James Bonner. Interview by Graham Berry. Pasadena, California, March 13-14, 1980. Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology Archives. Retrieved Jan 5, 2014 from the World Wide Web: , p. 17-18. A similar account was given by Bonner in response to a query by George Beadle about the origin of “phytotron.” As Bonner told him, “at a morning coffee session in the old Greasy Spoon at Caltech […] Sam and I started out with the hypothesis that anything as fancy as the proposed Earhart Laboratory shouldn’t be called an air-conditioned greenhouse or anything simple like that, but should have a more magnificent name. We ended up with “thermophotophytotron” but quickly slimmed it down to “phytotron.” Letter from Bonner to Beadle. Sept 9, 1970. James Bonner papers. File 20.1. Archives. California Institute of Technology.
