Richard Gans: The First Quantum Physicist in Latin America

Richard Gans (1880–1954) was appointed Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Physics of the National University of La Plata,Argentina, in 1912 and published a series of papers on quantum physics between 1915 and 1918 that marked him as the first quantum physicist in Latin America. I set Gans’s work within the context of his education and career in Germany prior to 1912 and his life and work in Argentina until 1925, as well as the foundation of the Institute of Physics of the National University of La Plata in 1906–1909 and its subsequent development by Emil Bose (1874–1911). I conclude by commenting on Gans’s life after he returned to Germany in 1925 and then immigrated once again to Argentina in 1947.     

The Norwegian and the Englishman

I sketch the lives and work of the Norwegian physicist Kristian Birkeland (1867–1917) and the English mathematician Sydney Chapman (1888–1970), focusing particularly on Chapman’s controversy with Birkeland over the origin and development of auroras, a controversy that Chapman conducted with Birkeland for more than fifty years after Birkeland’s death. Sidney Borowitz is Professor Emeritus of Physics at New York University.     

Paul Ehrenfest’s Rough Road to Leiden: A Physicist’s Search for a Position, 1904–1912

Paul Ehrenfest (1880–1933) received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Vienna in 1904 and moved with his wife and young daughter to St. Petersburg in 1907, where he remained until he succeeded Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853–1928) in the chair of theoretical physics at the University of Leiden in 1912. Drawing upon Ehrenfest’s correspondence of the period, we first examine Ehrenfest’s difficult and insecure years in St. Petersburg and then discuss his unsuccessful attempts to obtain a position elsewhere before he was appointed as Lorentz’s successor in Leiden. Pim Huijnen is writing a doctoral dissertation in history; the present paper is based upon his Master’s Thesis, “‘Die Grenze des Pathologischen’: Het leven van fysicus Paul Ehrenfest, 1904–1912,” University of Groningen, 2003. A.J.Kox is Pieter Zeeman Professor of History of Physics at the University of Amsterdam.     

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.     

“It’s better to forget physics”: The Idea of the Tactical Nuclear Weapon in the Early Cold War

Physics in Perspective - The American physicist John Wheeler once told his colleague Richard Feynman that, in case of war, “it’s better to forget physics and tell the admirals and...     

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.     

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.     

The Genesis of Physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The creation of a good physics department in the newly established Hebrew University in Jerusalem (opened in 1925) was an important goal for Chaim Weizmann, President of the Zionist Organization and founder of the University (and chemist, by profession). A. H. Fraenkel, the mathematician, and L. S. Ornstein, the physicist from Utrecht, invested a lot of effort in achieving this goal. Albert Einstein was consulted on an almost day-to-day basis. Serious attempts were made to bring a first-rate theoretician to Jerusalem. After 1933, the chances for getting such a physicist were actually very good. George Placzek worked in Jerusalem during the academic year 1934–1935. Felix Bloch, Eugene Wigner, and Fritz London were offered positions as theoretical physicists in Jerusalem and considered the offers favorably. The discussions and correspondence with these great physicists are illuminating. Budget limitations, the problem of the teaching language (Hebrew) and the seclusion of Jerusalem from science centers in Europe or the United States undermined all these efforts. A solution was found when Giulio Racah from Italy finally was appointed.     

The Physical Tourist

John Calvin (1509–1564) founded a College and Academy in Geneva in 1559, the latter of which, through the efforts of many of its scholars, was finally declared to be a genuine university, the University of Geneva, in 1872. Meanwhile, thanks to the outstanding achievements of the rich, patrician Genevan scientists, in particular during the 18th century, Geneva secured a prominent place in European learned society. With the appointment of Charles-Eugène Guye (1866–1942) to the University of Geneva in 1900, Genevan research entered resolutely into 20th-century physics, particularly relativity, and continued to gain momentum before and after the Second World War when, in 1953, Geneva was chosen as the site of one of the most prestigious scientific laboratories in the world, CERN. I sketch these developments, pointing out many of the locations where they occurred in Geneva. For an interactive map of Geneva, see the website <www.ville-ge.ch/en/cartes/>. Jan Lacki teaches history and philosophy of physics at the University of Geneva and is a member of the REHSEIS research unit of the CNRS, Paris.     

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.     

A Conversation with Valentine L.Telegdi – Part II

In this wide-ranging and anecdotal interview, the Hungarian experimental physicist Valentine L. Telegdi, who died on April 8, 2006, offers recollections of Enrico Fermi and Gregor Wentzel in the early 1950s at the University of Chicago. He recalls the discovery of quarks in 1963 independently by Murray Gell-Mann at Caltech and George Zweig at CERN. Comments on the establishment of the Erice summer school. Describes his work on the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon (the “g-minus-2” experiment) with Richard Garwin at CERN. Recalls the colloquium given at the ETH (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) in the late 1940s by Richard Feynman. Recalls his 1956 sabbatical at the Institute for Advanced Study; recollections of John Archibald Wheeler. Comments on the decline of physics at the University of Chicago after Fermi’s death (1954) and the switchover from liberal military funding to the more cumbersome NSF grants process; contrasts that with the generosity of the ETH. Comments on his early days at Chicago and his longstanding friendship with Murph [Marvin L.] and Mildred Goldberger. Recalls his three-month stay at Bristol University in 1947 while still a graduate student at ETH and his friendship with Richard Dalitz. Comments on Stephen Hawking. Recollections of P.A.M.Dirac.Comments on Jerome Friedman, Richard Taylor,and Henry Kendall; on Nobel Prizes and the reason for Arnold Sommerfeld’s failure to receive one. Recalls receiving the Wolf Prize in 1991 (along with Maurice Goldhaber) and an honorary degree the same year from the University of Chicago.     

A Conversation with Valentine L.Telegdi – Part I

The Hungarian experimental physicist Valentine L.Telegdi, who died on April 8, 2006, recalls his early interest in physics and chemistry; his education as a chemical engineer at Lausanne University and eventual turn toward experimental physics; and his graduate work at ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Ph.D. 1950). Goes to the University of Chicago in 1951; recollections of Enrico Fermi, Murray Gell-Mann, Leo Szilard, and other colleagues there. Recalls his work with Jerome Friedman on parity violation in muon decay and his work at CERN with Richard Garwin. Discouraged with state of physics in Chicago, he returns to ETH in 1976, with a joint appointment at CERN. Begins regular visits to Caltech in 1981; compares the style of teaching and research there with his European experience. Discusses his 1987 festschrift at CERN; Gell-Mann’s 1989 festschrift at Caltech; recollections of Richard Feynman, Gell-Mann, Edward Witten. Comments on current state of particle physics.     

Ettore Majorana’s Course on Theoretical Physics: A Recent Discovery

We analyze in some detail the course that Ettore Majorana gave on theoretical physics at the University of Naples between January and March 1938, just prior to his mysterious disappearance. We discuss, in particular, the recently discovered Moreno Lecture Notes, in which all of Majorana’s lectures are recorded, six of which are not present in those that are preserved in the Domus Galilaeana in Pisa, Italy. Antonino Drago is a retired professor of history of physics at the University of Naples “Federico II.” Salvatore Esposito is a researcher on theoretical physics and history of physics at the University of Naples “Federico II.”     

Pierre Duhem, Entropy, and Christian Faith

The French physicist and polymath Pierre Duhem was strongly devoted to Catholicism but insisted that science and religion were wholly independent. In an article of 1905 he reflected at length on the relationship between physics and Christian faith, using as an example the cosmological significance of the laws of thermodynamics. He held that it was unjustified to draw cosmological consequences from thermodynamics or any other science, and even more unjustified to draw consequences of a religious nature. I place Duhem’s thoughts on “the physics of a believer” in their proper contexts by relating them to the late-nineteenth-century discussion concerning the meaning and domain of the law of entropy increase. I also consider Duhem’s position with respect to Catholic science and culture in the anticlerical Third Republic.     

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.     

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.     

In memoriam Yurii Fedorovich Smirnov: Some personal reminiscences on a great physicist

Yurii Fedorovich Smirnov (1935–2008) was a famous theoretical physicist. He achieved his career mainly at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow. These notes describe some particular facets of the contributions of the late Professor Smirnov in theoretical physics and mathematical physics. They also relate some personal reminiscences on Yurii Smirnov in connection with some of his numerous works.     

In Memoriam

In 1905 Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) was awarded the second John Fritz Medal for a lifetime of outstanding achievements in science and technology. I sketch Kelvin’s life, education, and work in thermodynamics, electrical technology, and instrumentation, and his role in the laying of the Atlantic cable. I then turn to Kelvin’s four visits to America, in 1876 on the centenary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America; in 1884 when he gave his famous Baltimore Lectures at The Johns Hopkins University; in 1897 when he visited Niagara Falls for the third time and advised George Westinghouse (1846–1914) on how to develop its enormous water power for the generation of electricity; and in 1902 when he advised George Eastman (1854–1932) on the development of the photographic industry. Written in connection with the Kelvin Centenary Year 2007; see “Celebrating the Life of Lord Kelvin,” University of Glasgow News Review No. 11 (2007), 4. Matthew Trainer: Matthew Trainer received his M.Phil. degree in physical sciences at the University of Edinburgh in 1980 and currently is a laboratory instructor at the University of Glasgow where his research focuses in part on the life and work of Lord Kelvin.     

Quirino Majorana’s Experiments on the Speed of Light and Gravitational Absorption

Quirino Majorana (1871–1957) was an outstanding Italian experimental physicist who investigated a wide range of phenomena during his long career in Rome,Turin, and Bologna. We focus on his experiments in Turin during 1916–1921 and in Bologna during 1921–1934 to test the validity of Albert Einstein’s postulate on the constancy of the speed of light and to detect gravitational absorption. These experiments required extraordinary skill, patience, and dedication, and all of them confirmed Einstein’s postulate and Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation to high precision. Had they not done so, Majorana’s fame among historians and physicists no doubt would be much greater than it is today. Giorgio Dragoni is Professor of History of Physics at the University of Bologna. Giulio Maltese is a Roman member of the Italian Society for the History of Physics and Astronomy. Luisa Atti is a Bolognese member of the Association for the Teaching of Physics.