS at Brueckner's KMS office and is the largest series in this collection.
This series is arranged into six subseries: A) Administrative Files, B) Conferences and Meetings, C) Correspondence, D) Divisions
and Subsidiaries, E) Subject Files and F) Writings, Talks and Lectures.
A) KMS Administrative Files subseries consists patent files, Brueckner's time cards and travel records.
B) The second subseries, Conferences and Meetings, contains invitations, brochures, administrative material, and correspondence
relating to conferences and meetings Brueckner attended from 1972 to 1974.
C) The KMS Correspondence subseries is arranged chronologically with letters dating from 1969 to 1975.
D) The Divisions and Subsidiaries subseries contains material from four organizations affiliated with KMS: KMS Fusion, KMS
Heliodyne, KMS Industries, and KMS Technology Center. Brueckner was named technical director of the Heliodyne division of
KMS in 1968. Heliodyne merged with three other KMS divisions in 1969 to create the KMS Technology Center. In 1971, Brueckner
was appointed executive vice president and technical director of the Fusion division. Records from each division contain administrative
files, travel records, annual reports, memos, proposals, and contracts with other agencies. Material regarding Brueckner's
involvement with the government research group SEESAW is located in the KMS Technology Center files with the Advanced Reseach
Projects Agency (ARPA) materials.
E) KMS Subject Files subseries contains miscellaneous notes and proposals, energy statements given by Senate and White House
officials and news clippings regarding KMS.
F) The Writings, Talks and Lectures subseries consists of handwritten and typed manuscripts, written between 1968 and 1977,
and arranged alphabetically by title. Bibliographies of unclassified and classified materials, receipts for classified materials
and abstracts from an APS meeting in 1975 are located at the end of this subseries.
Keith Allen Brueckner was born in Minneapolis on March 19, 1924. He earned a B.A. and M.A. in mathematics from the University
of Minnesota in 1945 and 1947 and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1950. Brueckner's career
as a theoretical physicist has been divided between academia, industry, and service to the U.S. government, serving the roles
of teacher, administrator, researcher, and consultant. His research has focused on many-body physics and laser fusion.
Brueckner was on the physics faculties at Indiana University (1951-1955) and the University of Pennsylvania (1956-1959) before
coming to the University of California, San Diego, in 1959. At UCSD, he was responsible for recruiting faculty to the new
campus and setting up the curriculum for the School of Science and Engineering. Among his other administrative responsibilities,
Brueckner was Director of the Institute of Radiation Physics and Aerodynamics and, later, Director of the Institute for Pure
and Applied Physical Sciences. (See the guide to the Administrative Records of Keith A. Brueckner, 1959-1970, RSS 1009, for
more information on his administrative duties at UCSD.)
Outside the academy, Brueckner has been a consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA),
RAND, Convair, and the Scientific Advisory Boards of the U.S. Air Force, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
and other agencies related to national defense research. He was Vice President and Director of Research at IDA in 1961 and
1962. He was also active in industry through his offices at KMS (Keeve M. Siegel) from 1968 to 1974 and his own consulting
business, Keith A. Brueckner and Associates (1974-1978).
Brueckner is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
and was the 1963 recipient of the American Physical Society's Dannie Heinemann Prize. He is currently professor emeritus in
the UCSD Physics Department.
Keith A. Brueckner Papers, MSS 94. Mandeville Special Collections Library, UCSD.
Not Available
Forms containing social security numbers, located in SERIES 3: CONSULTING, are restricted for the life of the donor.
Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Institute for Defense Analysis.
JASON.
Keith A. Brueckner and Associates.
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
United States. Advanced Research Projects Agency.
University of California, San Diego -- Administration -- Archives.
University of California, San Diego -- Faculty -- Archives
University of California, San Diego. Dean of Letters and Sciences.
University of California, San Diego. Dept. of Physics.
University of California, San Diego. School of Science and Engineering.
Laser fusion
Lasers
Many body problem
Physicists--Biography
Physics -- Research
Physics -- Study and teaching