A guided tour through my bibliography

Since this workshop is dedicated to my “50 years of professional activity”, it may not be out of place to give a brief account of what came out of all this activity! Listing the publications is a partial answer, which I am trying to supplement here with some indications of contents. It is impossible, within a reasonable amount of space, to go into any great detail, but just enough information will be given so that anyone who reads this can decide whether to look up an original source for more details. The material is organized into nine sections, each devoted to a particular subject area, and a tenth one with a brief summary of impact. Publications that seem more significant than others are listed immediately following the subsection headings.     

Ritz,Einstein, and the Emission Hypothesis

Just as Albert Einsteins special theory of relativity was gaining acceptance around 1908, the young Swiss physicist Walter Ritz advanced a competing though preliminary emission theory that sought to explain the phenomena of electrodynamics on the assumption that the speed of light depends on the motion of its source. I survey Ritzs unfinished work in this area and review the reasons why Einstein and other physicists rejected Ritzs and other emission theories. Since Ritzs emission theory attracted renewed attention in the 1960s, I discuss how the earlier observational evidence was misconstrued as telling against it more conclusively than actually was the case. Finally, I contrast the role played by evidence against Ritzs theory with other factors that led to the early rejection of his approach.     

Walther Bothe's Graphite: Physics,Impurities, and Blame in the German Nuclear Program

The physics, experimental setup, and analysis of results involved in Walther Bothe and Peter Jensen's mistaken 1941 measurement of the capture cross section for thermal neutrons by carbon are examined. Their experiment, while well-conceived and executed, was corrupted by the presence of unappreciated impurities. This erroneous measurement was crucial as it prompted a decision by German military administrators to abandon graphite as a possible moderator for a nuclear pile in favor of heavy water, a decision which set their program back irreparably.