American physicist Freda Friedman Salzman (1927–1981) became an active feminist after her faculty position at the University of Massachusetts Boston was not renewed, under the university’s misogynistic anti-nepotism policy. Whereas her long-lasting struggle and eventual reappointment has already been expounded to some extent, her contributions to physics have not been given proper historical consideration. It is easier to learn about Friedman Salzman’s “weight of being a woman” – as she put it – than about her academic work. This chapter remedies that omission by shedding light on one of her key accomplishments. In 1956, Geoffrey Chew and Francis Low established the well-known Chew–Low model to put the understanding of nuclear interactions on a sounder theoretical basis. The model, however, leads to a daunting nonlinear integral equation. Friedman Salzman and her husband managed to solve the integral equation numerically. Stanley Mandelstam soon recognized the achievement of “Salzman and Salzman” (as he wrote) by naming their approach the “Chew–Low–Salzman method.”

Shortly after moving to Berkeley, Weinberg slips a disc and is bedbound. He reads Chandrasekhar’s stellar physics book, which helped spark his interest in astrophysics. They decide to stay on the San Francisco side of the bay. At that time, Berkeley was the world’s leading center of experimental research on elementary particles and the newly commissioned Bevatron was the latest particle accelerator. Weinberg resolves to do some work that will be useful to Berkeley experimenters and sets about studying muon physics. In Spring 1960, he is offered and accepts a tenure-track position as an assistant professor. He is invited to join JASON, the group of defense consultants. He begins teaching and learns that he loves it. He decides to take a year abroad via an Alfred Sloan Fellowship and he and Louise buy a round-the-world ticket.