Ernest Ambler

Ernest Ambler was born on November 20, 1923, in Bradford, Yorkshire, England.⁠[1][2]

The family obituary published in The Island Packet gives the birthplace as Queensbury, Bradford.⁠[3]

The White House announcement of November 10, 1977, says only that he was born in Yorkshire, England.⁠[4]

In his 1991 retrospective talk he said that when he was a boy his father took him to watch Yorkshire county cricket matches.⁠[5]

He took his B.A., M.A. and doctorate at the University of OxfordUniversity of OxfordThe University of Oxford is a university in Oxford, England, where teaching existed in some form by 1096; it describes itself as the oldest university in the English-speaking world and is organised as a federal system of the university and dozens of self-governing colleges.Open the full entry. The White House release of May 28, 1976, has him attending New College, with the B.A. in 1945, the M.A. in 1949 and the doctorate in 1953; the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s biography calls the 1953 degree a D.Phil. James Schooley’s obituary of Ralph P. HudsonRalph P. HudsonRalph P. Hudson (1924–2016) was a British-born American low-temperature physicist who joined the National Bureau of Standards in 1951, headed its Cryogenic Physics Section and then its Heat Division, and was one of the four bureau physicists who carried out the cobalt-60 parity experiment of 1956–1957 with Chien-Shiung Wu. From 1980 to 1989 he was Director of Publications at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures in France and editor of the journal Metrologia.Open the full entry says instead that while Hudson was studying at Merton College, Ernest Ambler was there too, following a similar path toward the D.Phil.⁠[1][4][2][6]

He did his D.Phil. work at Oxford with Professor Nicholas Kurti, under whom Ralph P. Hudson also worked in the Clarendon Laboratory; Hudson later described him as a graduate of Oxford’s “cryonuclear physics” research program.⁠[6][7]

In 1953 the Philosophical Magazine, volume 44, pages 216–218, carried the paper “Nuclear Polarization of Cobalt 60” by E. Ambler, M. A. Grace, H. Halban, N. Kurti, H. Durand, C. E. Johnson and H. R. Lemmer.⁠[7]

The family obituary gives the 1953 degree as a PhD in physics from Oxford University.⁠[3]

In the year he received his doctorate he was recruited by the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., where he joined the Cryogenic Physics Section to assist in physics research at extremely low temperatures by the adiabatic demagnetization of paramagnetic samples.⁠[8][2][9]

James F. Schooley’s history of the bureau states that Ralph P. Hudson was instrumental in bringing him there.⁠[8]

He first came as a Special Research Fellow and worked in the Low Temperature Physics Laboratory under Ferdinand Brickwedde.⁠[5][10]

The family obituary says he moved to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry to work in the Cryogenic Physics Section.⁠[3]

James Schooley’s obituary of Ralph P. Hudson says that Ferdinand Brickwedde planned for Hudson and him to work with Dirk de Klerk, a docent of physics at Leiden University who came to the bureau on a one-year visit to supervise the installation of a magnetic cooling facility in the Low Temperature building; the installation occupied the team for more than a year.⁠[6]

His papers with Ralph P. Hudson and Georges M. Temmer, “Alignment of Cerium-141 and Neodymium-147 Nuclei” and “Alignment of Three Odd-A Rare-Earth Nuclei,” appeared in the Physical Review in 1955 and 1956; Hudson wrote that Temmer played an important part in establishing the Cryogenic Physics Section’s nuclear orientation program.⁠[7]

The obituary adds that the two enjoyed about a decade of successful collaboration at the bureau, and David Lide’s remembrance in the same newsletter recalls many pleasant hours spent with Hudson and Ernie Ambler in the Low Temperature Building.⁠[6]

In 1956 Tsung-Dao LeeTsung-Dao LeeTsung-Dao Lee (1926–2024) was a Shanghai-born American physicist who taught for decades at Columbia University. In 1956 he and Chen Ning Yang proposed that parity might not be conserved in weak interactions, for which they shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics; from the 1970s he helped advance high-energy physics and the training of physicists in China.Open the full entry of Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry and Chen Ning YangChen Ning YangChen Ning Yang (1922–2025) was a theoretical physicist born in Hefei, Anhui, China, who shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics with Tsung-Dao Lee for their investigation of the parity laws. In 1954 he and Robert L. Mills formulated non-Abelian gauge theory (Yang–Mills theory), and he worked in turn at the Institute for Advanced Study, Stony Brook University and Tsinghua University.Open the full entry of the Institute for Advanced Study proposed experiments to test whether parity is conserved in weak interactions. Chien-Shiung Wu of Columbia University worked with Ernest Ambler, Raymond W. HaywardRaymond W. HaywardRaymond W. Hayward (1921–2001) was a nuclear physicist at the National Bureau of Standards of the United States. In 1956–1957, with Chien-Shiung Wu, Ernest Ambler, Dale D. Hoppes and Ralph P. Hudson, he carried out the cobalt-60 beta-decay experiment that showed parity is not conserved in weak interactions.Open the full entry, Dale D. HoppesDale D. HoppesDale D. Hoppes (born 1928) was a nuclear physicist at the National Bureau of Standards of the United States (later the National Institute of Standards and Technology), where he later led the Radioactivity Group. In 1956–1957, with Chien-Shiung Wu, Ernest Ambler, Raymond W. Hayward and Ralph P. Hudson, he carried out the cobalt-60 beta-decay experiment that showed parity is not conserved in weak interactions.Open the full entry and Ralph P. Hudson of the National Bureau of Standards on a beta-decay experiment with cobalt-60 in the bureau’s low-temperature laboratory.⁠[11][9]

Chien-Shiung Wu first approached Henry Boorse of Columbia University and Mark W. Zemansky of the City College of New York, who suggested that she contact Ernest Ambler; the Cryogenic Physics Section in which he worked was then headed by Ralph P. Hudson.⁠[7][12]

The National Academy of Sciences memoir of Chien-Shiung Wu calls her collaborators at the bureau “experts in low-temperature spin polarization.”⁠[13]

He shared the cryogenic work of the experiment with Ralph P. Hudson, while Raymond W. Hayward and Dale D. Hoppes did the radiation physics.⁠[8]

The cobalt-60 lay in a surface layer 50 micrometers thick on a single crystal of cerium magnesium nitrate. The crystal sat in an evacuated flask inside a liquid-helium Dewar surrounded by liquid nitrogen and was cooled by adiabatic demagnetization; the field of a solenoid polarized the nuclei, and reversing its current reversed the direction of polarization. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s account has the crystal cooled to within 0.003 degrees of absolute zero.⁠[11]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s page dates Lee and Yang’s survey of the experimental evidence on parity to the summer of 1956; Ralph P. Hudson’s retrospective article dates it to early 1956.⁠[11][7]

James Schooley’s obituary of Hudson says that he and Hudson had done nuclear orientation work in the cryogenics laboratory but had never detected beta particles inside the cryostat; after checking feasibility with Raymond W. Hayward and Dale D. Hoppes, the bureau’s beta-decay experts, the two agreed to give it “the old college try,” and the four-man team succeeded after much late-night work.⁠[6]

Ralph P. Hudson’s account lists the unknowns at the outset: the beta source had to be in intimate contact with the cooling medium yet lie on the surface of the crystal so that beta particles could escape; the team had to decide where to count the beta rays, to polarize the nuclei without heating the refrigerating salt, and to choose a source activity between detection sensitivity and local heating. The work-up took about six months; about midway the team concluded that outgassing problems could not be overcome, and the whole assembly was redesigned from stainless steel to glass and quickly rebuilt.⁠[7]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s page records that the beta particles were detected by an anthracene-crystal scintillation counter about 2 centimeters above the cobalt-60 source, whose flashes travelled through a Lucite light pipe 120 centimeters long to a photomultiplier at the top of the flask, the pulses being counted on a 10-channel pulse-height analyzer; two sodium iodide gamma scintillation counters outside the flask measured the directional intensity of the gamma radiation and so the degree of nuclear polarization; an inductance coil on the inner flask formed a magnetic thermometer; and the field used for adiabatic demagnetization was about 2.3 tesla.⁠[11]

The National Academy of Sciences memoir of Chien-Shiung Wu has the crystal kept at 0.01 K and the light pipe 4 feet long.⁠[13]

Page 90 of the notebook he kept for the experiment records the measurements of December 27, 1956; the first of two successful runs began at 12:04. Ralph P. Hudson later added “PARITY NOT CONSERVED!” at the top of the page.⁠[11][14]

The first results emerged between Christmas of 1956 and New Year’s Day.⁠[9]

The measurements showed that beta particles were emitted preferentially in the direction opposite to the nuclear spin, from which the team concluded that parity is not conserved in the beta decay of cobalt-60.⁠[11]

The entries on the page are in his own hand. The caption explains that the notation “Field on” is Hudson’s and refers to the solenoid field; the beta counting rate, high at first, fell to the random-orientation value as the nuclei warmed, and after recooling with the field reversed it rose from a low initial value to the random-orientation value.⁠[11]

Ralph P. Hudson wrote that the asymmetry parameter could have been anywhere from 0 to 1 and turned out to be maximal, and that general opinion of Lee and Yang’s proposal, until then largely dismissive, changed overnight.⁠[7]

The family obituary describes the work as experiments of 1956 in which he and a team of bureau scientists worked with C. S. Wu and other Columbia University scientists and which “shattered the law of parity.”⁠[3]

The paper on the experiment appeared in 1957 in the Physical Review, volume 105, page 1413, under the names C. S. Wu, E. Ambler, R. W. Hayward, D. D. Hoppes and R. P. Hudson, in that order.⁠[11]

The team then ran a second experiment with cobalt-58, a positron emitter, and found that the positrons were emitted preferentially along the nuclear spin.⁠[11]

Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang shared the 1957 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is an international award established under the will of Alfred Nobel, comprising five prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, awarded since 1901; its funds are managed by the Nobel Foundation, whose Board is based in Stockholm. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968, is not a Nobel Prize.Open the full entry in Physics.⁠[2]

Ralph P. Hudson’s article gives the pages of the paper as 1413–1415. The team’s second paper, “Further Experiments on β Decay of Polarized Nuclei,” by E. Ambler, R. W. Hayward, D. D. Hoppes, R. P. Hudson and C. S. Wu, appeared in the Physical Review, volume 106, pages 1361–1363, in 1957.⁠[7]

Within a day or two Leon Lederman, Richard Garwin and Marcel Weinrich at Columbia University’s cyclotron laboratory demonstrated the parity effect in meson decay; their paper follows in the Physical Review, volume 105, pages 1415–1417. Ralph P. Hudson wrote that the bureau–Wu team had not yet completed the check experiments it expected skeptics to demand.⁠[7][13]

Hudson also wrote that parts of the less-informed scientific community were reluctant to credit the bureau’s staff with a significant role, that afterwards hardly a speaker or writer called the event anything but “the Wu experiment,” and that only Chen Ning Yang and Nicholas Kurti made efforts to set the record straight.⁠[7]

The family obituary says the results of the project advanced his career.⁠[3]

He received United States citizenship in October 1958.⁠[1]

After the parity experiment he continued research on nuclear orientation and superconductivity.⁠[7]

In 1961 Director Allen Astin appointed Ralph P. Hudson chief of the Heat Division and made Ernest Ambler his successor as chief of the division’s Cryogenic Physics Section.⁠[8][7][1]

In 1965 he became chief of the Inorganic Materials Division.⁠[8][1]

The 1977 White House announcement and James F. Schooley’s history give only the year 1958 for his citizenship.⁠[4][8]

The first chapter of James F. Schooley’s history records that Ernest Ambler, Jack Colwell, Earl R. Pfeiffer and James Schooley of the Heat Division, with colleagues from the Inorganic Materials Division, summarized progress on superconductivity in semiconducting SrTiO3 and mixed titanates; the paper cited in the footnote was presented at the 10th International Conference on Low Temperature Physics in Moscow in 1966.⁠[15]

In 1968 Allen Astin made him director of the Institute for Basic Standards, a post he held until 1973. The institute was responsible for standards and measurement techniques for quantities such as length, mass, time, frequency and temperature.⁠[8][5][4]

While Lewis Branscomb was director, the bureau’s three institute directors were Ernest Ambler, Jack Hoffman and Karl Willenbrock.⁠[5]

The first chapter of the history records that in June 1968 Allen Astin established the post of deputy director for the Institute for Basic Standards and Boulder, filled by Bascom W. Birmingham, and at the same time named Ernest Ambler director of the institute, which had absorbed most of the old-line standards and calibration divisions at Gaithersburg.⁠[15]

The American Institute of Physics’ abstract of his interview gives his years as institute director as 1968–1975.⁠[10]

The history says that as institute director he made substantial organizational changes, his first experience of interpersonal problems in management.⁠[8]

In 1971 the House Science and Astronautics Committee held hearings reviewing the bureau for its seventieth anniversary; he testified that “good science and good measurements go hand in hand” and, of the consequences of losing that connection, said, “I am pledged to assure that this never happens.” Quoting the testimony at the 1991 symposium, Lewis Branscomb added: “Ernie was as good as his pledge.”⁠[5]

Richard W. Roberts, who took office as director on February 5, 1973, named him deputy director that June, effective June 11. The previous deputy director, Lawrence Kushner, had left the bureau by May for a post at the newly created Consumer Product Safety Commission.⁠[16]

His own deputy, David T. Goldman, was named acting director of the Institute for Basic Standards.⁠[16]

The 1976 White House release gives his term as deputy director as June 1973 to June 1975.⁠[1]

In its account of the search for a new director the history mentions him, then director of the Institute for Basic Standards, as “a scientist with two decades of service as a physicist in the field of cryogenics.”⁠[16]

He recalled that Richard W. Roberts came to the bureau because of Art Bueche, head of General ElectricGE AerospaceGE Aerospace is the name under which General Electric Company operates, a jet engine maker listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GE.Open the full entry’s central research laboratory and a member of the bureau’s statutory Visiting Committee, and that Roberts insisted on three things: better “show and tell” presentations, a merged Office of Programs, Budget and Finance, and a stronger Office of Congressional Affairs under Esther Cassidy. The merger was entrusted to him, with help from Tom Dillon and Ray Kammer. Roberts was director for two and a half years, for two of which he was Roberts’s deputy.⁠[5][16]

He appears in a November 1974 photograph of the NBS Executive Board, and the history also reproduces a photograph of him as deputy director at a briefing on a solar townhouse attended by Representatives George Brown and Don Fuqua.⁠[16]

Richard W. Roberts resigned to become assistant administrator for nuclear energy in the newly formed Energy Research and Development Administration and left the bureau on June 28, 1975. On June 30 Assistant Secretary Betsy Ancker-Johnson designated Ernest Ambler acting director.⁠[16][8]

At his urging Robert S. Walleigh, who had retired a few months earlier as Associate Director for Administration, returned as acting deputy director.⁠[16][8]

He served as acting director until February 1978.⁠[8]

The history gives the line of succession behind him as Robert S. Walleigh, the acting deputy director, followed by Hoffman, Davis, Willenbrock and McCoubrey, and says he was reluctant to accept the directorship.⁠[8]

On when his acting directorship began, the 1976 White House release says “since June 1975,” while the history elsewhere gives July 1975 to February 1978; by his own account he acted for more than two and a half years, with Bob Walleigh as his deputy.⁠[1][8][5]

In November 1975 the bureau and the Energy Research and Development Administration signed a memorandum of understanding covering energy research, solar power and related standards work; the caption of a photograph in the history shows him signing it with Robert W. Fri, the agency’s deputy administrator.⁠[8]

Asked whether he would be interested in the directorship on a permanent basis, he answered no; he later wrote, “The prospects facing any new Director were not very attractive.”⁠[8]

On March 1, 1976, Elliot Richardson, who had become Secretary of Commerce on February 2, visited the bureau to open the year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary and asked him to become director, and he agreed. On March 3, the anniversary itself, he gave an address.⁠[8][5]

On May 28 the White House announced that President Gerald FordGerald FordGerald Ford (1913–2006) was an American politician who represented Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973 and became House minority leader in 1965. In 1973 he became the first vice president appointed under the 25th Amendment, and after Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 he served as the 38th president of the United States until 1977.Open the full entry intended to nominate him as director, and Ford submitted the nomination in June. Hearings first set for July were pushed aside by the election-year schedule, and the change of administration delayed the appointment further.⁠[1][8]

On September 30 the White House announced that Gerald Ford intended to nominate three people, he among them, to the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Building Sciences; his term was to be two years.⁠[17]

He later explained his earlier refusal: he felt that only a “hero” could secure enough funding for the bureau, and he doubted his own ability to deal with Congress. Elliot Richardson urged him to reconsider, stressing integrity and an understanding of the bureau; looking back, he said that he believed “fervently” in the institution and enjoyed working with its staff.⁠[8][5]

Guest lecturers during the anniversary year included Edward Teller, Norman Ramsey, William O. Baker, Henry Eyring, Garrett Birkhoff, Robert C. Seamans and Simon Ramo, with Arthur Schawlow speaking in Boulder on February 11; open houses were held at Gaithersburg on May 6–8, drawing about 50,000 visitors. On March 3 new exhibit areas in the Administration building at Gaithersburg were also dedicated.⁠[8]

During 1976 he signed a memorandum of understanding with Chauncey Starr, president of the Electric Power Research Institute; the bureau’s contribution was to focus on measurement technology in five areas: the measurement of electrical and electromagnetic quantities, physical-properties data, evaluation of devices and control systems, mathematical and computer-aided design, and energy conservation methods at all stages of power generation, distribution and use.⁠[8]

The September 30 release explains that the seats on the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Building Sciences were new positions created by Public Law 93-383 of August 22, 1974, that the board was to have between fifteen and twenty-one members appointed by the President, and that the institute’s purpose was to develop and encourage the adoption of performance criteria for building components; the other two nominees were Charles J. Orlebeke (three-year term) and Jack C. Sanders (one-year term).⁠[17]

On January 12, 1977, he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in the East Room of the White House from Vice President Nelson A. RockefellerNelson RockefellerNelson Rockefeller (1908–1979) was an American Republican politician, businessman and art collector who served as governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 and as vice president of the United States from December 1974 to January 1977; he was the second vice president to be nominated and confirmed by Congress under the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Open the full entry. He was the first employee of the National Bureau of Standards, and the second of the Department of Commerce, to receive it.⁠[8][7]

Secretary of Commerce Elliot L. Richardson and former directors Richard W. Roberts, Lewis Branscomb and Allen Astin attended. The citation praised his “extraordinary accomplishments” in low-temperature and nuclear physics, referred to his “brilliant work which invalidated a previously accepted fundamental law of physics,” and credited his leadership as acting director.⁠[8]

James F. Schooley’s history prints the name of the award as “President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Service”; the family obituary has him receiving the President’s Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1977.⁠[8][3]

On September 12, 1977, he put a reorganization plan to a meeting of managers, the first major reorganization of the bureau since 1964.⁠[8]

The plan replaced the four existing institutes with new units, among them the National Engineering Laboratory under John W. Lyons and the National Measurement Laboratory under John D. Hoffman.⁠[8]

On October 25, 1977, he testified at an oversight hearing of a House subcommittee, pointing to unfunded Congressional assignments and to a staff too often occupied with short-term problems.⁠[8]

The new organization was approved by the Assistant Secretary of Commerce in November 1977 and received final approval on March 8, 1978.⁠[8]

The NBS Standard of September 21, 1977, carried his explanation that he had been considering a reorganization for some time because of the difficulties of working with the existing structure. He assured an anxious staff that nearly all employees would be affected but that every effort would be made to avoid the loss of jobs; he set up a steering committee and five task forces, set mid-October 1977 as the target date for completing the reorganization, and urged all employees to send their ideas directly to the task forces.⁠[8]

The five task forces were led by John W. Lyons (National Engineering Laboratory), John D. Hoffman (National Measurement Laboratory), Howard E. Sorrows (Technology Programs), Richard P. Bartlett, Jr. (administration and information programs) and Raymond G. Kammer (financial management, budget and programs).⁠[8]

The major elements of the new organization approved by Assistant Secretary of Commerce Jordan Baruch in November 1977 were the National Engineering Laboratory, the National Measurement Laboratory, the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology, the NBS/Boulder Laboratories, two National Centers for Cooperative Technology, and Administrative and Information Systems. On another page the history prints the computer institute’s name as the Institute for Computer Science and Technology; directed by M. Zane Thornton after Ruth M. Davis left, it passed into the new structure unchanged.⁠[8]

Under the National Engineering Laboratory came the Center for Fire Research, the Center for Electronics and Electrical Engineering under Judson C. French, the Center for Mechanical Engineering and Process Technology under John A. Simpson, the Center for Building Technology under Richard N. Wright, the Center for Consumer Product Technology under Stanley I. Warshaw and the Center for Applied Mathematics under Burton H. Colvin; John W. Lyons had headed the Center for Fire Research, and when he was chosen in 1978 to head the laboratory Frederick B. Clarke became the center’s acting director.⁠[8]

Under the National Measurement Laboratory came the Center for Absolute Physical Quantities under Karl G. Kessler, the Center for Radiation Research under James E. Leiss, the Center for Thermodynamics and Molecular Science under Milton D. Scheer, the Center for Analytical Chemistry under Philip D. LaFleur and the Center for Materials Science under John B. Wachtman, Jr.; Ralph P. Hudson was one of the division chiefs in the Center for Absolute Physical Quantities.⁠[8]

The history says that Thomas A. Dillon, whom he had first chosen as deputy director, was later replaced in that post by Raymond G. Kammer. In 1981 he split the Center for Mechanical Engineering and Process Technology into a Center for Manufacturing Engineering and a Center for Chemical Engineering.⁠[8]

The history calls the reorganization a “harbinger of change to come” and says that his stated main goal was to focus the bureau’s engineering units on the traditional engineering disciplines so that they could meet the demands of modern technology. At the 1991 symposium John W. Lyons remarked that it was only the second general reorganization in the bureau’s history, fourteen years after that of 1964.⁠[8][5]

The hearing of October 25, 1977, was held by the Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology of the House Committee on Science and Technology; his testimony dominated it, describing the bureau’s facilities, staff, budget, congressional mandates, major activities and problems.⁠[8]

On November 10, 1977, President Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJimmy Carter (1924–2024) was an American politician and Democrat who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. His administration brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, signed the Panama Canal treaties and established relations with the People’s Republic of China, but he lost his reelection bid amid the energy crisis, inflation and the Iran hostage crisis; after leaving office he founded The Carter Center to work on mediation, election observation and disease control, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.Open the full entry announced that he would nominate him as director in place of Richard W. Roberts, who had resigned. The White House list shows the nomination as submitted to the Senate on November 12.⁠[4][18]

The nomination hearing was held on December 14, 1977, and the Senate confirmed him on February 1, 1978. On February 3 Jimmy Carter gave him his commission and he was sworn in as the bureau’s eighth director, the first naturalized citizen to head it.⁠[8][5]

In February and April 1978 Senator Adlai E. Stevenson III chaired Senate oversight hearings on the bureau.⁠[8]

At the Senate hearings of February 1978 he testified along with John Hoffman, John Lyons and Zane Thornton; on April 6 he suggested that such oversight reviews take place on a two-year or three-year cycle. On February 1, 1980, he presented his views, with Thomas Dillon, John Hoffman, James Burrows, John Lyons and Ray Kammer, at a six-day House hearing on the fiscal year 1981 budget authorization held at the bureau.⁠[8]

He recalled that the authorization hearings of 1977 were the first since 1971 and that Congress began annual hearings in 1979 with a field hearing in the bureau’s Red Auditorium; he regarded the annual hearings as the key to saving the fire, building and computer sciences programs, which the administration cut in its budgets for fiscal years 1984 through 1988. Esther Cassidy remained Assistant to the Director for Congressional Affairs throughout his tenure, and he noted that in 1984 alone about 120 congressional staff members came to the bureau’s laboratories for briefings.⁠[5][8]

The family obituary and Emanuel Horowitz’s introduction both have him appointed director by Jimmy Carter in 1978; the American Institute of Physics’ abstract of his interview sums the process up as nomination by Elliott Richardson and confirmation by Adlai Stevenson.⁠[3][5][10]

In October 1980 Jimmy Carter signed the National Bureau of Standards authorization act for fiscal years 1981 and 1982 (Public Law 96-461), which authorized $107.6 million and $142.4 million respectively.⁠[8]

In April 1981, under the Ronald ReaganRonald ReaganRonald Reagan (1911–2004) was an American politician and actor who worked as a radio sports announcer and film actor before serving as governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989.Open the full entry administration’s downsizing plan, the bureau began a reduction in force expected to cost it about 300 employees, about 10 percent, by the end of fiscal year 1982.⁠[8]

He later recalled that in fiscal years 1980–1982 the bureau took a personnel reduction of more than 400 and had to separate about 150 staff members.⁠[5]

On November 28, 1982, the White House Science Council’s Federal Laboratory Review Panel, chaired by David Packard of Hewlett-Packard, visited the bureau; its report was published in May 1983. He was determined to follow its recommendations, which included a clearly defined mission for each laboratory and collaboration with universities and industry.⁠[8][5]

The history lists laws that added tasks to the bureau during his tenure, among them the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-163), which required the bureau to develop test procedures for energy conservation, and the Metric Conversion Act of the same year (Public Law 94-168), which instructed it to help the National Conference on Weights and Measures with its project on metric education for state governments. He said that over about ten years from the mid-1960s Congress wrote the bureau into fourteen new pieces of legislation, and that he welcomed assignments such as the Fire Safety and Control Act although many were never properly funded. Public Law 96-461 also changed the rules on foreign scientists, and in the summer of 1980 three Chinese guest workers came to the bureau under the Protocol for Cooperation between the bureau and the State Bureau of Metrology of the People’s Republic of China.⁠[8][5]

The Ronald Reagan administration abolished the post of Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology, so that the director answered directly to the Secretary of Commerce; drawing on his 1988 oral history, the history says the closer involvement with the Secretary’s office pleased him.⁠[8][5]

Writing in the NBS Standard of April 29, 1981, he said that the bureau was already over its personnel ceiling and that about 100 employees were expected to leave through attrition and reprogramming during the eighteen months of downsizing, the rest to be handled by the reduction in force; the bureau set up a Job Search Assistance Program for those affected. The NBS Standard itself was abolished after its issue of July 22, 1981, and Dimensions/NBS ceased publication three months later.⁠[8]

At House hearings on the bureau’s Organic Act on June 16–19, 1981, Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige said of the bureau, “I view it as one of the best in the world.”⁠[8]

He said that about a third of his time went to the budget, mostly on the defensive until about 1987, and that in fiscal year 1982 the bureau was required to prepare eighteen budgets.⁠[5]

In 1982 Deputy Director Raymond G. Kammer left on a temporary assignment to help NOAA procure a radar system, and John W. Lyons served as deputy director in his absence.⁠[8]

The Grace Commission of 1982–1983 produced 47 volumes, one of them on the Department of Commerce; its Commerce task force estimated savings of about $45 million over three years at the bureau and cited six centers — Chemical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Fire Research, Building Technology, Analytical Chemistry and Materials Science. The Office of Management and Budget considered eliminating the NAS-NRC postdoctoral program, a primary source of the bureau’s scientific talent, saw the bureau’s library as a candidate for privatization and questioned its spending on travel, printing and scientific consulting. The history says that he intuitively resisted attempts to weaken the bureau, winning some battles and losing others, and that he found the threat to the postdoctoral program especially dangerous; Congress rescued that program.⁠[8][5]

He recalled a proposed Department of International Trade and Industry that would have made the bureau part of the National Science Foundation, and an amendment by Congressman Walker of Pennsylvania to cut the bureau, which Congressman Walgren, chairman of the authorization committee, debated on the House floor and which lost by only five votes out of the four hundred cast.⁠[5]

He recalled spending about an hour with David Packard in Palo Alto to understand the report’s five recommendations, after which the bureau went all-out to assist U.S. industry; that emphasis, he said, also built on a trip he made to Japan with Ed Brady in April 1980.⁠[5]

In 1985 the bureau received its first appropriation, of $1.5 million, for the Cold Neutron Source.⁠[5]

The new central computer he had sought was delivered in 1985 and became operational in 1986; he later said that the bureau invested about $60 million in scientific computing over a decade.⁠[8][5]

By 1986 the bureau had 255 Industrial Research Associates, three times as many as in 1980, and in 1987 it had 244 cost-sharing interactions with 174 separate U.S. companies.⁠[5]

Looking back, he said that the total resources available to the bureau during the 1980s rose about 30 percent in constant dollars.⁠[5]

He recalled that the bureau’s Univac 1108 was outdated and that it needed to move to computing of the Cray class. The effort began in early 1980; he personally chaired the ADP Policy Committee, which met monthly with the full Executive Board, and made Executive Board members, center directors and division chiefs personally responsible for seeing that every scientist and engineer filled out a form; the fiscal year 1982 request of $9.7 million was the first installment of a five-year, $27 million item. The plan was to have a new computer by 1983, but the project was delayed by the Commerce Department’s plan for a central facility, a GAO study requested by Congressman Brooks and the need for an interim computer and a lease-purchase arrangement. The history adds that he discouraged the purchase of smaller computers in order to keep up the demand for a central machine.⁠[5][8]

In his retrospective he listed some of the bureau’s work in those years: in July 1984 its computer institute, ICST, ran a networking demonstration with Boeing Computer Services, General MotorsGeneral MotorsGeneral Motors Company is a Detroit-based American automaker selling Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC vehicles; the current company was incorporated in Delaware in 2009.Open the full entry and thirteen computer and communications companies at the National Computer Conference in Las Vegas; in 1985 the bureau took first place in the IR-100 competition with a record eight winners and received a congratulatory letter from the President; it analyzed the collapse of the skywalks at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City and, under a court order, tested the Newman perpetual motion machine.⁠[5]

He mentioned that when Bob Celotta and colleagues invented the Spin Polarized Electron Microscope he himself did not think it would work, and that it was Ray Kammer and Karl Kessler who had faith, encouraged Celotta and funded him.⁠[5]

He said that the bureau added $15 million to its equipment fund and, with the Visiting Committee and Jordan Baruch, about $8 million to its Long-Range Competence Building Program.⁠[5]

A Personnel Management Demonstration Project was implemented at the bureau on January 1, 1988, as a five-year experiment; he said that Congress gave the bureau this authority over the administration’s objections and that it followed from the Packard report’s second recommendation, on personnel.⁠[5][8]

He also mentioned matters inside the bureau: the Standards Committee for Women converted Bowman House into a day-care center, the bureau opened an exercise facility and turned a modular house into headquarters for the NBS Radio Amateur Club, and he made annual Christmas visits to the support groups. After the Allen V. Astin Memorial Symposium of 1985 he helped establish the bureau’s alumni association.⁠[5]

He said that his last two or three years as director were among his happiest, with a close relationship first with Bud Brown and then with Bill Verity. Malcolm Baldrige visited the bureau often, met its Visiting Committee every year and once said, “Ernie, you have the best damned lab in the whole Federal government”; he sent Baldrige a box of 1987 press clippings about the bureau from major newspapers and business journals. Bud Brown made him chairman of a Commerce Department task force that produced the Emerging Technologies report, first published in 1988, with the help of Ken Gordon.⁠[5]

The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act passed in 1988 contained, in Subtitle B, new programs for the bureau and a change of name; he presided over the change from the National Bureau of Standards to the National Institute of Standards and Technology.⁠[5][19]

James F. Schooley’s history states that he saw the change as “an opportunity”; shortly after his retirement he said that the intent of the law was for the new agency to “assist industry.”⁠[8]

Congress named a quality award for Malcolm Baldrige, the Secretary of Commerce who died in 1987; Secretary C. William Verity asked the bureau to manage the competition, and Ernest Ambler assigned the task to Curt Reimann. On November 14, 1988, Ronald Reagan presented the first Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards, and C. William Verity gave Ernest Ambler the Secretary of Commerce’s Medal, the first time it had gone to a government official.⁠[5][8]

That year he asked the Standards Alumni Association to oversee the creation of an up-to-date portrait gallery honoring distinguished members of the bureau; a committee organized by Churchill Eisenhart announced the first 79 members in 1988.⁠[20]

The Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act was signed by Ronald Reagan on August 23, 1988. Karl G. Kessler, chief editor of the bureau’s journal, explained in its pages that the act required the National Institute of Standards and Technology to create Regional Centers for the Transfer of Manufacturing Technology and an Advanced Technology Program, to assist state and local technology programs, and to support a Department of Commerce clearinghouse for state and local initiatives on productivity, technology and innovation; the journal itself became the Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.⁠[21]

In his retrospective he said that the act charged the new agency with helping industry improve quality and modernize manufacturing, with emphasis equal to or greater than that on basic standards. The history says he thought that to shrink from the challenge would have been faint-hearted and foolish.⁠[5][8]

He recalled that Bill Verity visited the bureau soon after becoming Secretary of Commerce and that the two fell to talking of Hedley Verity, the Yorkshire cricketer; Bill Verity’s grandfather or great-grandfather came from the Hebden Bridge area, and he had gone back there as a young man to play in a golf tournament.⁠[5]

He said that Verity wanted the award to rival Japan’s Deming award and that it had to be launched quickly and without funds, relying on the private sector, with Sandy McDonnell of McDonnell Douglas and John Hudiburg of Florida Power and Light leading the fund-raising. Verity demanded weekly progress reports and took Curt Reimann and him to a meeting at the White House, where he made a passionate pitch for the President to present the awards in person. Vice President George H. W. BushGeorge H. W. BushGeorge H. W. Bush (1924–2018) was an American politician who served as a Navy pilot in World War II and worked in the oil business before holding posts including U.S. representative, ambassador to the United Nations and director of the Central Intelligence Agency; he was vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st president of the United States from 1989 to 1993.Open the full entry and several cabinet officers attended the first ceremony.⁠[5]

Near the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term C. William Verity asked him to take the new post of Under Secretary for Technology in the Department of Commerce; he agreed only on an acting basis and served in 1988–1989. Ray Kammer, his deputy, acted in his place at the bureau.⁠[5][2]

By his own account he retired as director on March 31, 1989, having acted as Under Secretary for Technology in his last few months; Emanuel Horowitz’s introduction at the 1991 symposium has him retiring as director in April 1989 and thereafter Director Emeritus. The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s table of directors gives his tenure as 1975–1989, while its short biography has him as director from 1978 to 1988 and retiring in 1989; the American Institute of Physics’ institutional record lists him as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988–1989, and James Schooley’s obituary of Ralph P. Hudson dates his retirement as director to June 1989.⁠[5][19][2][22][6]

James F. Schooley’s history counts nearly 14 years at the head of the bureau, longer than any director except Samuel Stratton and Allen Astin.⁠[8]

On November 17, 1989, President George H. W. Bush announced his intention to nominate John W. Lyons, director of the National Engineering Laboratory since 1983, to succeed him as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.⁠[23]

He recalled that Verity wanted an Under Secretary for Technology but that PTO and NTIA would not give up reporting directly to the Secretary, which left the bureau, NTIS and the remaining OPTI offices under the new post; he disliked adding another reporting layer but supported the principle that civilian technology should be a major concern of the Commerce Department, as Hoover, Hollomon and Baruch had held before. He already planned to retire the following March as director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, not as Under Secretary, after nearly 36 years at the bureau; while he was acting, his office was in the Commerce Department.⁠[5]

Of his months as acting Under Secretary he observed that the Commerce Department’s connections with industry were not used in any coordinated way, that the department “operates more like a conglomerate,” and that government action was centered on the White House, not the Department of Commerce.⁠[5]

The family obituary has him appointed an Under Secretary of Commerce by Ronald Reagan and ending his career in that post in 1989; Ralph P. Hudson’s article gives his age at retirement in 1989 as 65. The American Institute of Physics’ institutional record for the National Bureau of Standards lists him as its director for 1975–1988; James F. Schooley’s history dates its chapter on his tenure July 1975 to March 1989 and says that he served under four presidents, the last of whom, George H. W. Bush, received his retirement notice in 1989; he himself spoke of about sixteen years in the director’s office, spanning the administrations of Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.⁠[3][7][24][8][5]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s table of directors notes that he was selected from the bureau’s own staff.⁠[19]

On March 4, 1991, the Standards Alumni Association and the National Institute of Standards and Technology held a symposium for the agency’s ninetieth anniversary, at which he spoke under the title “Historical Perspective: 1973-1989”; the proceedings were issued in April 1992 as NIST Special Publication 825.⁠[5]

In the talk he said that “Keep on leaning” had become his motto.⁠[5]

The contents page of the proceedings prints the title of his talk as “Historical Perspective: 1973-1988.” In it he said that he had held every technical level from laboratory researcher to director; that a worthwhile program took at least five years to establish, by starting small, finding a champion, gathering pieces from other programs and seeking other-agency and cost-sharing money; and that his theme had been “Everybody uses standards whether they know it or not.” He closed with the words “keep the faith and keep on leaning.”⁠[5]

He named the Time and Frequency Division and the Analytical Chemistry Division as favorites and went through the work of the bureau’s scientists in his time, among them the laser cooling and trapping of atoms and ions by Bill Phillips and Dave Wineland, the discovery of materials with fivefold symmetry by John Cahn’s team, and the one-volt Josephson junction array developed by Dick Kautz and others.⁠[5]

At the symposium John W. Lyons mentioned that the history committee led by Elio Passaglia included former director Ernest Ambler.⁠[5]

The American Physical Society designated the original campus of the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., a Physics Historic Site in recognition of the parity experiment performed in the bureau’s low-temperature laboratory in 1956. At a ceremony on November 9, 2011, society officials presented a commemorative plaque to the University of the District of Columbia, which now occupies the campus.⁠[14]

The news item notes that four of the five scientists on the experiment worked at the bureau, among them future director Ernest Ambler, and that the bureau moved to Gaithersburg, MarylandMarylandMaryland is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States, deeply indented by Chesapeake Bay and bordered by Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, the District of Columbia and West Virginia; its capital is Annapolis and its largest city is Baltimore. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on April 28, 1788, as the seventh state to do so, and had a population of 6,177,224 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, in the 1960s.⁠[14]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s website has an exhibit on the experiment titled “The Fall of Parity,” with his photograph and a short biography; it was designed by W. C. Martin, J. Coursey and R. A. Dragoset.⁠[9][2]

He died at his home in Hilton Head, South CarolinaSouth CarolinaSouth Carolina (officially the State of South Carolina) is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Ocean bordering Georgia and North Carolina; its capital is Columbia and its most populous city is Charleston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788, the eighth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,118,425.Open the full entry, on February 17, 2017, at the age of 93; the family obituary says he died after a brief illness.⁠[3]

The family scheduled a memorial service at The Seabrook of Hilton Head Island for February 25, 2017.⁠[3]

The obituary says he “died peacefully”; the memorial service was set for 11 a.m., and the arrangements were in the hands of The Island Funeral Home and Crematory.⁠[3]

He met Alice Virginia Seiler while working in the Cryogenic Physics Section of the National Bureau of Standards; they married on November 19, 1956, and had two sons, Christopher and Jonathan.⁠[3][1]

He recalled that Ralph P. Hudson had been best man at his wedding and said that the “years working with Ralph were some of the happiest I have spent.”⁠[6]

The White House announcements of 1976 and 1977 give his home as Bethesda, Maryland.⁠[1][4]

The family obituary says that as a youth he played rugby and was an avid mountain climber, and that in later years he excelled at golf and enjoyed international travel.⁠[3]

The obituary lists as survivors his wife Alice, his son Jonathan, his daughters-in-law Beth and Pam, and his grandchildren Paul, William, Lauren, Tori and JR, and calls him a devoted and loving husband, father and grandfather.⁠[3]

The obituary adds that he spent his summers with his family at Scientists Cliffs on the Chesapeake Bay, where he was affectionately known as “Sweet Kind Lovable Uncle Ernie.”⁠[3]

He served as U.S. delegate to the General Conferences held in Paris under the Meter Convention and as a United States representative to the Comité International des Poids et Mesures. The American Institute of Physics’ abstract of his interview states that the work accomplished in this period included the redefinition of the meter, the candela and the electrical unit.⁠[5][10]

The history records that in the United States delegation to the 15th General Conference on Weights and Measures he, then deputy director, was the official U.S. delegate, with Director Richard W. Roberts also in the delegation. He recalled that Ed Brady assisted him at the General Conferences and that over about twenty years the meter, the candela, the volt and the ohm were redefined using the bureau’s results.⁠[16][5]

In 1957 the Department of Commerce gave its Gold Medal to the bureau’s parity experiment team, and in 1961 he received the Arthur S. Flemming Award.⁠[10][12][8]

In 1962 Chien-Shiung Wu and the bureau’s team received the Franklin Institute’s John Price Wetherill Medal. In December 1964 the bureau named Ernest Ambler, Raymond W. Hayward, Dale D. Hoppes and Ralph P. Hudson as recipients of that year’s Samuel Wesley Stratton Award, with a $5,000 honorarium shared equally; he was then chief of the Cryogenic Physics Section.⁠[12][7][25]

He also received the Washington Academy of Sciences Award and the William A. Wildhack Award, and held a one-year fellowship of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.⁠[8]

He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences.⁠[4]

The family obituary also lists among his honors an Order of Civil Merit from Korea.⁠[3]

James F. Schooley’s history lists the Department of Commerce Gold Medal, the Arthur S. Flemming Award, the John Price Wetherill Medal and the NBS Stratton Award together among the awards he received over the years. The Physics Today item says that each of the four recipients of the Samuel Wesley Stratton Award received a bronze plaque and that the award recognized their part, with C. S. Wu, in the first experimental confirmation that parity is not conserved in weak interactions. The family obituary also has him awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.⁠[8][25][3]

On July 7, July 27 and September 22, 1988, he gave three oral history interviews covering in turn his work at the bureau in 1953–1968, his time as director of the Institute for Basic Standards and the years 1975–1988; the record is held by the NIST Research Library and NIST Archives.⁠[10]

The abstract lists four major accomplishments of his years as institute director: the start of coordinated programs in radiometry and neutron standards, environmental radioactivity projects, flow metering and radiation safety. It records that he regarded the creation of the engineering laboratory and the reorganization of the bureau’s operations in Boulder, ColoradoColoradoColorado is a U.S. state classified as one of the Mountain states, with Denver as its capital. It was admitted to the Union on August 1, 1876, as the 38th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,773,714.Open the full entry, as his two major accomplishments as director.⁠[10]

The interview also covers the publication in 1976, for the bureau’s 75th anniversary, of his “Looking Back : a 75 Year Preview of Things to Come.”⁠[10]

Other topics listed in the abstract are the Nobel Prizes awarded for work the bureau supported, a trip he made to the Soviet Union, the discovery of the Josephson effect, his appointment as deputy director in 1973, and the Malcolm Baldrige award, initiated under his directorship through the efforts of Curt Reimann. James F. Schooley’s history draws on this 1988 oral history in several places.⁠[10][8]

James F. Schooley’s history titles its chapter on his tenure “A Durable Director” and states that, despite the Ronald Reagan administration’s efforts to cut non-military spending, he left the bureau with a substantially larger budget than it had when he became director.⁠[8]

Of his own view of leadership he said: “I was not convinced that the ‘great man’ theory was correct, and in any case I knew I was not such a person.”⁠[8]

The history calls him “one of its most durable directors” and says that, though a physicist, he embraced the shift toward applied technical work that had begun under Lewis Branscomb and endorsed the idea that change mattered as much for the bureau’s future as for American industry; he gave the bureau nearly fourteen years of continuity in leadership, which it had lacked under his two predecessors.⁠[8]

The history describes him as known for speaking plainly, which he acknowledged was not always good for management; he later said that his years as a working scientist were among his “happiest and most exciting times” and that he came to enjoy administration as his responsibilities grew. It adds that his attitude to scientific excellence resembled Lewis Branscomb’s: good science attracts good people, who do good work.⁠[8]

National Institute of Standards and Technology: Official website: https://www.nist.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[26]

U.S. Department of Commerce: Official website: https://www.commerce.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[27]