Writing the Biography of Hans Bethe: Contextual History and Paul Forman1

Some facets of the life of Hans Bethe after World War II are presented to illustrate how Paul Forman’s works, and in particular his various theses—on mathematics and physics in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany, on physics in the immediate post-World War II period, and on postmodernity—have influenced my biography of Bethe. Some aspects of the history of post-World War II quantum field theory, of solid state/condensed matter physics, and of the development of neoliberalism—the commitment to the belief that the market knows best, to free trade, to enhanced privatization, and to a drastic reduction of the government’s role in regulating the economy—are reviewed in order to make some observations regarding certain “top-down” views in solid state physics in postmodernity, the economic and cultural condition of many Western societies since the 1980s, the decade in which many historians assume modernity to have ended.     

Concepts of Time in Physics: A Synopsis

I summarize the historical development of concepts of time in physics from antiquity to the end of the twentieth century. Editors’ Note: Max Jammer received the American Physical Society/American Institute of Physics Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Physics for 2007, “For his groundbreaking historical studies of fundamental concepts in physics, including his comprehensive account of the development of quantum mechanics.” We publish here his Pais Prize Lecture, which was presented at the APS meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 16, 2007.     

远看物理之美——北京大学非物理学科物理教学体会

作者在北京大学讲授非物理学科学生的课程《今日物理》的6年中,慢慢体会到讲授的特点,那就是从高处和远处看物理.对学生讲清楚物理学的基本轮廓、基本要点和发展脉络.从重要物理事件的发展看科学家如何处理问题,从科学家的言行看如何做研究.通过这些,让学生明白什么才是科学上重要的东西,培养学生创造性思维的方式.作者谨以文中的这些浅...     

高能反应机制与自旋效应

高能强子一强子反应实验中发现一系列引人注目的自旋效应,这些效应出现的机理一直是人们关注的热门课题之一.近几年,在实验及理论家共同的努力下,虽仍有许多不清楚的问题,但已取得一些突破.结果表明,不仅对这些现象产生机理研究能为强子结构及强子反应机制提供信息,而且这些现象本身也用作探索强子反应机制的工具.例如用它们来研究小x_B光子与强子反应的性质.本报告将首先简单总结这些现象及其产生机理研究的结论,然后介绍该例的主要思想及结果.     

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.     

A wavelet basis within Bethe ansatz

We describe here an example of a dynamical system which preserves the distance between constituent particles. Namely, we consider the one-dimensional finite magnetic Heisenberg ring of an even numberN of nodes with the spin 1/2, solved exactly by the well-known Bethe ansatz (XXX model). It is described in terms of a number of spin deviations from the ferromagnetic saturation state (a system of Bethe pseudoparticles) which undergo processes of mutual solitonic scattering when moving on the ring. We point out that, when restricting to (i) the subspace of quantum states with two spin deviations and (ii) to the boundary of the Brillouin zone, Bethe pseudoparticles perfectly avoid any mutual scattering. Therefore, each state with a fixed distance between pseudoparticles (the so called basis of wavelets) is already an eigenstate of the initial Heisenberg Hamiltonian. Presented by T. Lulek at the DI-CRM Workshop held in Prague, 18–21 June 2000. The authors are very much indebted to Professors J. Patera and J. Tolar for their invitation to DI-CRM Workshop on Mathematical Physics, and for their kind hospitality during the Workshop.     

Modified Faddeev–Jackiw quantization of massive non-Abelian Yang–Mills fields and Lagrange multiplier fields

Massive Yang–Mills fields and Lagrange multiplier fields are quantized by the modified Faddeev–Jackiw quantization method, and the method's comparisons with Dirac method and the usual Faddeev–Jackiw method are also given. We show that this method not only is equivalent to Dirac method, but also remains all the virtues of the usual Faddeev–Jackiw method. Moreover, the modified Faddeev–Jackiw quantization method is simpler than the usual one when obtaining new secondary constraints. Therefore, the modified Faddeev–Jackiw method is more economical and effective than Dirac method and the usual Faddeev–Jackiw method. Meanwhile, we find the new meanings of the Lagrange multipliers, and discover that the Lagrange multipliers and the zeroth components of gauge field are just a pair of canonical field variables except a constant factor in this system.     

Critical Temperatures of Hard-Core Boson Model on Square Lattice within Bethe Approximation

Physics of the Solid State - Neighboring correlations are considered for a two-dimensional hard-core boson model on square lattice within Bethe approximation for the clusters consisting of two and...     

Cluster Method of Constructing Bethe Approximation for the Ising Model of a Dilute Magnet

Russian Physics Journal - The paper offers an interpretation of Bethe approximation based on comparison of spin clusters of different sizes on the Cayley tree. Based on this interpretation, the...     

远看物理之美—北京大学非物理学科物理教学体会

作者在北京大学讲授非物理学科学生的课程《今日物理》的6年中,慢慢体会到讲授的特点,那就是从高处和远处看物理.对学生讲清楚物理学的基本轮廓、基本要点和发展脉络.从重要物理事件的发展看科学家如何处理问题,从科学家的言行看如何做研究.通过这些,让学生明白什么才是科学上重要的东西,培养学生创造性思维的方式.作者谨以文中的这些浅见求教于国内各位同行.     

Faddeev–Jackiw quantization of four dimensional BF theory

The symplectic analysis of a four dimensional BF$BF$ theory in the context of the Faddeev–Jackiw symplectic approach is performed. It is shown that this method is more economical than Dirac’s formalism. In particular, the complete set of Faddeev–Jackiw constraints and the generalized Faddeev–Jackiw brackets are reported. In addition, we show that the generalized Faddeev–Jackiw brackets and the Dirac ones coincide to each other. Finally, the similarities and advantages between Faddeev–Jackiw method and Dirac’s formalism are briefly discussed.     

From Natural History to the Nuclear Shell Model: Chemical Thinking in the Work of Mayer,Haxel, Jensen,and Suess

In 1949 the nuclear shell model was discovered simultaneously in the United States and Germany. Both discoveries were the result of a nuclear scientist looking at geochemical and nuclear data with the eyes of a chemist. Maria Goeppert Mayer in the United States and Hans Suess in Germany both brought a chemists perspective to the problem; the theoretical solution was subsequently supplied independently by Mayer and Hans Jensen.Karen E. Johnson is Priest Associate Professor at St.Lawrence University, where she teaches physics and history of science. She is currently writing a dual biography of Maria Goeppert Mayer and Joseph E.Mayer.     

Comment on many-body aspects of external photoemission

It is emphasized that the relation between the Laplace-transformed three-current-operator retarded commutator Green's function occurring in quadratic response theory of external photoemission, and the three-current temperature Green's function permits a standard many-body analysis of photoemission. As an example, a diagrammatic particlehole analysis yields generalized golden-rule formulae at finite temperature. Also, conserving approximations can be formally set up quite easily in the framework of the Kadanoff-Baym formalism, yielding quadratic response to the total field inside the specimen, thus limiting the volume effect.Work performed at The Aspen Center of Physics, Aspen Colorado 81611 and at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, D-3300 Braunschweig     

Diagonalization of the elliptic Ruijsenaars model. Correspondence with the Belavin model

Studied is the elliptic Ruijsenaars model, which is a difference analogue of the Calogero-Sutherland-Moser model. Using a novel relationship between the elliptic Ruijsenaars operator and the transfer matrix of the Belavin model, we diagonalize the Ruijsenaars operator by the algebraic Bethe ansatz method. Received: 29 January 1998 / Accepted: 17 April 1998     

中外物理教育研究与发展的初步比较

教学期刊论文的情况是教学情况的一种反映．国内外的物理教育研究期刊分别为《物理教学》、《大学物理》、Physics Education，The Physics Teacher和American Journal of Physics．文章利用物理教学期刊论文，分别从论文的形式(前言、摘要和参考文献)和内容两方面对中国与国际的物理教育研究与发展开展了初步的比较研究，通过利用教育理论对统计资料的解释初步揭示了国内外物理教育研究的差距，为它们的进一步发展提供了启发性和指导性的建议．     

High-resolution spectroscopic imaging of the Sun with a universal birefringent filter and a Fabry-Perot Interferometer

Summary We describe an optical device consisting of a Universal Birefringent Filter and a Fabry-Perot interferometer used in tandem to obtain monochromatic images of the Sun in the visible spectrum (between 4200 and 7000 ?). The spectral resolving power is about 300000 and the wavelength stability might reach 0.02 m? at 5000 ? (≈1.2 m/s) with an integration time of 1 s. The image is recorded by a CCD camera based on a Thomson THX31159 device with 512×512 square pixels 19 μm in size. A prototype of this instrument was tested at the G. B. Donati Solar Tower of the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory by obtaining, at fixed time intervals, several series of full disk monochromatic images of the Sun at different wavelengths inside the Fe I 5905.7 ? photospheric line. In this paper we describe the instrument and its characteristics and we give an cccount of the preliminary results obtained by measuring the global velocity field on the solar photosphere. These results show that the instrument is well suited for global oscillation measurements. Paper presented at the V Cosmic Physics National Conference, S. Miniato, November 27–30, 1990.     

Sequential Bethe vectors and the quantum Ernst system

We give a brief review on the use of Bethe ansatz techniques to construct solutions of recursive functional equations which emerged in a bootstrap approach to the quantum Ernst system. The construction involves two particular limits of a rational Bethe ansatz system with complex inhomogeneities. First, we pinch two insertions to the critical value. This links Bethe systems with different number of insertions and leads to the concept of sequential Bethe vectors. Second, we study the semiclassical limit of the system in which the scale parameter of the insertions tends to infinity. Presented at the 9th Colloquium “Quantum Groups and Integrable Systems”, Prague, 22–24 June 2000 UMR 8548: Unité Mixte de Recherche du CNRS et de l’ENS. The work of M. N. was supported by NSF grant 97-22097. The work of H.S. was supported by EU contract ERBFMRX-CT96-0012.     

Faddeev–Jackiw quantization of an Abelian and non-Abelian exotic action for gravity in three dimensions

A detailed Faddeev–Jackiw quantization of an Abelian and non-Abelian exotic action for gravity in three dimensions is performed. We obtain for the theories under study the constraints, the gauge transformations, the generalized Faddeev–Jackiw brackets and we perform the counting of physical degrees of freedom. In addition, we compare our results with those found in the literature where the canonical analysis is developed, in particular, we show that both the generalized Faddeev–Jackiw brackets and Dirac’s brackets coincide to each other. Finally we discuss some remarks and prospects.     

A study of the solar atmosphere with high-resolution spectroscopic images: Acquisition system

Summary In this note we describe the image acquisition system realized as a part of an experiment designed to record high-spectral-resolution solar images in the visible part of the spectrum. The system is based on a Charge Coupled Device Thomson THX31159. The electronics for driving the sensor and for the amplification and conditioning of the video signal has been designed and built in the laboratory, while a VME-bus-based computer has been used for the timing of operations, for the signal A/D conversion and for image presentation and storage. Paper presented at the V Cosmic Physics National Conference, S. Miniato, November 27–30, 1990.     

Working group report: Collider Physics

This is summary of the activities of the working group on collider physics in the IXth Workshop on High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP-9) held at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, India in January 2006. Some of the work subsequently done on these problems by the subgroups formed during the workshop is included in this report.