My decision to come to Bell Telephone Laboratories immediately after obtaining my Ph.D. in 1936 was strongly influenced by the fact that my supervisor would be C. J. Davisson.

Griffin Bell later apologized to me for that decision.

In the last decade, the Bell monopolies have all but wiped out their telephone competitors; they have swallowed their long-distance competitors; and with the announcement of the AT&T-BellSouth merger, they are on the verge of re-creating Ma Bell. And only one competitor really stands in their way: the cable industry.

I was not influenced by concerts as a child, but I was very strongly influenced by the ballets I saw.

Lester Germer was my first supervisor at Bell Labs. He was the Germer of the Davisson and Germer Experiment that is sometimes referred to in introductory texts on physics.