Philipp Frank,Richard von Mises,and the Frank-Mises

The theoretical physicist Philipp Frank (1884–1966) and the applied mathematician Richard von Mises (1883–1953) both received their university education in Vienna shortly after 1900 and became friends at the latest during the Great War.They were attached to the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists and wrote an influential two-part work on the differential and integral equations of mechanics and physics, the Frank-Mises, of 1925 and 1927, with its second edition following in 1930 and 1935.This work originated in the lectures that the mathematician Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) delivered on partial differential equations and their applications to physical questions at the University of G?ttingen between 1854 and 1862, which were edited and published posthumously in1869 by the physicist Karl Hattendorff (1834–1882).The immediate precursor of the Frank-Mises, however, was the extensive revision of Hattendorff’s edition of Riemann’s lectures that the mathematician Heinrich Weber (1842–1913) published in two volumes, the Riemann-Weber, of 1900 and 1901, with its second edition following in 1910 and 1912. I trace this historical lineage, explore the nature and contents of the Frank-Mises, and discuss its complementary relationship to the first volume of the text that the mathematicians Richard Courant (1888–1972) and David Hilbert (1862–1943) published on the methods of mathematical physics in 1924, the Courant-Hilbert,which, when it and its second volume of 1937 were translated into English and extensively revised in 1953 and 1961, eclipsed the classic Frank-Mises.     

Gerson Goldhaber: A Life in Science

I draw on my interviews in 2005–2007 with Gerson Goldhaber (1924–2010), his wife Judith, and his colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I discuss his childhood, early education, marriage to his first wife Sulamith (1923–1965), and his further education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (1942–1947) and his doctoral research at University of Wisconsin at Madison (1947–1950). He then was appointed to an instructorship in physics at Columbia University (1950–1953) before accepting a position in the physics department at the University of California at Berkeley and the Radiation Laboratory (later the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, today the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), where he remained for the rest of his life. He made fundamental contributions to physics, including to the discovery of the antiproton in 1955, the GGLP effect in 1960, the psi particle in 1974, and charmed mesons in 1977, and to cosmology, including the discovery of the accelerating universe and dark energy in 1998. Beginning in the late 1960s, he also took up art, and he and his second wife Judith, whom he married in 1969, later collaborated in illustrating and writing two popular books. Goldhaber died in Berkeley, California, on July 19, 2010, at the age of 86.     

Guido Beck,Alexandre Proca,and the Oporto Theoretical Physics Seminar

We describe the pioneering attempts made by Ruy Luís Gomes (1905–1984) and other Portuguese physicists to develop a research and teaching seminar in theoretical physics at the University of Oporto in 1942–1944 under the leadership first of the refugee Austrian theoretical physicist Guido Beck (1903–1988) and then of the Romanian-French theoretical physicist Alexandre Proca (1896–1955). These efforts failed, however, owing to lack of sustained financial support from the Portuguese government and to the political repression of the Salazar regime, which dismissed Gomes and other prominent Portuguese physicists and other scientists from their university positions.     

Dick Crane��s California Days

Horace Richard Crane (1907–2007) was born and educated in California. His childhood was full of activities that helped him become an outstanding experimental physicist. As a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology (1930–1934), he had the good fortune to work with Charles C. Lauritsen (1892–1968) just as he introduced accelerator-based nuclear physics to Caltech. They shared the euphoric excitement of opening up a new field with simple, ingenious apparatus and experiments. This work prepared Crane for his career at the University of Michigan (1935–1973) where in the 1950s, after making the first measurement of the electron’s magnetic moment, he devised the g−2 technique and made the first measurement of the anomaly in the electron’s magnetic moment. A man of direct, almost laconic style, he made lasting contributions to the exposition of physics to the general public and to its teaching in high schools, community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities. I tell how he became a physicist and describe some of his early achievements.     

Nuclear Physics in Norway, 1933–1955

In the late 1940s and the 1950s, Norwegian nuclear scientists, engineers, and administrators were deeply split over their nation’s goals, organization, politics, and tools for research in nuclear physics. One faction was determined to build a nuclear reactor in Norway, while another fiercely opposed the reactor plans and focused on particle accelerators. The first faction comprised scientific entrepreneurs and research technologists, the second academic scientists, most of whom began their research careers in nuclear physics in the 1930s. To understand this conflict, I trace the development of nuclear research in Norway from the early 1930s to the mid-1950s, placing it within an international context. Roland Wittje is working on his habilitation thesis in the History of Science Unit at the University of Regensburg, Germany.     

A Conversation with Franco Rasetti

Along with Enrico Fermi, Franco Rasetti played a key role in the rebirth of Italian physics in the 1920s and 1930s. In this interview he talks about his experiments at Caltech on the Raman effect in 1928–1929, mountain climbing, his passion for bugs, fossils, and flowers, and doing physics in Florence, Rome, Berlin-Dahlem, and Quebec. Rasetti also reminisces about the Rome school of mathematics and other scientists he has known and worked with in Europe and in North America, including Robert and Glenn Millikan, Lise Meitner, and O. M. Corbino.     

A Physicist in the Corridors of Power: P. M. S. Blackett's Opposition to Atomic Weapons Following the War

In 1948, the year in which P. M. S. Blackett received the Nobel Prize in physics, he published a highly controversial book on the military and political consequences of atomic energy. The book appeared in the United States under the sensationalist title Fear, War and the Bomb. Blackett had been a naval officer during the First World War, a veteran of Ernest Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory and head of the physics department at Manchester in the interwar years, and he was a founder of operational research during the Second World War. Vilified in the British and American press in the 1940s and 1950s, he continued to contest prevailing nuclear weapons strategy, finding a more favorable reception for his arguments by the early 1960s. This paper examines the publication and reception of Blackett's views on atomic weapons, analyzing the risks to a physicist who writes about a subject other than physics, as well as the circumstances that might compel one to do so.     

Poincaré’s Relativistic Physics: Its Origins and Nature

Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) developed a relativistic physics by elevating the empirical inability to detect absolute motion, or motion relative to the ether, to the principle of relativity, and its mathematics ensured that it would be compatible with that principle. Although Poincaré’s aim and theory were similar to those of Albert Einstein (1879–1955) in creating his special theory of relativity, Poincaré’s relativistic physics should not be seen as an attempt to achieve Einstein’s theory but as an independent endeavor. Poincaré was led to advance the principle of relativity as a consequence of his reflections on late nineteenth-century electrodynamics; of his conviction that physics should be formulated as a physics of principles; of his conventionalistic arguments on the nature of time and its measurement; and of his knowledge of the experimental failure to detect absolute motion. The nonrelativistic theory of electrodynamics of Hendrik A.Lorentz (1853–1928) of 1904 provided the means for Poincaré to elaborate a relativistic physics that embraced all known physical forces, including that of gravitation. Poincaré did not assume any dynamical explanation of the Lorentz transformation, which followed from the principle of relativity, and he did not seek to dismiss classical concepts, such as that of the ether, in his new relativistic physics. Shaul Katzir teaches in the Graduate Program in History and Philosophy of Science, Bar Ilan University.     

Some aspects of positronium physics

Some aspects of both theoretical and experimental study of the positronium system to probe physics beyond the Standard Model are reviewed. In particular, new experiments to search for the invisible decay of orthopositronium (o-Ps) with the sensitivity in the branching ratio Br(o-Ps → invisible) ≃ 10⁻⁸–10⁻⁷ are discussed. The experimental technique involves a specially designed high-efficiency pulsed slow positron beam, which is also applicable for other experiments with o-Ps in vacuum. Details of the beam design, as well as the first measurements results are presented. Possible applications of the slow-pulsed positron beam for materials research are discussed. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Phenomenological πN→ππN amplitude and the modelling of the Olsson–Turner and Chew–Low approaches

The phenomenological amplitude for the reaction πN→ππN fixed by fittings to the experimental data in the energy region 0.300 ≤P _Lab≤ 500 MeV/c is used for modelling the Chew–Low extrapolation and Olsson–Turner threshold approach. It is shown that the uncritical application of the former results in enermous theoretical errors, the extracted values being in fact random numbers. The results of the Olsson–Turner method are characterized by significant systematic errors coming from unknown details of the isobar physics. Received: 10 December 1997     

The Physical Tourist

I provide a tour of Madrid, focusing especially on physical institutions that were created during the 19th and 20th centuries.These include the Astronomical Observatory close to the Prado Museum, which itself was conceived as a home for the Royal Academy of Sciences but became instead a world-famous art museum in 1819, leaving the Royal Academy of Sciences without a permanent home until 1866.The Laboratory of Physical Researches was created in 1910, and under the direction of Blas Cabrera (1878–1945), who also held a professorship at the Universidad Central, it fostered most of the Spanish research in physics at the time, in particular the famous spectroscopic researches of Miguel A. Catalán (1894–1957). Nearby were the so-called Transatlantico building and the Students’ Residence where Albert Einstein (1879–1955), for example, lectured in 1923, and which together continue to serve as a major cultural center in Madrid. Later, the physical laboratory was replaced by the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry, which was constructed with funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and inaugurated in 1932. A new University City with its Faculty of Sciences also was constructed on the northwestern outskirts of Madrid, but almost all of its buildings were totally destroyed during the devastating Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. It was reconstructed after the war and became home, for example, to Spain’s first nuclear reactor, which achieved criticality in 1958.     

Are the Laws of Physics Inevitable?

Social constructionists believe that experimental evidence plays a minimal role in the production of scientific knowledge, while rationalists such as myself believe that experimental evidence is crucial in it. As one historical example in support of the rationalist position, I trace in some detail the theoretical and experimental research that led to our understanding of beta decay, from Enrico Fermi’s pioneering theory of 1934 to George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak’s and Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann’s suggestion in 1957 and 1958, respectively, of the V–A theory of weak interactions. This is not a history of an unbroken string of successes, but one that includes incorrect experimental results, incorrect experiment-theory comparisons, and faulty theoretical analyses. Nevertheless, we shall see that the constraints that Nature imposed made the V–A theory an almost inevitable outcome of this theoretical and experimental research.     

Implications of the recent D–T μCF experiments at RIKEN-RAL and near-future directions

The paper describes physics implications obtained through the recent experimental results on D–T μCF at RIKEN-RAL. Smaller sticking and larger cycling rates in solid/liquid D–T mixture than the theoretical predictions were observed, suggesting needs of further theoretical understandings. Some possible future directions in D–T μCF experiments are also described. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Glafka–2004 ‘Iconoclasm’: The Soul and Spirit of the Meeting

The following is a brief talk that opened and attempted to set the atmosphere for the first ‘Glafka–2004: Iconoclastic Approaches to Quantum Gravity’ international theoretical physics conference. It aimed to capture the general spirit of the meeting, as well as to inspire and unite its participants under the following envisioned ‘cause’: to bring together and scrutinize certain important current quantum gravity research approaches in a fresh, unconventional, almost unorthodox, way.Introductory remarks to the 1st Glafka–2004: Iconoclastic Approaches to Quantum Gravity international theoretical physics conference, held in Athens, Greece (summer 2004).     

Ettore Majorana’s Forgotten Publication on the Thomas-Fermi Model

We analyze the forgotten communication of Ettore Majorana (1906–1938?) on the Thomas-Fermi statistical model of the atom, which he presented on December 29, 1928, during the XXII General Meeting of the Italian Physical Society in Rome, and which was published in Il Nuovo Cimento, the Society’s journal, in 1929. His communication was not mentioned subsequently in any of the numerous publications of Enrico Fermi (1901–1954) and his group in Rome, nor in any of the later accounts of Majorana’s life and work. We place Majorana’s contribution within the context of contemporary research on the subject, point out its influence on the final formulation of the Thomas-Fermi statistical model by Fermi and Edoardo Amaldi (1908–1989) in 1934, and discuss Majorana’s other scientific contributions before his mysterious disappearance in 1938. Francesco Guerra is Professor of Theoretical Physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” His main fields of research are quantum-field theory, statistical mechanics of complex systems, and the history of nuclear physics. Nadia Robotti is Professor of History of Physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Genoa. Her main fields of research are the history of atomic physics, quantum mechanics, and nuclear physics.     

A Physicist for All Seasons: Part I

The first part of this interview covers Frank Oppenheimer’s childhood, family background, and early education in New York City; his deep lifelong bond to his older brother Robert; his undergraduate years at Johns Hopkins University (1930–1933); his stays at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, and at the University of Florence, Italy (1933–1935); his graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology (1935–1939); his postdoctoral assistantship at Stanford University (1939–1941); and the frequent summers he spent in New Mexico with his brother, family, and friends.     

The megajoule laser program — ignition at hand

The French Commissariat à l'énergie Atomique (CEA) is currently building the Laser MegaJoule (LMJ), a 240-beam laser facility, at the CEA Laboratory CESTA near Bordeaux. LMJ will be a cornerstone of CEA's “Programme Simulation”, the French Stockpile Stewardship Program. LMJ is designed to deliver about 2 MJ of 0.35 μm light to targets for high energy density physics experiments, among which fusion experiments. LMJ technological choices were validated with the Ligne d'Intégration Laser (LIL), a scale 1 prototype of one LMJ bundle, built at CEA/CESTA. Plasma experiments started at the end of 2004 on LIL, which is already open to the scientific community through the Plasma and Lasers Institute. The construction of the LMJ building itself started in March of 2003. LMJ will be gradually commissioned from early 2011, and after an experimental program to progress toward fusion, the first fusion experiments will begin late 2012.     

Majorana: From Atomic and Molecular, to Nuclear Physics

In the centennial of Ettore Majorana’s birth (1906–1938?), we re-examine some aspects of his fundamental scientific production in atomic and molecular physics, including a not well known short communication. There, Majorana critically discusses Fermi’s solution of the celebrated Thomas–Fermi equation for electron screening in atoms and positive ions. We argue that some of Majorana’s seminal contributions in molecular physics already prelude to the idea of exchange interactions (or Heisenberg–Majorana forces) in his later works on theoretical nuclear physics. In all his papers, he tended to emphasize the symmetries at the basis of a physical problem, as well as the limitations, rather than the advantages, of the approximations of the method employed.     

A Conversation with William A. Fowler – Part I

Nobel laureate William A. Fowler recalls his early education in physics; his part in the history of nuclear physics at the California Institute of Technology in the 1930s; parallel efforts elsewhere, particularly at Berkeley and the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington,D.C.; his contacts with J. Robert Oppenheimer; and his work with Charles C. Lauritsen and Tommy Lauritsen before and after World War II.John Greenberg received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin and was Caltech research fellow in history from 1980–1984. The Editors were saddened to learn that he died while this interview was in press. Requests for reprints may be directed to Judith R. Goodstein, Institute Archives 015A-74, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125 USA; e-mail: jrg@caltech.edu.