McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Arthur Stewart Eve Fonds
Fonds
1.2 m of textual records and photographs
Born Silsoe, Beds, 22 Nov. 1862; died 24 March 1948; Director of Physics, McGill University, 1919-35, Professor Emeritus of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, 1935; Dean Graduate Faculty, 1930-35; CBE 1918; FRS 1917; MA, DSc; Hon. LLD (Queen's and McGill).
Eve's papers are overwhelmingly concerned with his work as a teacher. The greater percentage are lecture notes, with some research materials, professional and personal correspondence, and photographs. His lecture notes fall into two categories: university lectures and popular courses and addresses. The university lectures are represented by thirty bundles of notes on radioactivity, physics of solids, relativity, and astrophysics dating from ca. 1909 - ca. 1930. The popular lectures date largely from the 1920s and 1930s. They deal with radioactivity, engineering physics, military applications, astronomy, historical topics, and the relation of science and religion, and were delivered before a wide range of groups, from the McGill Physical Society to schoolchildren. Apart from reprints, Eve's research materials consist of a notebook on solid geometry from his university days (1881), three laboratory notebooks (1909-1915), correspondence and a notebook concerning research in the U.S. Department of Mines (1927), his diary of a visit to the United States in 1929 undertaken to survey geophysical prospecting methods, and some files of correspondence, graphs, reports, notes,and photographs on ultra-violet light, eclipses, radio research, seismic activity and quantum theory (1922-1934). Closely related to these are a few files of professional correspondence (1915-1932) regarding seismic shocks, particularly in relation to the Mount Royal tunnel, the eclipse of 1932, Niels Bohr's work (including a letter to Eve from Bohr) and the scientific publications of Eve and others. Files of correspondence, reports and programmes document Eve's activities in various organizations, such as the Silberstein Institute of Physics (1921), the Air Research Committee (1920-1922), the Canadian Engineering Standards Association (1920-1927) and the Pacific Science Congress (1930-1935). Other papers concern his work in elementary education both in public and in private schools; they contain newspaper clippings about Eve's publications and career, and correspondence and notes relating to his retirement (1935) and photographs.
Originals, printed materials, photographs