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Author: Carsten Jensen Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3034884443 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
In 1920s, a long-lasting controversy on the interpretation of nuclear beta spectrum arose between Lise Meitner and Charles Drummond Ellis. This controversy, and the reactions from the contending parties when it was settled, reflect clearly the difference between the scientific communities in Berlin and Cambridge at that time. The Meitner-Ellis controversy ended in 1929, and it left an anomaly that attracted leading theoretical physicists. A new dispute, this time between Niels Bohr and Wolfgang Pauli, broke out. It concerned the explanation of the continuity of the primary beta particles and dominated the discussions for the next five years. Pauli argued for a new particle, and Bohr for a new theory; both suggestions were radical steps, but they reflected two different ways of doing physics.
Author: Carsten Jensen Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3034884443 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
In 1920s, a long-lasting controversy on the interpretation of nuclear beta spectrum arose between Lise Meitner and Charles Drummond Ellis. This controversy, and the reactions from the contending parties when it was settled, reflect clearly the difference between the scientific communities in Berlin and Cambridge at that time. The Meitner-Ellis controversy ended in 1929, and it left an anomaly that attracted leading theoretical physicists. A new dispute, this time between Niels Bohr and Wolfgang Pauli, broke out. It concerned the explanation of the continuity of the primary beta particles and dominated the discussions for the next five years. Pauli argued for a new particle, and Bohr for a new theory; both suggestions were radical steps, but they reflected two different ways of doing physics.
Author: Daniel J. Kevles Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674666566 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 548
Book Description
This magnificent account of the coming of age of physics in America has been heralded as the best introduction to the history of science in the United States. Unsurpassed in its breadth and literary style, Kevles's account portrays the brilliant scientists who became a powerful force in bringing the world into a revolutionary new era. The book ranges widely as it links these exciting developments to the social, cultural, and political changes that occurred from the post-Civil War years to the present. Throughout, Kevles keeps his eye on the central question of how an avowedly elitist enterprise grew and prospered in a democratic culture. In this new edition, the author has brought the story up to date by providing an extensive, authoritative, and colorful account of the Superconducting Super Collider, from its origins in the international competition and intellectual needs of high-energy particle physics, through its establishment as a multibillion-dollar project, to its termination, in 1993, as a result of angry opposition within the American physics community and the Congress.
Author: Edoardo Amaldi Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 9789810223694 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 784
Book Description
In this important volume, major events and personalities of 20th century physics are portrayed through recollections and historiographical works of one of the most prominent figures of European science. A former student of Enrico Fermi, and a leading personality of physical research and science policy in postwar Italy, Edoardo Amaldi devoted part of his career to documenting, both as witness and as historian, some significant moments of 20th century science. The focus of the book is on the European scene, ranging from nuclear research in Rome in the 1930s to particle physics at CERN, and includes biographies of physicists such as Ettore Majorana, Bruno Touschek and Fritz Houtermans.Edoardo Amaldi (Carpaneto, 1908 - Roma, 1989) was one of the leading figures in twentieth century Italian science. He was conferred his degree in physics at Rome University in 1929 and played an active role (as a member of the team of young physicists known as ?the boys of via Panisperna?) in the fundamental research on artificial induced radioactivity and the properties of neutrons, which won the group's leader Enrico Fermi the Nobel Prize for physics in 1938. Following Fermi's departure for the United States in 1938 and the disruption of the original group, Amaldi took upon himself the task of reorganising the research in physics in the difficult situation of post-war Italy. His own research went from nuclear physics to cosmic ray physics, elementary particles and, in later years, gravitational waves. Active research was for him always coupled to a direct involvement as a statesman of science and an organiser: he was the leading figure in the establishment of INFN (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) and has played a major role, as spokesman of the Italian scientific community, in the creation of CERN, the large European laboratory for high energy physics. He also actively supported the formation of a similar trans-national joint venture in space science, which gave birth to the European Space Agency. In these and several other scientific organisations, he was often entrusted with directive responsibilities. In his later years, he developed a keen interest in the history of his discipline. This gave rise to a rich production of historiographic material, of which a significant sample is collected in this volume.
Author: Roberto Lalli Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198878699 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 337
Book Description
This is an open access book available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Following the centenary of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, this volume features contributions from leading science historians from around the world on the changing roles of the institution in international affairs from its foundation in 1922 to the present. The case studies presented in this volume show the multitude of functions that IUPAP had and how these were related to the changing international political contexts. The book is divided into three parts. The first discusses the interwar period demonstrating how the exclusion of communities of the Central Powers from international scientific institutions imposed by victorious allied countries made IUPAP ineffective until the end of World War II. The second part analyzes the changing roles assumed by IUPAP starting from its complete renovation after World War II. Case studies covering the role of IUPAP in physics education, in metrology, in joint commissions with other unions and in defining the complex relations between pure and applied physics provide examples of IUPAP's impact on the world of science. Part III squarely addresses the science diplomacy aspects of IUPAP during the Cold War highlighting the importance of IUPAP in furthering diplomatic goals and explaining the origin of the pursuit of the free circulation of scientists as the activity that characterized the main function of international unions during the Cold War. Highlighting how often scientific agendas and political imperatives were entangled in the activities of IUPAP, the book analyzes the work of the Union as exercises of science diplomacy, thus contributing to the current debate on the use of science and technology in international relations.
Author: W.R. Shea Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9400971338 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
and less as the emanation unden\'ent radioactive decay, and it became motion less after about 30 seconds. Since this process was occurring very rapidly, Hahn and Sackur marked the position of the pointer on a scale with pencil marks. As a timing device they used a metronome that beat out intervals of approximately 1. 3 seconds. This simple method enabled them to determine that the half-life of the emanations of actinium and emanium were the same. Although Giesel's measurements had been more precise than Debierne's, the name of actinium was retained since Debierne had made the discovery first. Hahn now returned to his sample of barium chloride. He soon conjectured that the radium-enriched preparations must harbor another radioactive sub stance. The liquids resulting from fractional crystallization, which were sup posed to contain radium only, produced two kinds of emanation. One was the long-lived emanation of radium, the other had a short life similar to the emanation produced by thorium. Hahn tried to separate this substance by adding some iron to the solutions that should have been free of radium, but to no avail. Later the reason for his failure became apparent. The element that emitted the thorium emanation was constantly replenished by the ele ment believed to be radium. Hahn succeeded in enriching a preparation until it was more than 100,000 times as intensive in its radiation as the same quantity of thorium.
Author: William Lanouette Publisher: Skyhorse ISBN: 1628734779 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 691
Book Description
Well-known names such as Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Edward Teller are usually those that surround the creation of the atom bomb. One name that is rarely mentioned is Leo Szilard, known in scientific circles as “father of the atom bomb.” The man who first developed the idea of harnessing energy from nuclear chain reactions, he is curiously buried with barely a trace in the history of this well-known and controversial topic. Born in Hungary and educated in Berlin, he escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1933 and that first year developed his concept of nuclear chain reactions. In order to prevent Nazi scientists from stealing his ideas, he kept his theories secret, until he and Albert Einstein pressed the US government to research atomic reactions and designed the first nuclear reactor. Though he started his career out lobbying for civilian control of atomic energy, he concluded it with founding, in 1962, the first political action committee for arms control, the Council for a Livable World. Besides his career in atomic energy, he also studied biology and sparked ideas that won others the Nobel Prize. The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, where Szilard spent his final days, was developed from his concepts to blend science and social issues.
Author: Mara Beller Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521448345 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 380
Book Description
This special issue of Science and Context examines the entire area of scientific inquiry surrounding Einstein, presenting controversies and debates within their contexts.
Author: Finn Aaserud Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press ISBN: Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 316
Book Description
How and why do complex scientific disciplines such as physics change emphasis from one sub-discipline to another? Do such transitions stem entirely from developments within the discipline itself or also from external factors? This book addresses these questions by examining the transition from atomic to nuclear physics, theoretically and experimentally, at Niels Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen in the 1930s. On the basis of extensive archival research, Finn Aaserud shows that the “Copenhagen spirit,” the playful research atmosphere under Bohr’s fatherly guidance that permeated the Institute, thrived because of extra-scientific circumstances that Bohr exploited to the fullest, such as the need to help Jewish physicists out of Hitler’s Germany and the changing funding policies of private foundations, notably those of the Rockefeller Foundation which made it opportune to introduce research in experimental biology at the Institute. “A clear, carefully developed and substantially convincing argument... Aaserud gives a detailed and impressively documented account of the direction of Bohr’s scientific interests... Aaserud is... to be congratulated for his original, clear — indeed, didactic — work of scholarship and enlightenment.” — Paul Forman, Physics Today “A professional historian’s study of the happenings at the Niels Bohr Institute in the decisive years 1930 to 1940... In particular, the... support of the Institute by Danish and other foundations, mainly the Rockefeller Foundation, are treated in great detail, revealing many interesting aspects of these relationships... The detailed accounts... of Bohr’s negotiations are a testimony to Bohr’s uncanny ability to get what he wanted from the various foundations... Aaserud’s book is an invaluable source of information [showing] that Bohr was not only an inspiring physicist and philosopher but also a cunning negotiator who knew how to make use of his great reputation for the benefit of science.” — Victor F. Weisskopf, Science “Aaserud elucidates Bohr’s skills not only as mentor and guiding hand behind the ‘Copenhagen spirit,’ but also as financial negotiator.” — Neil Wasserman, Isis, A Journal of the History of Science Society “This book teaches us that running such [a truly elite] institution required entrepreneurial skills as well as scientific genius. Bohr had an abundance of both.” — Jeremy Bernstein, Nature “Redirecting Science is the history of Bohr’s institute during the 1930s when it experienced a drastic change in its research priorities, from a laissez-faire mode of work and lack of clearly defined research programme to a concerted research effort in nuclear physics and experimental biology... Aaserud gives a highly interesting account of the interaction between physics and biology... Aaserud’s carefully documented work is an excellent example of how institutional history may transcend social and institutional limitations and integrate also conceptual history of science.” — Helge Kragh, Centaurus “By showing that a new research programme at one of the most important scientific institutes in the world was triggered, and pushed forward, by social and financial considerations, this book delivers yet another blow to the tired old idea that scientific knowledge is driven by its own internal, inexorable logic. It also throws valuable light on Bohr’s activities and strategies as a fundraiser and institution builder.” — John Krige, The British Journal for the History of Science
Author: Arthur Holly Compton Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9780226114309 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 822
Book Description
Arthur Holly Compton was one of the great leaders in physics of the twentieth century. In this volume, Robert S. Shankland, who was once a student of Compton's, has collected and edited the most important of Professor Compton's papers on X-rays—the field of his greatest achievement—and on other related topics. Compton entered the field of X-ray research in 1913 and carried on active work until the 1930s, when he began to specialize in cosmic rays. During the years when Compton was an active leader in X-ray research, he made many notable contributions which are reflected in the papers presented here. He was the first to prove several important optical properties of X-rays, including scattering, complete polarization, and total reflection. He was also the first, with his student R. L. Doan, to use ruled gratings for the production of X-ray spectra. Professor Compton's greatest discovery, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1927, was the Compton Effect. This was the outgrowth of experiments he had initiated during a year at Cambridge in 1919-20. He did the major portion of these experiments at Washington University in St. Louis during the period 1920-24. His work demonstrated that in the scattering of X-rays by electrons, the radiation behaves like corpuscles, and that the interaction between the X-ray corpuscles and the electrons in the scatter is completely described by the principles of the conservation of energy and momentum for the collisions of particles. In his introduction, Professor Shankland gives a historical account of the papers, narrates Professor Compton's early scientific career, and shows how he arrived at a quantum explanation of the Compton scattering after eliminating all classical explanations.
Author: Carsten Jensen
Author: Carsten Jensen
Author: Daniel J. Kevles
Author: Edoardo Amaldi
Author: Roberto Lalli
Author: W.R. Shea
Author: William Lanouette
Author: Mara Beller
Author: Jagdish Mehra
Author: Finn Aaserud
Author: Arthur Holly Compton