A Mathematical Characterization of Quantum Gaussian Stochastic Evolution Schemes

We give a common mathematical characterization of relevant stochastic evolution schemes built up in the literatute to attack the quantum measurement problem. This characterization is based on two hypotheses, namely, (i) the trace conservation with probability one and (ii) the existence of a complex phase determining a linear support for the stochastic process driving the random evolution.This paper is dedicated to Prof. Emilio Santos on the occasion of his 70th birthday.     

From Student of Physics to Historian of Science: T.S. Kuhn’s Education and Early Career, 1940–1958

I first show that Kuhn came to have doubts about physics soon after entering college but did not make up his mind to leave the discipline until 1947–1948 when a close association with Harvard’s President James B. Conant convinced him of the desirability of an alternative career in the history of science. I go on to maintain that it was realistic for Kuhn to prepare for such a career in essentially autodidactic ways both because he enjoyed Conant’s patronage and because he could expect that his credentials in physics would be an asset in this relatively young interdisciplinary specialty. I then suggest that it was through his work as a teacher, researcher, and journeyman gatekeeper in the history of science that Kuhn gradually came to identify with the field. Finally, I argue that his training in physics, his teaching of general-education courses, and his hopes of influencing current philosophy of science helped shape his early practice as a historian of science. By way of epilogue, I briefly consider Kuhn’s path from his tenuring at Berkeley in 1958 to the appearance of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962.     

What’s Wrong with this Criticism

One of the endearing traits of Asher Peres is that when somebody publishes something he knows to be wrong, he does not bother to refute it, even if the paper criticizes his own work. Life is too brief for such frivolity. As a small 70th birthday present I would like to answer one such recent attack. It’s not much of a present, since Asher will not read my paper. Why should he? He already knows this criticism is nonsense. But somebody has to set the written record straight for future historians, so I will do it as part of this celebration. Fortunately this particular issue is so easily settled that this can be a very short paper. Since Asher is a master of the very short paper, my Peresian brevity is an important part of my act of homage. The criticism I address can be found in a new formulation by Karl Hess and Walter Philipp(1) of their view that all versions of Bell’s theorem are fundamentally flawed. I focus here only on their criticism of the version in Asher’s book.(2) This essay was completed and submitted before the sad and unexpected death of Asher Peres on January 1, 2005. I have left it in its original form because I sent Asher a preprint, and he told me that his wife Aviva had enjoyed it. I like to think that perhaps he had a quick look and enjoyed it a bit himself. Life in the field of quantum foundations will not be as much fun without his opinions, his wit, and his warmth I point out that in spite of recent claims to the contrary, the proof of Bell’s theorem in Asher Peres’s book works even in the presence of time-correlated hidden variables in the detectors.     

Atomic Energy is ��Moonshine��: What did Rutherford Really Mean?

In the 1930s Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) repeatedly suggested, sometimes angrily, that the possibility of harnessing atomic energy was “moonshine.” Yet, as war approached he secretly advised the British government to “keep an eye on the matter.” I suggest that Rutherford did not really believe his “moonshine” claim but did have profound reasons for making it. If I am correct, then this casts additional light on his personality, stature, and career.     

Chandrasekhar’s book <Emphasis Type="Italic">An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure</Emphasis>

For me, and for many astrophysicists of my generation, Chandrasekhar’s book An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure was very important. I could not have done my PhD (1962–1965) without it. Much more recently (1998) I realized that I could not have written my lecture course on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics without much of it, particularly the first chapter. I shall present anecdotal evidence that the influence of his discussion on the second law of thermodynamics has been important not just for astrophysics but for a much wider range of physics.     

Footnotes to the history of statistical mechanics: In Boltzmann’s words

Although Ludwig Boltzmann was one of the primary founders of the field of statistical mechanics, very few contemporary physicists have actually read his papers. As a result, some of his ideas have been distorted or even lost over the course of time. In this paper, I will discuss some of the reasons for the neglect of Boltzmann’s writings and try to reintroduce one of his most important ideas, the definition of entropy.     

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.     

But Still, It Moves: Tides, Stellar Parallax, and Galileo’s Commitment to the Copernican Theory

Galileo found the Copernican heliocentric theory of the universe so persuasive owing to its mathematical elegance that he embraced it even when his theory of the tides stood in opposition to it. Further support for Galileo’s deep commitment to the Copernican heliocentric theory is found in his recently discovered unpublished observations of the double star Mizar in 1617, which exhibited no annual stellar parallax and hence indicated that the Earth does not move, in contradiction to the Copernican heliocentric theory. Further, Galileo did not mention this contradiction in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems of 1632. I conclude that he was so deeply committed to the Copernican heliocentric theory that he was unswayed even when observations undermined it, and I suggest that if he had published his observations on the double star Mizar, general acceptance of the Copernican heliocentric theory by astronomers would have been delayed even more than it was. Christopher M. Graney teaches physics and astronomy at Jefferson Community College in Louisville, Kentucky, and runs the college’s observatory at Otter Creek Park in Louisville.     

Forced thickness vibrations of a thermopiezoelectric layer of monoclinic symmetry

In the present paper, the generalized dynamical theory of thermoelasticity is employed to study the thickness vibrations of a thermopiezoelectric layer of monoclinic symmetry. The vibrations in the layer are generated owing to the application of an alternating potential and temperature difference to the faces of the layer which are assumed to be coated with infinitesimally thin electrodes. Variations of the piezoelectric potential, particle displacement and temperature with the distance along the thickness direction have been determined.I am grateful to Dr. A. K. Pal of Jadavpur University for his kind help in the preparation of this paper. I am also thankful to the referee for his valuable comments in improving the paper.     

Local Realism and Conditional Probability

Emilio Santos has argued (Santos, Studies in History and Philosophy of Physics http: //arxiv-org/abs/quant-ph/0410193) that to date, no experiment has provided a loophole-free refutation of Bell’s inequalities. He believes that this provides strong evidence for the principle of local realism, and argues that we should reject this principle only if we have extremely strong evidence. However, recent work by Malley and Fine (Non-commuting observables and local realism, http: //arxiv-org/abs/quant-ph/0505016) appears to suggest that experiments refuting Bell’s inequalities could at most confirm that quantum mechanical quantities do not commute. They also suggest that experiments performed on a single system could refute local realism. In this paper, we develop a connection between the work of Malley and Fine and an argument by Bub from some years ago [Bub, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Chapter VI(Reidel, Dodrecht,1974)]. We also argue that the appearance of conflict between Santos on the one hand and Malley and Fine on the other is a result of differences in the way they understand local realism.     

Ever Ready to Go: The Multiple Exiles of Leo Szilard

I argue that to understand the life and work of Leo Szilard (1898–1964) we have to understand, first, that he was driven by events to numerous departures, escapes, and exiles, changing his religion, his language, his country of residence, and his scientific disciplines; second, that he was a man haunted by major moral dilemmas throughout his life, burdened by a sincere and grave sense of responsibility for the fate of the world; and third, that he experienced a terrible sense of déjà vu: his excessive sensitivity and constant alertness were products of his experiences as a young student in Budapest in 1919. The mature Szilard in Berlin of 1933, and forever after, was always ready to move. I proceed as follows:After a brief introduction to his family background, youth, and education in Budapest, I discuss the impact of his army service in the Great War and of the tumultous events in Hungary in 1918–1919 on his life and psyche, forcing him to leave Budapest for Berlin in late 1919. He completed his doctoral degree under Max von Laue (1879–1960) at the University of Berlin in 1922 and his Habilitationsschrift in 1925. During the 1920s and early 1930s, he filed a number of patents, several of them jointly with Albert Einstein (1879–1955). He left Berlin in March 1933 for London where he played a leading role in the rescue operations for refugee scientists and scholars from Nazi Germany. He also carried out notable research in nuclear physics in London and Oxford before immigrating to the United States at the end of 1938. He drafted Einstein’s famous letter of August 2, 1939, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, worked in the Manhattan Project during World War II, initiated a petition to President Harry S. Truman not to use the bomb on Japan, and immediately after the war was a leader in the scientists’ movement that resulted in civilian control of nuclear energy. In 1946 he turned to biology, in which his most significant contribution was to formulate a theory of aging. In 1956 von Laue led an effort to invite him to head a new institute for nuclear physics in West Berlin, which he ultimately declined at the end of 1959. He remained in the United States, becoming a highly visible public figure, speaking, writing, and traveling extensively, and even corresponding with Soviet Premier Nikita S.Khrushchev and President John F. Kennedy to promote the international control of nuclear weapons. In retrospect, although Szilard was a man of many missions, his life story could be read as that of a man of conscience with but a single mission, to save mankind.     

Klaus Halbach,Undulator Pioneer

I am indebted to Karl Brown for suggesting that I invite Klaus, who I did not know at the time, to a workshop on wiggler magnets in March 1977. I recall Karl saying to me something like, “Herman, if you want someone who knows about magnets, you should invite Klaus Halbach.” Klaus came and even made a contribution about some aspects of the design of electromagnet wigglers, the only type of wigglers that had been considered to that time. However, it was at that workshop that Klaus got his introduction to synchrotron radiation, mostly by listening to talks by Albert Hofmann and Andy Sesler, who explained the marvelous properties of undulator magnets as radiation sources. Klaus filed this information in his long-term memory banks while working on other topics, particularly the design of permanent magnet quadrupoles for proton linacs.     

The nature of Einstein's objections to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics

In what follows, I examine three main points which may help us to understand the deep nature of Einstein's objections to quantum mechanics. After having played a fundamental pioneer role in the birth of quantum physics, Einstein was, as is well known, far less enthusiastic about its constitution as a quantum mechanics and, since 1927, he constantly argued against the pretention of its founders and proponents to have settled a definitive and complete theory. I emphasize first the importance of the philosophical climate, which was dominated by the Copenhagen orthodoxy and Bohr's idea of complementarity: What Einstein was primarily reluctant to was to accept the fundamental character of quantum mechanics as such, and to modify for it the basic principles of knowledge. I thus stress the main lines of Einstein's own programme in respect to quantum physics, which is to be considered in relation to his other contemporary attempts and achievements. Finally, I show how Einstein's arguments, when dealing with his objections, have been fruitful and some of them still worthy, with regard to recent developments concerning local nonseparability as well as concerning the problems of completeness and accomplishment of quantum theory.     

Phonons in films

The oscillations of a film (lamina) with free boundaries are discussed. Calculations were performed and a computer analysis made of the dispersion curves for various types of oscillation. The results are presented here graphically. The density of states for phonons in a film is determined. The effects that the properties of phonons in films have on certain physical properties are discussed.Presented at the VI^th All-Union Conference on the Theory of Semiconductors.In conclusion, we are deeply grateful to M. Ya. Shirobokov for his valuable discussions and constant interest in the work, and to V. Metrikin for performing a great deal of computation. The authors are also very grateful to I. M, Lifshits for his fruitful discussion of the work and a number of valuable remarks.     

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1913: The Highest Honor for the Lowest Temperatures

One century ago this year the Dutch experimental physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853–1926) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in low-temperature physics, in particular for his production of liquid helium. I trace the route to his Nobel Prize within the context of his and his colleagues’ research in his laboratory at the University of Leiden, and in light of his nominators and the nominations he received in the five years 1909–1913.     

From wigner’s supermultiplet theory to quantum chromodynamics

The breadth of Eugene Wigner’s interests and contributions is amazing and humbling. At different times in his life he did seminal work in areas as diverse as pure mathematics and chemical engineering. His seminal research in physics is, of course, the best known. In this talk I first describe Wigner’s supermultiplet theory of 1936 using the approximate symmetry of the nuclear Hamiltonian under a combined spin-isospin symmetry to describe the spectroscopy of stable nuclei up to about the nucleus molybdenum. I then show how Wigner’s ideas of 1936 have had far reaching and unexpected implications: his ideas led to the discovery of the color degree of freedom for quarks and to the symmetric quark model of baryons which is the basis of baryon spectroscopy. I conclude by pointing out that the color degree of freedom, made into a local symmetry using Yang-Mills theory, leads to the gauge theory of color, quantum chromodynamics, which is our present theory of the strong interactions.     

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.     

Peter Bergmann:The Education of a Physicist

I explore the early life and contributions of Peter Bergmann (1915–2002), focusing on his family background, education, and ideas. I examine how Bergmann’s formative years were shaped by the outspoken influence of his mother, a leading educational reformer; the distinguished reputation of his father, a renowned materials chemist; and his cherished hope of working with Albert Einstein (1879–1955), to whom he eventually became an assistant. Inspired by these and other notable thinkers, Bergmann became an exemplary organizer, educator, and mentor in the fields of general relativity and quantum gravity.     

Berkeley and Its Physics Heritage

I first sketch the settlement of Berkeley, California, the founding of the University of California at Berkeley, and the origin of its Department of Physics. I then discuss the pivotal role that Ernest O. Lawrence (1901–1958) and his invention and subsequent development of the cyclotron played in physics at Berkeley after his arrival there in 1928 through the Second World War and beyond. I close by commenting on the Lawrence Hall of Science, the educational center and science museum conceived as a living memorial to Lawrence.     

Joseph Rotblat: Moral Dilemmas and the Manhattan Project

John Fitzgerald Kennedy famously said, “One man can make a difference and every man should try.”1 Joseph Rotblat (1908–2005) was the quintessence of Kennedy’s conviction. He was the only scientist who left Los Alamos after it transpired that the atomic bomb being developed there was intended for use against adversaries other than Nazi Germany. I explore Rotblat’s early research in Warsaw and Liverpool, which established his reputation as a highly capable experimental physicist, and which led him to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in 1944. I examine his motivation for resigning from the project in 1945, and the unwillingness of his fellow scientists to follow suit, which draws attention to the continuing discourse on the responsibility of scientists for the consequences of their research.