  |
  |
||||
questions? comments? 
|
In This Issue... Gerald Holton Wins Pais Prize Gerald Holton Wins Pais PrizeBy Daniel M. Siegel, Chair, Pais Prize Selection Committee, and David C. Cassidy The American Physical Society and the American Institute of Physics have chosen Gerald Holton to receive the 2008 Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Physics “for his pioneering work in the history of physics, especially on Einstein and relativity. His writing, lecturing, and leadership of major educational projects introduced history of physics to a mass audience.” Holton joins previous winners Martin J. Klein, John L. Heilbron, and Max Jammer in receiving this distinguished prize, which will be awarded to him during the April 2008 APS meeting in St. Louis. After receiving a certificate of electrical engineering from the School of Technology, City of Oxford, Holton earned his B.A. degree at Wesleyan University in 1941 and his doctorate in experimental highpressure physics at Harvard in 1948, as a student of Percy W. Bridgman. During World War II, he was an instructor at Wesleyan, Brown, and Harvard; he also served in wartime laboratories and taught naval officers about radar. In 1947 Holton joined the Harvard faculty, where he has remained ever since. He has also served as a Visiting Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1976–1994), where he was a founding faculty member of its Program on Science, Technology and Society. He is currently the Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics and Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.
Among Holton’s other books are The Advancement of Science and Its Burdens; Einstein, History, and other Passions; and Science and Anti-Science. In these works, he provides technical as well as humanistic analyses of the work of Poincaré, Millikan, Fermi, Heisenberg, and other physicists, reaching back even to the science of Thomas Young and Thomas Jefferson, and he gives an often-needed defense of the scientific enterprise against antiscientific movements. Throughout his career, Holton has been active in building and improving a variety of projects and institutions beneficial to the history of physics and related sciences. Working with Edward Purcell in the early 1960s, he was instrumental in initiating and supporting the jointly sponsored APS project, Sources for History of Quantum Physics. The project results have served ever since as a major repository of primary archival sources for the history of quantum mechanics and atomic physics. Similarly, Holton played a key role in preserving the Einstein Archive and in launching the Einstein Papers Project at Princeton University Press. He helped establish the APS Division (now Forum) on the History of Physics, serving as one of its founding chairs and as a frequent member of the Executive Committee. During the early 1960s, he also chaired the AIP committee that initiated the Center for History of Physics. As president of the History of Science Society during the early 1980s, Holton established over a dozen new programs, made possible by a funding drive that he initiated to raise a substantial endowment for the Society. Holton remains active today with speaking engagements and a new book underway on the history of twentieth century physics. His recent research has also led to publications on the career problems of women scientists, on science policy, and on the fate of the children who came to the United States as refugees before World War II, with special attention to those who became scientists. Among his many other honors and awards Gerald Holton was selected to deliver the Herbert Spencer Lectures at Oxford University. He was the first historian of science to deliver the annual Jefferson Lecture of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been awarded the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, the Oersted Medal, the Joseph Priestley Award, and the AIP’s Andrew W. Gemant Award, plus eight honorary degrees. Editor’s Note: I am personally delighted by this selection, for I have used Holton’s Thematic Origins as a text in all the course I’ve taught in the history of 20th century physics at Stanford and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Letter from the Chair: Science is Not Simply a Matter of FaithBy Bill Evenson, Forum Chair A few days after Thanksgiving, Paul Davies, physicist and writer on science and religion, published an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, “Taking Science on Faith.” His thesis was that, at its base, “science has its own faith-based belief system.” Davies argues that science is built on “an unexplained set of physical laws” and draws a parallel to religion’s faith in “an unexplained God.” The central issue here is that all human knowledge is uncertain and incomplete. Without certainty, some would say, every enterprise is founded on faith of some kind. However, I have three caveats relevant to history of physics. First, not all uncertainty is created equal; there are degrees of certainty, depending on the strength of reasonable grounds for our beliefs. (Rational degrees of certainty or belief were starting points for the probability theories of Laplace, R. T. Cox, E. T. Jaynes, and others.) Second, science has widely accepted strategies for producing and evaluating evidence that provides firm grounds for scientific beliefs. Finally, science works; it produces reliable knowledge with demonstrable effects. History of physics works to clarify all these issues: the grounds for our scientific beliefs, the strategies that produce reliable (even though not certain) knowledge, and the extent of the reliable knowledge produced by science. The insights of historians of physics have illuminated the methods, foundations, and products of science. They have shown where the greatest uncertainties remain, and how interesting and complex questions have been resolved. While I recognize both the power and comfort religious faith brings to humanity, I reject the parallels between religious faith and scientific beliefs in the context of uncertainty— parallels that are espoused by Davies and many hopeful believers. Both the nature and degree of the “faith” that lies at the foundation of these approaches to understanding the world are qualitatively different for religion and science. Anyone who takes comfort in characterizing science as “only” a matter of faith should read physics history more deeply, and the perspective provided by this history should be an essential part of science education. The Forum supports a strong role for the history of physics in the physics community. It will continue to encourage physics historians, provide a venue for discussing their work, and involve practicing physicists in that discussion. I wish to congratulate the Forum Program Committee on plans for history programs at the March (New Orleans) and April (St. Louis) APS Meetings. Chair-Elect David Cassidy and Vice Chair Gloria Lubkin and their committees have organized these fine programs. Elsewhere in this newsletter (on p. 3), you will find specifics of the excellent sessions planned for these meetings. In addition to the invited symposia organized by the Forum, we continue to have stimulating contributed sessions at both meetings. I hope you can attend one or both of these meetings. Quick Reminders: Please consider making a donation in honor of a significant colleague who has passed on. Such donations can either support students presenting contributed history talks or sponsor an invited lecture at one of the APS meetings. The donors can choose who (among deceased physicists) is to be honored, and the Forum Program Committee will select the speaker. Contact me or any other Forum officer if you wish to make such a donation. The Forum Executive Committee is currently seeking an Associate Editor for the History of Physics Newsletter, to be appointed in time to work with the current Editor, Michael Riordan, and take over as Editor for the Fall issue 2009. Please contact me at bill@evenson.ch if you are interested in this possibility or wish to suggest a colleague. Remember to send a short record of the work of retiring scientists (yourself or colleagues) to the Center for History of Physics, as explained by Virginia Trimble in the February 2007 issue of this newsletter. Likewise, continue to send department histories to the Center for History of Physics and JDJackson@lbl.gov. Finally, please nominate your deserving colleagues with accomplishments in history of physics for APS Fellowship (more details on p. 4). Final Remarks: My greatest pleasure during my term as Forum Chair has been working with physicists and historians to put together the history symposia that have come to play such an important role at the national APS meetings. Working to organize the large and non-standard-format session that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity at the 2007 March Meeting was both challenging and satisfying. I am proud of having helped improve the structure of our future Program Committees, which should further strengthen the history symposia offered each year. The physics community, including physics history, is like no other for me, giving both social and intellectual satisfactions. March and April MeetingsBy David C. Cassidy, Chair, Program Committee The Forum Program Committee is conducting an experiment this year. At the suggestion of Forum Chair Bill Evenson, we divided the program committee into two subcommittees under the overall direction of the Program Chair: an April committee chaired by Cassidy, and a March committee co-chaired by Vice Chair Gloria Lubkin and George Zimmerman. So far the experiment has succeeded quite nicely. Since each committee can now devote full attention to its specific meeting, the result has been a more carefully selected and broadly based program of invited sessions at each of the two meetings. An overview of the March and April invited sessions is given below. Among the many highlights of these two meetings is the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Physical Review Letters. A session on PRL is planned at each of the two meetings with a series of outstanding speakers who will explore the past, present, and the important issue of the future of research publication in the electronic age. Another highlight will be a unique session at the April meeting celebrating the 65th anniversary of the beginning of the Manhattan Project and the work at Los Alamos. Ben Bederson, who worked on the Manhattan Project and organized the session, has invited all physics alumni of the project to attend the meeting and participate in an extended panel discussion following the presentation by Val Fitch, also an alumnus of the project. In addition, the April meeting will have two back-to-back sessions on the “Triumphs of 20th Century Astrophysics,” one focusing on instrumentation and the other on discoveries. There will also be an April invited session in recognition of 80 years of quantum mechanics, in which members of a new international project on the history of quantum mechanics will present their latest work. And during the March meeting, a session on the history of physics in industrial settings will occur. In addition to these invited sessions, Gerald Holton, winner of the 2008 Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Physics (see p. 1), will speak on April 14 in a joint award session co-sponsored with the Forum on Physics and Society. Sessions for contributed papers are also scheduled in both March and April meetings; travel grants are available for students presenting contributed papers in these sessions. Some of the titles of the papers given below are still tentative. March 10–14, 2008
April 12-15, 2008
Forum AffairsCrease and Howard Named APS Fellows Upon the recommendation of the Forum on History of Physics, the APS Council has named Robert P. Crease and Don Howard Fellows of the American Physical Society. Robert P. Crease is professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy in the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The fellowship citation reads: “For his extensive historical writings on physics, including The Second Creation; Making Physics: A Biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory, and his completion of Robert Serber’s memoirs and Abraham Pais’ biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.” Crease received his bachelor ’s degree at Amherst College and his doctorate at Columbia University, both in philosophy. In addition to his work in philosophy, he has made major scholarly contributions to the history of physics and has been active in physics journalism. He is the historian of Brookhaven National Laboratory, which led to his acclaimed “biography” of the laboratory and his lengthy histories of its ISABELLE project and the National Synchrotron Light Source. He has also written many additional accounts of specific episodes in the history of 20th century physics as well as incisive articles on historical methodology. Among his books not listed in the citation are: The Prism and the Pendulum: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science; and The Play of Nature: Experimentation as Performance. He helped Robert Serber complete his memoir, Peace and War: Reflections on a Life at the Frontiers of Science. And following the death of Abraham Pais, Crease completed his unfinished biography, J. Robert ppenheimer: A Life. He has been a contributing correspondent for Science and a contributing editor for The Scientist. He also writes the long-running, popular monthly column “Critical Point” for Physics World, and he translates Dutch works into English. Don Howard is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and director of its Program in History and Philosophy of Science. The fellowship citation reads: “For his ground-breaking studies of the interplay between physics and philosophy of science in the 20th century, especially in connection with the work of Einstein and Bohr, and for organizing conference series and editing book series fostering the dialogue among physicists, philosophers, and historians of science.” Howard received his bachelor ’s degree in physics from Michigan State University, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from Boston University, where he wrote his dissertation under Abner Shimony. He has written extensively on Bohr and the origins of quantum mechanics; on Einstein and the foundations of relativity theory; and on the Bohr-Einstein dialogue on interpretations of quantum mechanics. Among his many published studies are: “Reduction and Emergence in the Physical Sciences: Some Lessons from the Particle Physics and Condensed Matter Debate”; “Point Coincidences and Pointer Coincidences: Einstein on Invariant Structure in Spacetime Theories”; and “Revisiting the Einstein-Bohr Dialogue.” As a co-founder of the group History of the Philosophy of Science and a member of the International Advisory Committee for the series of History of General Relativity conferences, he has been instrumental in bringing together physicists, philosophers and historians. He has also been a contributor to and co-editor of the two series Einstein Studies and History of Science and Philosophy of Science, as well as a contributing editor and translation consultant for The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Call for Fellowship Nominations The Fellowship Committee calls for the nomination of suitable candidates for APS Fellow through the Forum on the History of Physics. These nominations should be based at least in part upon achievements related to the history of physics. The Forum deadline for the receipt of all materials at APS is 15 May 2008. Procedures for nomination have recently changed. The new procedures are now available at: http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/index.cfm (scroll down to Fellowship). According to these procedures, all nominations are to be submitted to the APS via the online nomination package provided at the indicated web site. The nominees must be APS members in good standing, which may be confirmed through the above website. A sponsor (nominator) and a co-sponsor, both of whom must be APS members, are required. Up to two supporting letters from other individuals, who do not have to be APS members, may be also submitted by uploading to the site. Please visit the above web site for further information and to obtain a list of the required documentation. Nominations will be forwarded to the Forum Fellowship Committee for review. This committee will make its recommendation to the Forum Executive Committee, and after that all nominations will go to the APS Council for approval. Fellowship nominations may be submitted at any time, but must be received by 15 May 2008 for the next review. For further information, please contact the chair of the Forum Fellowship Committee, Gloria Lubkin at glubkin@aip.org, or the APS fellowship officer at fellowship@aps.org or by telephone at (301) 209-3268. Preserving Departmental Histories The APS Forum on History of Physics renews the call (from APS News, January 2007) to every physics department to help preserve its history and accomplishments by updating an existing history or preparing a new one. The histories should be deposited with the AIP Niels Bohr Library and entered in the Forum’s new Register of Departmental Histories and Records (see below). A coherent historical narrative may be supplemented by specialized records and documents, such as annual faculty lists and course descriptions from university catalogs. Examples of the diversity of materials already on hand at the AIP are the informal and probably incomplete listings found in the Niels Bohr Library catalog for Cornell University and the University of Michigan, as given below. Note, however, that the most recent of these items are over 20 years old, and most are much older. Cornell University:
University of Michigan:
To the extent that an up-to-date historical record is not on file at the Niels Bohr Library, the Forum urges a physics department to prepare or update a history of its department and any research laboratories, and to send a copy (in whatever form) to the Niels Bohr Library, in care of Dr. Spencer Weart, AIP Center for History of Physics, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843 (email: sweart@aip.org). Placing historical documents on the departmental web site would also give increased access to all. Separately the Forum has established a Register of Departmental Histories and Records, to be published periodically in the Forum newsletter and on its web site. Entries should be standard bibliographic citations with indications of availability in institutional or departmental libraries, through web links, and (we hope) at the Bohr Library. This Register will provide another tool for finding information about past activities in physics research and education, to serve as a starting point for more focused searches. Please send Register entries for existing histories, other materials and new entries as they are produced to J. D. Jackson, 50A-5104 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley CA 94720 (email: JDJackson@lbl.gov). The materials themselves should be sent to the Niels Bohr Library (address above). The APS Forum on History of Physics congratulates those departments with an up-to-date history on file in its library and at the Niels Bohr Library. If it does not exist, please prepare one! Forum members are encouraged to take the initiative in preparing these histories. Register of Departmental Histories and Records
Forum Elections: Candidate Biographies & StatementsThe Nominating Committee of the Forum on History of Physics has chosen a slate of candidates for the 2008 elections. You will soon be asked to vote for Forum Vice-Chair and two at-large members of the Executive Committee. The person elected to be Vice-Chair normally becomes the new Chair-Elect in 2009 and Chair of the Forum in 2010. If you have an email address registered with APS, you will receive a message inviting you to vote electronically. If you do not have such an address, you should have received a paper ballot by mail. If you want a paper ballot but have not yet received one, please either email your request to the Secretary- Treasurer Thomas Miller (thomas.miller@hanscom.af.mil), or contact him postally (Boston College Institute for Scientific Research, Air Force Research Laboratory/VSBXT, Hanscom AFB, MA 01731) or by telephone (781-377-5031). The closing date of the election for online voting is 16 March 2008; the final date for receipt of paper ballots is March 21. Biographical information and statements by the candidates can be found online at: http://www.aps.org/units/fhp/elections/candidates08.cfm. Please Vote! The Nominating Committee of the Forum on History of Physics has chosen a slate of candidates for the 2008 elections. You will soon be asked to vote for Forum Vice-Chair and two at-large members of the Executive Committee. The person elected to be Vice-Chair normally becomes the new Chair-Elect in 2009 and Chair of the Forum in 2010. If you have an email address registered with APS, you will receive a message inviting you to vote electronically. If you do not have such an address, you should have received a paper ballot by mail. If you want a paper ballot but have not yet received one, please either email your request to the Secretary- Treasurer Thomas Miller (thomas.miller@hanscom.af.mil), or contact him postally (Boston College Institute for Scientific Research, Air Force Research Laboratory/VSBXT, Hanscom AFB, MA 01731) or by telephone (781-377-5031). The closing date of the election for online voting is 16 March 2008; the final date for receipt of paper ballots is March 21. Biographical information and statements by the candidates appear below. Similar materials can be found online at: http://www.aps.org/units/fhp/elections/candidates08.cfm. Please Vote! Candidates for Vice Chair Martin Blume Biographical Information: Martin Blume is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the American Physical Society and Senior Physicist Emeritus at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received his A.B. degree from Princeton in 1954 and a Ph.D. from Harvard in physics in 1959. He was a Fulbright Fellow at Tokyo University in 1959-1960, and Research Associate at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, UK in 1960-1962. He came to Brookhaven in 1962 where his research centered on condensed matter theory, particularly on the theory of magnetism, phase transitions, neutron scattering, and synchrotron radiation. He held many research and management positions at Brookhaven, including head of condensed matter theory, Deputy Chair of the Physics Department, Chair of the National Synchrotron Light Source Department, and Deputy Director of the Laboratory. In addition he was Professor of Physics at Stony Brook University from 1972-1980. In 1996 Blume took a leave of absence from Brookhaven to become Editor-in-Chief of the APS, with responsibility for all of the Society’s journals. He served two five year terms as Editor-in-Chief, retiring in March of 2007. During his service as EIC he oversaw the transition of the Physical Reviews to electronic distribution, including putting all of the journals on-line, back to the origins of Physical Review in 1893, and reworking the operation of the editorial process to completely electronic form, with a virtually paperless office. Blume received the 1981 E. O. Lawrence Award in Physics of the Department of Energy for his research on Neutron Scattering and Synchrotron Radiation, and the Argonne National Laboratory Advanced Photon Source A. H. Compton Award for his theoretical research on resonant X-ray scattering in 2003. In 2005 he received from the Council of Science Editors their highest award for his innovations and accomplishments in scientific publication. He has served on many committees of the APS, including election to the Council and Executive Board as well as Chair of the Nominating Committee. He has served also on committees of the National Research Council, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Institute of Pure and Applied Physics, and on many visiting committees of institutions around the world. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the British Institute of Physics. Statement: My interest and involvement in the history of physics goes back to my administrative positions at Brookhaven, which required justification for locating research efforts at national laboratories, and the history of the national laboratories provided such justification. My interest intensified during my terms as Editor-in- Chief: The on line availability of all of the content of the APS journals is a treasure trove of historical information both about the Society and about the physics of the 20th (and now 21st) century. During the 2005 celebration of the World Year of Physics I gave a well attended invited talk on Scientific Publication Since Einstein at the German Physical Society meeting in Berlin, where Einstein’s involvement with the Physical Review was highlighted. The often “Standing Room Only” status of invited sessions of Forum shows the great interest in the history of our science, and we should take advantage of this, first to increase membership in the Forum, and then to arrange more such sessions at the smaller meetings of the Society, focusing on historical developments relevant to the location and topics of the meetings. Also of importance is the relationship between the history of physics and the policy, international, and educational programs of the Society, so joint sessions with the other forums in those areas should be promoted, and an aggressive campaign to obtain more nominations for APS Fellowship through the Forum, separately and with other Society divisions, is in order. Finally, 2008 will be the 50th anniversary of the start, by then Editor-in-Chief Sam Goudsmit, of Physical Review Letters, the first— and widely imitated—“Letters” journal. Both Goudsmit and many of the articles published in PRL have been of considerable importance in the history of physics in the 20th century and, in addition to invited talks (already planned) at the APS March Meeting, an electronic collection of those articles could be promoted. Daniel Kleppner Biographical Information: Daniel Kleppner received the B.Sc. degree from Williams College, B.A. Degree from Cambridge University and Ph.D. degree from Harvard University. He joined the physics faculty at MIT in 1966 and in 2003 became Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics Emeritus. His research has been in atomic physics including high precision measurements, quantum optics, and ultracold atoms. He helped to found the MITHarvard Center for Ultracold Atoms where he is currently Co-Director. His awards include the Davisson Germer Prize, Lilienfeld Prize and Leo Szilard Lectureship Award of the APS, the Meggers Award and Frederick Ives Medal of the Optical Society of American, the Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the Wolf Foundation Prize and the National Medal of Science. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academies of Science (Paris), and the American Philosophical Society. In the APS Kleppner served as Counselor (1986-89) and member of the Executive Committee (1986-1988), Panel on Public Affairs (1989-1992) and the Physics Planning Committee (1989-96, chair 1992-96). He was Chair of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (1983-84), and member of the Editorial Boards of Physical Review A (1982–88) and Reviews of Modern Physics (2004–). He was cochair of the APS Study on Boost-Phase Intercept for National Missile Defense (2002-04). His AIP activities include the Development Committee for the Center for History of Physics, which he has chaired since 2004. He is the co-author of two textbooks and writes occasional essays for Physics Today. Statement: The history of physics is invaluable for teaching physics at every level and for communicating the process and values of physics to a society that increasingly depends on science but appears to be increasingly mistrustful. The Forum has a unique opportunity to stimulate the creation of histories, disseminate historical information on physics, and assist the physics community in transmitting its values to the public. Candidates for At- Large Member of the Executive Committee Robert G. Arns Biographical Informaton: Bob Arns is an experimental physicist with a background in nuclear and particle physics whose professional interests have turned in the last few years to the history of physics and the history of technologies based in physics. A B.S. graduate of Canisius College, he received M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Nuclear Physics from the University of Michigan. He has served as a physics faculty member at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Ohio State University, and the University of Vermont, where he is currently Physics Professor Emeritus. At Vermont he also served as a Dean and as Provost. He is a member of The American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the History of Science Society, the Society for the History of Technology, Phi Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. In 1998 he was awarded the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Life Members’ Prize for the “best research reported in any journal in 1997 on any aspect of the history of electrical/electronic technologies.” Statement: My current research has involved the painfully slow rate at which special relativity and other modern physics concepts have made their way into the teaching of introductory and intermediate physics; and the life and scientific legacy of Ettore Majorana, who was born in 1906 and disappeared mysteriously in 1938. Recent publications include studies of the role of resonant cavities in acoustics; of J. E. Lilienfeld and the development of high-vacuum x-ray tubes; of the history of the field-effect transistor; and of the early history of neutrino detection. As might be inferred from the foregoing, my interests include not only physicists and their accomplishments, but also the evolution of scientific thought, and factors affecting the processes and rate of acceptance of new concepts. These efforts in the history of physics have provided an historical perspective that has enriched both my physics teaching and my own awareness of the complexity of scientific change. If elected I will endeavor to bring these qualities to my work on the Forum Executive Committee. Ramanath Cowsik Biographical Information: Ramanath Cowsik is a Professor of Physics and Director, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, MO. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Bombay in Mumbai, India. His current research interests include astroparticle physics, experimental gravitation, cosmology, high-energy astrophysics and seismology. Professor Cowsik was formerly the Distinguished Professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1996–2001) and the Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (July 1992–December 2003). He has received the Vikram Sarabhai Award for Space Sciences (Hari Om Prerit) in 1981, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Physical Sciences in1984, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Public Service Group Achievement Award in 1986, the Third World Academy of Sciences Award in Basic Sciences (Physics) in 1995, and the Padma Shri Award by the Government of India in 2002. Professor Cowsik is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (as a foreign associate), a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the Third World Academy of Sciences and a Life Member of the American Physical Society. He also served on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics in 1999–2002. Statement: Research activities in Physics, as in all other intellectual endeavors, are influenced by the nature of society and the historic conditions that are prevalent at the time major advances are made in the field. Though this interconnection is extensively explored in other fields such as art, music, or technology, there exist only a few studies that bear on this in the context of the progress in fundamental physics. Through the Forum on the History of Physics in association with other units such as the Divisions of Particles and Fields, Condensed Matter Physics, and the Forum on Physics and Society, I plan to stimulate such investigations. Michael Demkowicz Biographical Information: Michael Demkowicz received B.S. degrees in Physics and in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000. He also received a B.A. in Liberal Arts through UT’s Plan II Honors program, where he was first introduced to the history of science.His undergraduate senior thesis entitled “An undergraduate’s research experience in physics”—supervised by M. P. Marder—contrasted experimental work as it is taught in undergraduate laboratories with how it is practiced by professional physicists. It received a Plan II model thesis award in 2000. Demkowicz joined the Mechanics of Materials group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2000 as a National Science Foundation fellow and MIT Presidential Fellow. He received his M.S. in 2004 and Ph.D. in 2005 for his research on plasticity of amorphous silicon, done with A. S. Argon. He is currently a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory working with R. G. Hoagland on radiation damage in solids. Statement: I believe there is currently an important gap in the typical curriculum of undergraduate and graduate education in physics: although students are given extensive technical training in experimental and theoretical methods, they do not study the intellectual processes by which observations were interpreted to form theories. As a result, in addition to being poorly prepared to critically evaluate equally plausible alternative interpretations of their own work, they also lack the “big picture” perspective on the development of science that would help them to plan their careers. Furthermore, a physicist educated in the current curricula finds it difficult to defend scientific perspectives to skeptical nonscientists. I propose that the history of science—and of physics in particular— can play a decisive role in filling this educational gap: situations drawn from the history of physics illustrate the processes of theory formation, cast individual research projects in the broader context of physics as a coherent discipline, and provide examples of “physics in action” that make the intellectual processes of scientific research accessible to non-scientists. As a member of the executive committee of the APS Forum on History of Physics, one of my goals would be to encourage ideas on how the study of the history of physics could enhance the typical course of a physicist’s education by filling the gaps described above. Since my own undergraduate and graduate studies are still fresh in my memory, I stand to bring to this question a perspective that bridges that of a student and a professional researcher. By the end of my term, I would like to make available a document presenting the gathered suggestions, examples of their implementation, reflections on their impact, and recommendations for future action. Furthermore, as a researcher in the solid state/materials science side of physics, I plan to lobby for increased interest in the Forum on History of Physics among the traditional attendees of the APS March Meeting by organizing Forum sessions at the March Meeting and encouraging participation in ongoing projects such as the Niels Bohr Library and Archives. C.W. Francis Everitt Biographical Information: Francis Everitt did his undergraduate and graduate work at Imperial College, London (Ph. D., 1959, with P. M. S. Blackett and J. A. Clegg). His thesis was on paleomagnetism of the Carboniferous period (~ 300 million years ago), establishing among other things with J. C. Belshé that during that period Britain was 10 degrees south of the equator, a key result in the emerging field of continental drift and plate tectonics. Changing fields in 1960 to cryogenics, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where, with K. R. Atkins and A. Denenstein, he was responsible for the discovery of third sound in superfluid helium. Since 1962 at Stanford, he has maintained two separate, sometimes overlapping, interests, fundamental physics in space, and the history and philosophy of physics. He is Principal Investigator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Gravity Probe B and Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle programs. His historical writings have included a biography of James Clerk Maxwell and studies from various viewpoints of Fritz and Heinz London, Leonard Schiff, William Fairbank, and, most recently, the complex transition from classical to modern physics in the thinking of Kelvin, Maxwell and Einstein. Statement: One of the strengths, but also one of the problems, of the evolution in studies of the history of science over the last few decades and, in particular, the history of physics, is that the field has become a profession in its own right. Historians address their discourse to each other rather than to us physicists, and to us that discourse often seems remote. It is a loss to both sides. History matters, and the collection of myths that we physicists too often suppose to be the history of our field is profoundly misleading. My hope, as a Forum member, would be to aid in constructing bridges across this divide and to enable APS members to realize how enlightening a truer history of physics can be, culturally and in the actual contemporary practice of our field.
|
||||
|
|
|
|
||
While continuing his research on high-pressure physics at Harvard, Holton pioneered the introduction of physics history into the teaching of physics with the 1952 publication of his now-classic textbook, Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Science. This book was followed in 1958 by Foundations of Modern Physical Science, written with Duane H. D. Roller. The first book is still alive and well in a revised edition (with Stephen G. Brush) titled Physics, the Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond (Rutgers, 2001). These texts served as the framework for the well-known Project Physics Course, which began in 1964 as an NSF-sponsored national curriculum-development project co-directed by Holton. With its textbook, films, laboratory exercises, and other materials, the Course brought physics, as seen through its history, to some 200,000 high school students a year. The book still exists in a revised edition titled Understanding Physics (Springer, 2002), coauthored with David Cassidy and James Rutherford. This project not only influenced an entire generation of physics students and educators, but it also inspired recent initiatives by the NSF, the National Research Council, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to improve U.S. science education. Holton’s most widely admired study in the history of modern physics is his seminal work, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: From Kepler to Einstein (Harvard, 1973; revised in 1988). The innovative concept of thematic analysis he presented there has provided a new tool of thought, used not only in his own work but also in that of many other scholars. Holton’s treatment of Einstein’s relativity theory in this book established his standing as a major interpreter of Einstein’s work and its background; it has shaped scholarly discourse in this critical area of the history of physics for more than a generation. Thematic Origins also presents other often-cited studies, such as on the philosophical roots of Bohr’s complementarity principle. This book displays one of Holton’s major strengths: his attention to the humanistic and societal context of scientific research.
Edmund C. Stoner and the Discovery of the Maximum Mass of White Dwarfs 
New Books of Note