Ewart Blackmore's tribute to Erich
Erich Vogt --> Personal Memories of Erich Vogt --> here
Presented by Ewart W. Blackmore at Erich's Celebration of Life, 08 March 2014
It is a privilege and an honour to give this tribute to Erich Vogt on behalf of his friends and colleagues at TRIUMF and UBC. Unlike Erich who was always able to give an entertaining presentation without notes, making it serious or humorous or usually both, I will read mine to make sure I cover what I want to say in a reasonable time.
I first met Erich in 1963 when I was a summer student working in the nuclear physics group at Chalk River and Erich was by then a highly respected theoretical nuclear physicist. I would see him wandering the halls near my office in a bright plaid shirt and he seemed unapproachable to me because of his lofty reputation. However I soon found that he was very interested in the work of summer students and would attend the seminars given by students on their summer work projects and offer useful advice on their presentations – sometimes through challenging questions but always in his friendly way. I then went west to UBC for graduate work in physics and Erich followed two years later and was one of my graduate student professors.
My research supervisor was John Warren and it was during the mid 60's when the plans for a new accelerator at UBC were being discussed, leading to the choice of Reg Richardson's design of a 500 MeV H[math]\displaystyle{ ^- }[/math] cyclotron. While John Warren with his team from the UBC physics department Karl Erdman, Bruce White, Ed Auld, Mike Craddock and others were busy on the technical design of what was to become the TRIUMF project it was Erich who led the political campaign for funding with his eastern contacts as well as providing important theoretical physics support.
Then in 1968 we learned that Erich and others had been successful in getting federal funding for TRIUMF and the serious design could start. I joined TRIUMF in 1969 working on several aspects of the design under the chief engineer Joop Burgerjon. The next 5 years efforts were rewarded in December 1974 with first beam from the cyclotron. Erich led the way as chairman of the TRIUMF Board of Management and occasionally an energetic magnet shimmer but also found time to be a Vice President at UBC. In 1981 he became TRIUMF director serving for the next 13 years. We had a cyclotron that met its design goals, a modest set of research equipment, but it was Erich that turned the laboratory into a successful user facility with a period of assured funding. He also organized the laboratory into the present divisional structure which has served us well for the past 30 plus years. I was fortunate to be in the first group of division heads so I came to appreciate his leadership and motivational skills and his ability to stickhandle around difficult issues. He diversified the lab into medical physics and material science.
But Erich's most important legacy was to make TRIUMF a truly international laboratory, a place where outside scientists loved to come to do their research, and the major laboratories of the world took notice of our technical and research successes. Erich and Barbara's summer lawn parties where many visiting scientists and their wives were invited to enjoy their hospitality (and admire Erich's tomatoes) were an important ingredient in this success. Erich started TRIUMF's role in supporting international projects with our involvement in the HERA project in Germany in the mid 1980's. He developed close ties with Japan and Israel as well as the United States.
All of this led to the KAON Factory where Erich became Dr. KAON in promoting the idea of a very powerful new accelerator for kaon and neutrino physics, with close to a billion dollar price tag. Many of us worked on the design, some started doing kaon physics at other labs and for the period from 1985 to 1994 it was a significant effort for the laboratory. Erich led the way, first getting government support for the design study, then a commitment from the province and then significant international support from Germany and Japan. Some of us were gearing up to build the project when in 1994 the federal government pulled the plug on KAON. However these ideas were passed on to Japan and helped in the construction of the J-PARC facility which has a number of TRIUMF scientists involved.
Fortunately for TRIUMF a new era started under Alan Astbury with plans to build the ISAC facility which has turned out to be a wise choice and support the CERN LHC project with accelerator and detector contributions, also a wise choice.
Erich returned to UBC teaching until he was 80, with more than 5000 1st year students attending his early morning physics lectures. But he always maintained a TRIUMF office, always kept an interest in what was going on at TRIUMF, and always was ready for a hallway greeting or conversation in any language. He was a prolific science writer with several illuminating articles on the history of Canadian science as well as obituaries for others where he set the standard.
Erich was the last remaining of the first 4 TRIUMF directors who were involved from the beginning. John Warren who along with Erich were the co-founders of TRIUMF, each with their special talents, Reg Richardson with the innovative idea for a meson producing cyclotron and who was there at the controls when we got first beam and Jack Sample who was able to get crucial funding in the late 1970's to allow us to complete the cyclotron beam lines and experimental facilities.
It is truly an end of an era for TRIUMF with Erich's untimely passing. He was a true inspiration for all of us at TRIUMF and he will be sorely missed and not only for his Christmas fruitcake.
