The European Physical Journal H最新文献

{"title":"Alessandro Serpieri and his seismographs: innovations in late nineteenth-century Italian seismology","authors":"Roberto Mantovani","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00106-w","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00106-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The paper examines the historical development and context of several seismographs preserved in the <i>Physics Laboratory and Museum of Science and Technology</i> at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo. In the second half of the nineteenth century, these instruments were used by Alessandro Serpieri (1823–1885), a Scolopian priest and a pioneer of Italian seismology. Following a brief biographical overview of the scientist, the study examines three principal instruments currently on display in the museum: the “protoseismograph” by Michele Stefano De Rossi (1878) and two seismographs designed by the Urbino-based instrument-maker Achille Scateni (c. 1882). In addition to these surviving instruments, the study also discusses a seismograph invented by Serpieri in 1873, known only through contemporary descriptions and illustrations. This study re-examines their history and mechanical functioning using archival documents, publications from the period, and direct analysis of the instruments, focusing on Luigi Palmieri’s influence on Serpieri’s seismograph design. It highlights the scientific heritage of Urbino’s Physics Laboratory and the pivotal collaboration between Serpieri and Scateni, locating their advancements in Italian instrumental seismology within the context of the birth of quantitative seismometry which complemented continuing observational methods in the late nineteenth century. In particular, it suggests how the interplay between local instrumental innovation and national scientific networks fostered the development of modern seismometry in Italy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00106-w.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145256089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mechanical analogy between the second-order Schrödinger equation without potential for the case of a particle in an ideal infinite well with the fourth-order Schrödinger equation in connection with the potential manifestation of negative mass in Bose–Einstein condensates and exciton–polaritons in cavity","authors":"David Izabel","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00110-0","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00110-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Building on Schrödinger's original formulation of quantum mechanics from 1926, which initially involved a fourth-order differential equation, this article explores the mechanical analogy between this first Schrödinger equation without potential V and the dynamic behavior of vibrating elastic structures in the specific case of a particle in a potential well. Revisiting this fourth-order approach, we find a mathematical equivalence with the modern second-order Schrödinger equation which is strictly equivalent to the initial fourth-order Schrödinger equation in this specific case, while also revealing the possibility of solutions positive and negative masses. These results resonate with recent experimental observations on Bose–Einstein condensates and spin–orbit coupled exciton–polaritons. Following this research, it seems that negative mass effects should appear in the particular case of particles in a potential well situation close to this specific case like a Bose–Einstein condensate at a temperature close to 0 or another quantum entity in a cavity well.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145256413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Manila Observatory and the Italian seismological tradition in the Far East: endogenous meteorology in the Philippine Islands","authors":"Josep Batlló","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00108-8","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00108-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Manila Observatory, established in 1865, was a leading centre for geophysical research in the Far East for 80 years (1865–1945). It conducted pioneering studies in meteorology, geomagnetism, seismology, volcanology, and astronomy. Instrumental seismology began at the Observatory shortly after its founding, and its early development exhibited distinctive characteristics: It developed more rapidly than in Spain (the dominating power at that time) and it became a unique example of the Italian seismological tradition, particularly endogenous meteorology, taking root in Asia. Early Italian instruments such as seismographs, tromometers, and seismic telephones were installed and used extensively in Manila. By 1890, the Observatory became the central station of the Philippine seismological network. However, seismological research in the Philippines was not confined to the Observatory; other significant developments, especially in engineering seismology, also emerged during this period. This study offers an introductory analysis and evaluation of the early stages of instrumental seismology in the Philippines, highlighting its roots in the Italian seismological tradition—particularly the theories of endogenous meteorology—and its related scientific research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145211008","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Wheeler the storyteller: on the uses and drawbacks of history for life","authors":"Stefano Furlan","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00109-7","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00109-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>When a physicist evokes the past, historians typically start rubbing their hands, waiting for their chance to correct the naive scientist who seems to intrude into their job. In this attitude too, however, there is a form of naiveté that can prevent us from appreciating and properly weighing many aspects of history. The manifold uses of the past by the physicists themselves, in particular, remain a neglected topic. This paper intends to show how an eminent figure such as John A. Wheeler (1911–2008), also thanks to his long life and career, created a highly peculiar—and, communication-wise, very effective—mixture of personal experience and reminiscences, historical pathos and anecdotes, guiding ideas and metaphors. The relevance of such amalgam is not limited to the employment of rhetoric in science, since it shaped Wheeler’s influential research programs and suggestions throughout decades, besides offering a powerfully evocative and captivating communicative model for the speculative frontiers of physics. While all this is meant as a study in the way Wheeler made use of the past within his activities as a physicist, it can also provide us with a critical lesson about today’s construction of pseudo-historical narratives that try to legitimize bold proposals in lack of empirical results.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00109-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145168497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Theoretical discovery, experiment, and controversy in the Aharonov-Bohm effect: an oral history interview","authors":"Yakir Aharonov,&nbsp;Guy Hetzroni","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00107-9","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00107-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This oral history interview provides Yakir Aharonov’s perspective on the theoretical discovery of the Aharonov-Bohm effect in 1959, during his PhD studies in Bristol with David Bohm, the reception of the effect, the efforts to test it empirically (up to Tonomura’s experiment), and some of the debates regarding the existence of the effect and its interpretation. The interview also discusses related later developments until the 1980s, including modular momentum and Berry’s phase. It includes recollections from meetings with Werner Heisenberg, Richard Feynman, and Chen-Ning Yang, also mentioning John Bell, Robert Chambers, Werner Ehrenberg, Sir Charles Frank, Wendell Furry, Gunnar Källén, Maurice Pryce, Nathan Rosen, John Wheeler, and Eugene Wigner.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00107-9.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144927014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unveiling the violent universe (1950–1970), Part 2. The rise of relativistic astrophysics and the new astronomies in the Soviet world","authors":"Stefano Furlan,&nbsp;Luisa Bonolis","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00105-x","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00105-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the previous paper, we have outlined the systematic interconnections that, between the 1950s and 1960s, Iron Curtain notwithstanding, prepared a unitary framework for the exploration of the “violent universe”, thanks to the emergence of new astronomies (radio, gamma, X-ray) and the rise of relativistic astrophysics. In this paper, we will zoom-in on a Soviet event, the nature of which is not entirely clear, that took place in Tartu in the summer of 1962. Calling attention to it will not only allow us to fill a historiographical gap (since the premonitions of relativistic and neutrino astrophysics that were discussed have eluded the historians’ attention), but also to highlight important elements of its broader context and focus on some significant personalities who were present there. In this way, we will further show how the conceptual links that we have previously traced were indeed embedded in the technological scenario of the Cold War, shaped by the arms race and the space race. Once these aspects are clarified, we will expand on three versatile personalities who, in different ways, embodied the flowing together of new physical, astronomical, and cosmological developments: I.S. Shklovsky, B.M. Pontecorvo and, perhaps more than anyone else, one of the former leaders of the Soviet H-bomb project, Ya.B. Zel’dovich. Starting from the period of the Tartu event, Zel’dovich put his military work to the side (but exapting new technological possibilities from that) and led one of the world’s most important groups in the newly born relativistic astrophysics, with all its implications and interconnections with fundamental physics. By sketching the outcomes of the research of these scientists around the year of the Tartu event and then throughout the 1960s, we will also be able to outline the transition from the early “shared culture” (1950s-beginning of the 1960s) that we have been emphasizing to the unified perspectives that emerged in the following decades, up to multimessenger astronomy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00105-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144909723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unveiling the violent universe (1950–1970). Part I. New cosmic messengers, new astronomies: building a transdisciplinary research culture","authors":"Luisa Bonolis,&nbsp;Stefano Furlan","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00102-0","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00102-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Between the 1950s and early 1960s, the advent of radio, gamma-ray, and X-ray astronomy established deep links with the physical sciences, creating a new symbiosis between astronomy, physics, and cosmology. This relationship evolved in parallel with a revolutionized view of the universe, driven by novel cosmic messengers and the rise of relativistic astrophysics. We intend to show how, during this transitional period—shaped by the advent of the space age and embedded in the technological context of the Cold War—one can trace the harbingers of developments that would unfold from the 1970s and 1980s onwards, once astronomy had expanded to encompass the entire electromagnetic spectrum incorporating non-photonic messengers into the roster of possible cosmic signals to be used to study the Universe. In the early 1980s, the rise of particle astrophysics—a multidisciplinary field encompassing elementary particle physics, cosmology, and astrophysics—laid the groundwork for a cross-cultural alliance aimed at forging a broader foundation for a unified vision of the cosmos. This paper does not aim to retroactively trace the individual research paths of subcommunities of contemporary particle astrophysics. Rather, it seeks to highlight from a broad perspective, the advances that in the 1950s and 1960s had already paved the way for a radically new view of the cosmos, advances that were marked by the establishment of connections between different cosmic messengers and by synergic interactions and cross-fertilizations between different disciplinary cultures and communities, often separated by the Iron Curtain. In particular, we will emphasize how the key catalyst in linking previously separate scientific environments was the discovery of the Universe’s very high-energy phenomena: the <i>violent Universe</i>.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00102-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144897137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Father Serpieri, a forerunner of earthquake observation: from the “seismic radiant” to twenty-first century analyses","authors":"Gianluca Valensise","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00101-1","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00101-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Father Serpieri was certainly one of the pioneers of modern seismology, also because at least two strong earthquakes occurred in the region of central Italy where he lived during his mature age: in southern Marche in 1873, and near Rimini in 1875. Serpieri was interested in the investigation of earthquake location and had already established that every earthquake originates from a “seismic radiant”. Unfortunately, the 1873 earthquake was a tricky one: both because—unbeknown to him—the earthquake records he managed to collect from over 100 observatories were very imprecise in terms of time reference, and because that earthquake was substantially deeper than average upper crustal earthquakes, hence more difficult to relate to physiographic and shallow-rooted geological features. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, Father Serpieri’s research was an important step in understanding the cause-effect relationships between the large faults, which had not yet been imagined and understood in their essence, and the strong earthquakes they generated. The depth of his intuitions compensated the inaccuracy of his elaborations of instrumental data: Father Serpieri became a solid reference for the seismologists who contributed to the success of Italian Seismology between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145163207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A contextual analysis of the early work of Andrzej Trautman and Ivor Robinson on equations of motion and gravitational radiation","authors":"Donald Salisbury,&nbsp;Daniel Kennefick","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00104-y","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00104-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the mid-1950s, Andrzej Trautman published a series of papers connected with his dissertation work written under Leopold Infeld. In these, he drew upon the slow motion approximation developed by Infeld, the general covariance-based strong conservation laws enunciated by Bergmann and Goldberg, the Riemann tensor attributes explored by Goldberg and related geodesic deviation exploited by Pirani, the permissible metric discontinuities identified by Lichnerowicz, O’Brien and Synge, and finally Petrov’s classification of vacuum spacetimes. With several significant additions he produced a comprehensive overview of the state of research in equations of motion and gravitational waves that was presented in a widely cited series of lectures at King’s College, London, in 1958. Fundamental new contributions were the formulation of boundary conditions representing outgoing gravitational radiation, the deduction of its Petrov type, a covariant expression for null wave fronts, and a derivation of the correct mass loss formula due to radiation emission. Ivor Robinson, who attended Trautman’s London lectures, had already in 1956 developed a bi-vector based technique that had resulted in his rediscovery of exact plane gravitational wave solutions of Einstein’s equations. He was the first to characterize shear-free null geodesic congruences. He and Trautman soon developed a long-term collaboration whose initial fruits were the Robinson–Trautman metric, examples of which were exact spherical gravitational waves.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145168985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Myths of nuclear graphite in World War II, with original translations","authors":"Patrick J. Park,&nbsp;Sebastian Herzele,&nbsp;Timothy W. Koeth","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00098-7","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00098-7","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We re-examine a common narrative that experimental errors by Walther Bothe in 1941 led Germany to abandon graphite as a reactor moderator during World War II. Using document-based nuclear archaeology, we first show that both American and German scientists used an incorrect carbon scattering cross section, thereby undermining the accuracy of all wartime data, including their conclusions on carbon’s absorption. Moreover, we argue that the availability of exceptionally pure petroleum coke in the United States, rather than any academic breakthrough, decisively enabled their production of nuclear-grade graphite. In contrast, Bothe’s Siemens electrographite had more boron contamination than any graphites considered in Fermi’s experiments, rendering it genuinely impractical as a moderator. By reframing the decision to eschew graphite as a deliberate decision rather than a mere experimental oversight, we believe the German decision was a rational consequence of material constraints and wartime priorities.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2025-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-025-00098-7.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145166389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}