Charles Cullen Grimes of Southport, Maine—better known as Mike Grimes—passed peacefully on 19 October with his wife Anne of 61 years at his side in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Born in Norman, Oklahoma on 11 June 1931, he was raised in rural Oklahoma during the Great Depression, one of four children of Lillian and Paschal Grimes. Mike grew up in Clinton, Oklahoma and attended the University of Oklahoma before heading west to study physics at Stanford University. He served four years in the US Navy and attended Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he met Anne Maher. Naval Service sent him to San Diego, and Mike and Anne were married in La Jolla, California on 11 November 1957. Mike’s naval service included teaching radar operations at the Navy’s electronics school in San Diego.
The couple lived in California while Mike attended the University of California at Berkeley and earned a PhD in physics, graduating in 1962. Mike’s PhD thesis, Cyclotron Resonance in Sodium and Potassium, was published in Physical Review and is quoted in all solid-state physics textbooks.
Mike and Anne’s first two children, Susan and Andrew, were born in Berkeley.
Mike accepted a position as an experimental physicist at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, so the family moved east. Their final child, Anne, was born when they lived in Summit, New Jersey.
Mike’s research at Bell Laboratories focused on experimental low-temperature solid-state physics. His best known experiment involved supercooling electrons on the surface of liquid helium until they stopped moving and formed a hexagonal crystalline structure. Apparently electrons want to be together, just not close. Working at temperatures just above absolute zero, Mike ran one of the coldest experiments in the world at that time; his research has been referenced over 1000 times and continues to be cited in recent academic papers. Mike published many important articles with other scientists at Bell Labs including one published in 1976 on spectroscopy of electrons in image-potential-induced surface states outside liquid helium. The experimental results make the surface-state electrons an exceptionally simple and instructive quantum-mechanical system in physics.
Mike first visited Southport, Maine, for the launch of a small sailboat built by fellow Bell Labs scientist Denis McWhan. From that time forward, the Grimes family spent summers in Southport. The boy from Oklahoma learned to sail by reading about aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, then tried his hand in a turnabout. Mike enjoyed sailing on the Sheepscot River and served as fleet captain for the Southport Yacht Club. Mike and Anne retired to Cozy Harbor in Southport in 1993. Mike joined the Boothbay Region Land Trust Board of Directors and helped clear trails at many local properties. He enjoyed serving as caretaker at Porter Point and using his carpentry skills to build kiosks for the Land Trust. Mike and Anne were recognized by the Land Trust as Volunteers of the Year in 2002.
Mike is survived by his wife, who lives in Boothbay Harbor. Their children, Susan Grimes McPhee, Andrew Grimes, and Anne Grimes Rand, live in Massachusetts and return to Southport each summer. Mike is survived by five grandchildren: Kate McPhee and Will McPhee of Winchester, Massachusetts; Alice Grimes and Rachel Grimes of Reading, Massachusetts, and Martha Rand of Ipswich, Massachusetts.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Boothbay Region Land Trust (PO Box 183, Boothbay Harbor, ME 04238, or bbrlt.org).
