{"title":"The Significance of the Ordinary in Physics","authors":"Robert Naylor, Joseph D. Martin, Richard Staley","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00321-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00321-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 3-4","pages":"129 - 131"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142736893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Karl George Emeléus and Physics in Belfast 1927–66","authors":"Mark McCartney","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00318-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00318-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Karl George Emeléus (1901–1989) was educated at Cambridge and after a short period at King’s College, London, he spent the remainder of his career as lecturer (1929–33) and then professor (1933–66) of physics at Queen’s University, Belfast. At Queen’s, he set the direction of experimental research in gas discharge and plasmas for a generation and oversaw the growth of the department. He also acted as a spokesman for physics in Northern Ireland and was involved in public responses to concerns about the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy in the late 1940s and 50s. This paper summarises Emeléus’s life and work and sets it in the context of physics at Queen’s University in the mid-twentieth century.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 3-4","pages":"180 - 210"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-024-00318-5.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Value of the Einstein-Besso Manuscript","authors":"Michel Janssen","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00311-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-024-00311-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>On November 23, 2021, a manuscript consisting of about fifty pages of scratchpad calculations by Albert Einstein and his close friend Michele Besso sold at auction in Paris for a record $11.5 million. Most of these calculations date from 1913 and deal with the secular motion of Mercury’s perihelion. Einstein and Besso could only account for eighteen of the forty-three seconds of arc per century missing from the Newtonian account of this motion. In November 1915, drawing on this work with Besso, Einstein was able to account for all forty-three seconds. In the early 1990s, I prepared the Einstein-Besso manuscript for publication in volume four of <i>The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein</i> and wrote an essay about it for the auction catalog the first two times it changed hands, for $360,000 in 1996, for $500,000 in 2002. Rather than on the manuscript’s increasing monetary value, however, this essay focuses on its intellectual significance and its importance for my academic career.</p>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142217525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Protest that Never Was: Silencing Political Activism at CERN Before and During the Vietnam War","authors":"Barbara Hof, Gerardo Ienna, Simone Turchetti","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00317-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00317-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article focuses on the history of CERN from the perspective of its staff’s political initiatives. Notwithstanding the extensive coverage that the international physics laboratory has received, historians have yet to document these campaigns in full. What follows explains this omission by focusing on provisions that muzzled the activists’ initiatives. Since 1955, staff rules and regulations elaborated by CERN managers aimed at curbing efforts to promote political campaigning in the laboratory. Designed to safeguard its special legal status as an international organization in Switzerland devoted to scientific collaborations, these provisions strengthened its public image as a “sanctuary” for pure physics. With the war in Vietnam in full swing, however, it became more difficult to bottle in political initiatives, especially as CERN staff contributed to anti-war protests and supported local solidarity groups. At this critical junction, the laboratory managers muffled campaigns targeting Nobel-prize winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, and made it seem as if a petition against the US military strikes in Vietnam signed by its staff was never put together.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 3-4","pages":"211 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-024-00317-6.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142217526","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emanuele Eccel, Rocco Scolozzi, Dino Zardi, Maria Carmen Beltrano
{"title":"The Fight Against Hailstorms in Italy, 1950–70: A Long History of Confirmation Bias","authors":"Emanuele Eccel, Rocco Scolozzi, Dino Zardi, Maria Carmen Beltrano","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00315-8","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00315-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This article analyzes the experiments for hail suppression by means of exploding rockets in Italy, where a remarkable national program of active defense was undertaken in the period 1950–70. The history of the trials of this technique is reconstructed in view of highlighting the methodological flaws of the entire experimental approach. A supplementary source of information is offered by about 1,600 “storm postcards”: reports sent back by farmers after single weather events. An archive of these postcards, recently collected, digitized, and analyzed for the Trentino region (northern Italy), offers an interesting glimpse into the scientific and pseudoscientific approaches to a difficult to predict and volatile phenomenon, both for farmers and for appointed experts.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 2","pages":"95 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-024-00315-8.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142217527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joseph D. Martin, Robert L. Naylor, Richard Staley
{"title":"In Praise of Builders","authors":"Joseph D. Martin, Robert L. Naylor, Richard Staley","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00316-7","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00316-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 2","pages":"43 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141641518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Milestones Along the Way: Autobiographical Reflections of Roger H. Stuewer","authors":"Roger H. Stuewer","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00314-9","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00314-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Historian of physics Roger H. Stuewer (1934–2022), co-founder of <i>Physics in Perspective</i>, passed away on July 28, 2022. His loss is greatly felt in the discipline. To commemorate his considerable contribution to the history of physics, the editorial team at <i>Physics in Perspective</i> have elected to publish his autobiographical recollections, which cover both his esteemed academic career and many of his personal thoughts and reflections.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 2","pages":"45 - 94"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141523594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Historiography of “Hitler’s Atomic Bomb”","authors":"Mark Walker","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00309-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00309-6","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This essay analyzes the historiography of the German attempts during the Second World War to develop and harness the economic and military applications of uranium fission as well as the postwar “politics of the past.” This literature, which began immediately after the end of the war and continues to the present day, includes contributions from scientists, historians, journalists, playwrights, and other authors. The essay is divided into mostly chronological sections.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 1","pages":"18 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-024-00309-6.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141191707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Autobiographical Notes of a Physicist","authors":"N. David Mermin","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00310-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00310-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>I describe aspects of my life in physics: the name I publish under, great physicists I have known, how I got into quantum foundations, what role I’ve played in it. My form is autobiographical, but my personal experience may illustrate what it was like being a physicist over the past sixty years. I offer some offbeat ways of thinking about some orthodox physics.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 1","pages":"3 - 17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141153699","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Divergent Stories in the History of Physics","authors":"Robert Naylor, Joseph D. Martin, Richard Staley","doi":"10.1007/s00016-024-00313-w","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-024-00313-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"26 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140965552","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}