I.I. Rabi: The Two Cultures and the Universal Culture of Science

I set forth and discuss I.I. Rabis views on the nature of science and society, focusing specifically on Rabis views on science and government, science and education, and science and religion. I also explore the influence of Rabi and C.P. Snow on each other. In the 1960s, Rabi set forth his mature and boldest positions, advocating science as the center of education and science as the replacement for religion. His positions culminate in science as the universal culture. I highlight Rabi not only as a scientist and public servant, but also as a public intellectual actively engaged with and connected to major issues of his time.Michael A. Day is Professor of Physics at Lebanon Valley College. He holds doctorates in both physics and philosophy.     

矢志照亮全中国——徐叙瑢院士访谈录

通过对徐叙瑢院士读书、教学、科研几个方面的访谈,从求学西南联大、留学苏联、开展发光学研究等几个阶段,反映其献身科学与教育的人生历程与卓越贡献.     

In Appreciation

Leslie Foldy’s diminutive stature and modest demeanor gave little clue to the powerful intellect responsible for several significant advances in theoretical physics.Two were particularly important. His 1945 theory of the multiple scattering of waves laid out the fundamentals that most modern theories have followed (and sometimes rediscovered), while his work with Siegfried Wouthuysen on the nonrelativistic limit of the Dirac equation opened the way to a wealth of valuable insights. In this article we recall some of the milestones along Foldy’s path through a life in physics. Some of the anecdotes we report here were related to one of the authors (PLT) just before an event in 2000 celebrating Foldy’s 80th birthday, while others were told to us over the course of the nearly forty years during which we were colleagues. Still others were uncovered during the course of WJF’s research for his book, Physics at a Research University: Case Western Reserve 1830–1990 (Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University, 2006). Other details were provided by Foldy’s widow, Roma. Philip L. Taylor is the Perkins Professor of Physics and Professor of Macromolecular Science and Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. William J. Fickinger is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Case Western Reserve University.     

A Conversation with Frank Press

Geophysicist Frank Press was director of Caltechs Seismological Laboratory from 1957 to 1965. In this interview, he recalls his work with Maurice Ewing at Columbias Lamont Geological Observatory; his directorship of Caltechs Seismological Laboratory and colleagues Charles Richter, Beno Gutenberg, and Hugo Benioff; his work on the free oscillations of the earth; and his part in establishing the worldwide network of seismographs for the detection of nuclear weapons testing.     

The Physical Tourist

We trace the history of physics in Bristol, before and after the foundation of the University, describing the important locations and events and contributions by notable individuals. As well as the Nobel prizewinners Paul Dirac, Cecil Powell, and Nevill Mott, these include Arthur Tyndall, Charles Frank, Yakir Aharonov, and David Bohm. For detailed historical material and personal reminiscences relating to the Bristol Physics Department, see the website <http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/history.html>. Michael Berry and Brian Pollard have been members of the theory group in the Physics Department of the University of Bristol since the 1960s.     

Eddington and Uncertainty

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest astrophysicists of the twentieth century, yet his reputation suffered in the 1930s when he embarked on a quest to develop a unified theory of gravity and quantum mechanics. His attempt ultimately proved to be fruitless and was regarded by many physicists as misguided. I will show, however, that Eddingtons work was not so outlandish. His theory applied quantum-mechanical uncertainty to the reference frames of relativity and actually foreshadowed several later results. His philosophy regarding determinism and uncertainty also was quite orthodox at the time. I first review Eddingtons life and philosophy and then discuss his work within the context of his search for a theory of quantum gravity.     

A Conversation with Robert F. Christy – Part II

Robert F. Christy, Institute Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at Caltech, recalls his wartime work at Los Alamos on the critical assembly for the plutonium bomb (“the Christy bomb”); the Alamogordo test, July 16, 1945; the postwar concerns of ALAS (Association of Los Alamos Scientists); his brief return to the University of Chicago and move to Caltech; friendship with and later alienation from Edward Teller; work with Charles and Tommy Lauritsen and William A. Fowler in Caltech’s Kellogg Radiation Laboratory; Freeman Dyson’s Orion Project; work on the meson and RR Lyrae stars; fellowship at Cambridge University; 1950s Vista Project at Caltech; his opposition to the Strategic Defense Initiative; and his post-retirement work for the National Research Council’s Committee on Dosimetry and on inertial-confinement fusion.     

The Discovery of the Tau Lepton and the Changes in Elementary-Particle Physics in Forty Years

I describe the discovery of the tau lepton in the 1970s using the SPEAR electron-positron collider and the SLAC-LBL detector of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. I also describe the subsequent verification of the existence of the tau lepton and its leptonic nature by experiments at SPEAR and at the DORIS electron-positron collider at DESY. As a preliminary to the tau discovery I discuss how I became a physicist and became interested in leptons. This history of the discovery of the tau allows me to give a general picture of the high-energy physics world of forty years ago and to discuss the changes that have occurred in the practice of high-energy physics over these forty years.Martin L. Perl is a professor, experimenter, and group leader at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center of Stanford University. In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the tau lepton.     

In Memoriam

I sketch the rich life and multifaceted work of Philip Morrison (1915–2005), from his early life in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and higher education at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley, to his contributions to the Manhattan Project, his research at Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after the war, his subsequent political activity on behalf of nuclear disarmament, his role in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and his enormous influence as an educator, public speaker, and writer. A.P. French is Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.     

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.     

A Conversation with Robert F. Christy – Part I

Robert F. Christy, Institute Professor of Theoretical Physics Emeritus at Caltech, recalls his childhood in British Columbia; his undergraduate years at the University of British Columbia; his graduate work with J. Robert Oppenheimer at Berkeley; and his work on the Manhattan Project, first with Enrico Fermi at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago and then as a member of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos.     

A Simultaneous Discovery: The Case of Johannes Stark and Antonino Lo Surdo

In 1913 the German physicist Johannes Stark (1874–1957) and the Italian physicist Antonino Lo Surdo (1880–1949)discovered virtually simultaneously and independently that hydrogen spectral lines are split into components by an external electric field. Both of their discoveries ensued from studies on the same phenomenon, the Doppler effect in canal rays, but they arose in different theoretical contexts. Stark had been working within the context of the emerging quantum theory, following a research program aimed at studying the effect of an electric field on spectral lines. Lo Surdo had been working within the context of the classical theory, and his was an accidental discovery. Both discoveries, however, played important roles in the history of physics: Starks discovery contributed to the establishment of both the old and the new quantum theories; Lo Surdos discovery led Antonio Garbasso (1871–1933)to introduce research on the quantum theory into Italian physics. Ironically, soon after their discoveries, both Stark and Lo Surdo rejected developments in modern physics and allied themselves with the political and racial programs of Hitler and Mussolini.Matteo Leone is a doctoral student in the history of science at the University of Bari, Italy;his main fields of research are the history of spectroscopy and atomic physics. Alessandro Paoletti is Curator of the Museum of the Department of Physics at the University of Genoa, Italy. Nadia Robotti is Professor of the History of Physics at the University of Genoa; her main fields of research are the history of atomic physics, the old quantum theory, and spectroscopy.     

C. V. Raman and the Discovery of the Raman Effect

In 1928 the Indian physicist C. V. Raman (1888-1970) discovered the effect named after him virtually simultaneously with the Russian physicists G. S. Landsberg (1890-1957) and L. I. Mandelstam (1879-1944). I first provide a biographical sketch of Raman through his years in Calcutta (1907-1932) and Bangalore (after 1932). I then discuss his scientific work in acoustics, astronomy, and optics up to 1928, including his views on Albert Einstein's light-quantum hypothesis and on Arthur Holly Compton's discovery of the Compton effect, with particular reference to Compton's debate on it with William Duane in Toronto in 1924, which Raman witnessed. I then examine Raman's discovery of the Raman effect and its reception among physicists. Finally, I suggest reasons why Landsberg and Mandelstam did not share the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1930 with Raman. RID="*" ID="*"Rajinder Singh is a Diplom-Physiker who is currently working on his doctoral thesis on C. V. Raman and the discovery of the Raman effect in the Department of Higher Education and History of Science in the Faculty of Physics at the University of Oldenburg, Germany.     

Fritz Reiche and the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars

I discuss the family background and early life of the German theoretical physicist Fritz Reiche (1883–1969) in Berlin; his higher education at the University of Berlin under Max Planck (1858–1947); his subsequent work at the University of Breslau with Otto Lummer (1860–1925); his return to Berlin in 1911, where he completed his Habilitation thesis in 1913, married Bertha Ochs the following year, became a friend of Albert Einstein (1879–1955), and worked during and immediately after the Great War. In 1921 he was appointed as ordentlicher Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Breslau and worked there until he was dismissed in 1933. He spent the academic year 1934–1935 as a visiting professor at the German University in Prague and then returned to Berlin, where he remained until, with the crucial help of his friend Rudolf Ladenburg (1882–1952) and vital assistance of the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars, he, his wife Bertha, and their daughter Eve were able to emigrate to the United States in 1941 (their son Hans had already emigrated to England in 1939).From 1941–1946 he held appointments at the New School for Social Research in New York, the City College of New York, and Union College in Schenectady, New York, and then was appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Physics at New York University, where his contract was renewed year-by-year until his retirement in 1958.     

Transient radiation in polymethyl methacrylate

This paper aims to contribute to transient radiation experiments. The measurement demonstrated the registerability of transient radiation, generated on polymethyl methacrylate by electrons in the energy region up to 100 keV. The spatial distribution of the radiated energy in the u.v. and visible region was registrated. The results of measurement in the u.v. region are in good agreement with theoretical distribution.The author expresses his thanks ot Dr. J. Obdrálek from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, for his valuable advice and comments.     

Ellen Gleditsch: Pioneer Woman in Radiochemistry

We present the life and work of the Norwegian scientist Ellen Gleditsch (1879-1968) in the early era of radioactivity. From 1907-1912, Gleditsch worked as Marie Curies assistant in the Laboratoire Curie in Paris on the alleged copper-lithium radioactive transformation and on the radiumuranium ratio, as well as studying chemistry and related subjects at the Sorbonne. Later,in 1913-1914, she worked in Bertram Boltwoods laboratory at Yale University on the half-life of radium. Gleditsch also was concerned with academic opportunities for women, and she became the president of the International Federation of University Women. As a professor, the second female professor in Norway, she initiated a research group on radioactivity at the University of Oslo.     

Mass differences in baryon isomultiplets with Jp=1+ /2

The mass differences in baryon isomultiplets with J^p=1⁺ /2 were calculated with allowance for the contribution of weak interactions to the Okubo Reggeized tadpole models and violated isotopic Lipmanov symmetry.Translated from Izvestiya VUZ. Fizika, Vol. 11, No. 8, pp. 100–105, August, 1968.In conclusion the author expresses his deep appreciation to A. S. Shekhter and his colleagues at the Department of Theoretical Physics at Saratov State University for their discussion and to N. G. Fadeev (Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna) for his help in performing the numerical calculations.     

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.     

Irreversibility in quantum scattering

The stationary quantum scattering is analyzed with the result that states which are not described by a complete set of observables are irreversible. The origin of irreversibility is shown to consist in impossibility to correlate phases of partial waves making up time reversed states. The same mechanism is responsible for irreversibility of any time-dependent scattering. Evidence is however given that the classical limit of irreversible scattering is reversible.Dedicated to Professor J. Kvasnica on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.The author wishes to thank Doc. Erkki Brändas (Department of Quantum Chemistry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden) for calling author's attention to scattering theory as a possible source of information concerning irreversibility, Prof. Jozef Kvasnica (Department of Mathematical Physics, Charles University, Prague) for critical comments making the paper more self-consistent and Dr. Samuel Mockoviak (Department of Theoretical Physics, P. J. afárik University, Koice) for helpful discussions.     

Mass spectrum of a meson nonet is linear

It is argued that the mass spectrum of a meson nonet is linear, consistent with the standard Gell-Mann-Okubo mass formula and leading to an extra Gell-Mann-Okubo mass relation for the masses of the isoscalar states. This relation is shown to hold with an accuracy of up to 3% for all well-established nonets. It also suggests a new q assignment for the scalar meson nonet.On sabbatical leave from School of Physics and Astronomy. Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel. Also at Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel