{"title":"Amateurs in the History of Physics","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s00016-022-00288-6","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-022-00288-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"24 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4444791","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":"Drama around a Wartime Heisenberg Letter","authors":"Stephan Schwarz","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00285-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00285-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A recently published letter written by Werner Heisenberg in October 1943 has been interpreted as reporting on a sudden chasm in a close relationship between Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. The interpretation is interesting because (as will be argued) it is counterintuitive. There are alternatives; for example, it could be an afterthought following extended nightly small talk, not to be taken seriously. I argue, with reference to other sources, that the long-standing friendship was complex and incongruent in many ways, yet solid. It is unlikely that this relation should be vulnerable to destruction by a single irrational incident, that did not even touch on personal commitments. The incident seems rather to be an atypical expression of frustration, with little consequence. The letter can even be interpreted as a unique expression of its author’s resentment of phraseology with roots in Nazi rhetoric.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"24 1","pages":"72 - 92"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-021-00285-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4297491","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":"Making and Collecting Instruments in Fair Verona: The Case of the Italian Amateur Scientist Gaetano Spandri (1796–1859)","authors":"Roberto Mantovani","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00283-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00283-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Gaetano Spandri (1796–1859) was a “diligent scholar of the physical sciences,” a private collector and maker of scientific instruments who worked in Verona in the first half of the nineteenth century. Born in Verona, the city famous as the setting of Shakespeare’s iconic masterpiece <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> Spandri was primarily a physicist and astronomer, but he was also interested in meteorology and natural sciences. The main sources of information about his scientific work are handwritten papers, parts of his private correspondence, and scientific reports kept at the Verona Academy of Agriculture. For most of his life, he collaborated with the physicist Giuseppe Zamboni and was in contact with important physicists and astronomers of his time. His private apartment was equipped with a rich library, an astronomical and meteorological observatory, and a large room where he gathered a rich and important collection of scientific instruments.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"24 1","pages":"3 - 34"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-021-00283-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"5041326","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":"Walter Scott Hill and Uruguayan Physics","authors":"Juan A. Queijo Olano, Antonio A. P. Videira","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00284-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00284-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The history of physics in Uruguay has long been misunderstood by the country’s historians. This article proposes a new way of considering that past, researching the career of Walter Scott Hill at the Institute of Physics of the University of the Republic of Uruguay (Udelar). By doing so, not only can we fill a gap in the history of Uruguayan science, but we can also understand how important a role the laboratory had in the country’s physics and what ramifications this had. Uruguayan physics did not develop from a university chair or an institute or some scientific society; its embryo was the laboratory at the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying, part of the Institute of Physics at Udelar, even if its subsequent development did not apparently generate further fruit.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"24 1","pages":"35 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-021-00284-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4932885","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}
Robert P. Crease, Joseph D. Martin, Richard Staley
{"title":"E Pluribus…?","authors":"Robert P. Crease, Joseph D. Martin, Richard Staley","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00282-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00282-4","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 4","pages":"179 - 180"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4120607","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":"CERN’s Balancing Act Between Unity and Disunity: The “Sister Experiments” UA1 and UA2 and CERN’s First Nobel Prize","authors":"Grigoris Panoutsopoulos, Theodore Arabatzis","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00281-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00281-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper, we employ Ian Hacking’s insight that “unity” has a double meaning, singleness and harmonious integration, to revisit a major episode from the recent history of CERN: the UA1 and UA2 experiments in the early 1980s, which led to the discovery of the <i>W</i> and <i>Z</i> bosons. CERN is a complex institution, where diverse groups are called upon to cooperate. We argue that this lack of unity, in the first sense of the term, is counterbalanced by specific mechanisms of integration, so that CERN achieves its standing as a unified organization. The UA1/UA2 episode highlights this interplay between unity and disunity. The UA2 experiment was designed and carried out in order to confirm the validity of the results obtained by UA1. The two experimental teams, working independently and with different mentalities, built separate detectors and refrained from systematically sharing their data. This gave rise to strong antagonisms and diametrically opposed opinions over what conclusions could legitimately be drawn from the resulting data. Our analysis focuses on the mechanisms which compensated for that disunity and eventually led to a unified consensus between UA1 and UA2.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 4","pages":"181 - 201"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"5370594","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":"American Nineteenth-Century Manufacturers and Importers of Philosophical Apparatus","authors":"Thomas B. Greenslade Jr.","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00273-5","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00273-5","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Professors of physics in nineteenth-century America had two options for procuring the apparatus that they needed to demonstrate the phenomena of physics to their students. Some apparatus was available from makers and dealers in Europe, mostly in France (for optical apparatus) and Germany. A few teachers, such as Ebenezer Snell of Amherst, made some of their own apparatus. The rest of the instruments came from the fledgling North American apparatus industry, based in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and toward the end of the century, Chicago. In this article, I will discuss apparatus made by Chamberlain, Wightman, Davis, Ritchie, Pike and Ritchie, Queen, and then a few Chicago companies, and will give examples of some of their products. Toward the end of the century, a few colleges decided that the making of physics apparatus was a key adjunct of the experience of learning physics, and I will give some examples.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 4","pages":"202 - 230"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4877782","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":"From England to Italy: The Intriguing Story of Poli’s Engine for the King of Naples","authors":"Salvatore Esposito","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00277-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00277-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>An interesting, yet unknown episode concerning the effective permeation of the scientific revolution in eighteenth-century Kingdom of Naples (and Italy more generally) is recounted. The intriguing story of James Watt’s steam engine, prepared to serve a Royal Estate of the King of Naples in Carditello, reveals a fascinating piece of the history of that kingdom, as well as an unknown step in the history of Watt’s steam engine, whose final entrepreneurial success for the celebrated Boulton & Watt company was a direct consequence. This story reveals that, contrary to what claimed in the literature, the first introduction in Italy of the most important technological innovation of the eighteenth century did not take place with the construction of the first steamship of the Mediterranean Sea, but rather thirty years before that, thanks to the incomparable work of Giuseppe Saverio Poli, a leading scholar and an influential figure in the Kingdom of Naples. The tragic epilogue of Poli’s engine accounts for its vanishing from historical memory.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 2-3","pages":"104 - 138"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00016-021-00277-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4588511","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":"Reporting Science","authors":"Joseph D. Martin","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00279-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00279-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 2-3","pages":"83 - 84"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4275191","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 Past Looks Like an Onion: The Centennial “Great Debate” Through Journalists’ Testimonies","authors":"Victória Flório, Olival Freire Júnior","doi":"10.1007/s00016-021-00275-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s00016-021-00275-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The discussion between California astronomers Harlow Shapley of Mount Wilson Observatory and Heber Doust Curtis of Lick Observatory during the 1920 NAS meeting in Washington, DC, is now a centennial vestige of early twentieth-century scientists’ efforts to map the universe. Historians have reconstructed that evening session using surviving archives (such as the formal accounts published in the <i>Bulletin of the National Research Council</i> in 1921), which could have contributed to a romanticized version of the event. Nevertheless, the repercussions of the event in the press have been overlooked as a source of information. On the day following the session, newspapers from all over the country covered the news on a debate on “the size of the universe” including the question of the existence of other galaxies. They used metaphors, figures, and quotes from the lecturers and the attendees, reinforcing the rivalry between the Lick and Mount Wilson observatories, with the goal of stirring the imagination of the American public, connecting the existence of other galaxies to pluralist debates. The myth of the debate may not have been based solely on the <i>Bulletin</i> papers; it is a complex process, which involves the media’s coverage of the event (from journalists’ testimonies in the newspapers articles to public perception).</p></div>","PeriodicalId":727,"journal":{"name":"Physics in Perspective","volume":"23 2-3","pages":"85 - 103"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2021-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"4594969","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}