{"title":"Einstein’s Oxford cosmology blackboards: open portals to 1931","authors":"Dwight E. Vincent, David R. Topper","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00046-9","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00046-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We give a detailed description of the May 16, 1931, lecture by Albert Einstein on cosmology at Oxford University. In this lecture, Einstein discussed his cosmological model of 1931, a model in which the universe was assumed to expand from zero size to a maximum size and then collapse back again. We use information from the two blackboards that Einstein filled for the lecture and intertwine it with a detailed newspaper transcript of what Einstein said concurrently in German. We thereby present a line-by-line explanation of what was conveyed on the blackboards visually and, in an approximate way, what was concurrently conveyed verbally by Einstein. Even though very few in the audience that day would qualify, we assume the point of view of a sufficiently prepared member of the audience. Our discussion is informed by a summary pamphlet that was handed out by the organizers of the talks. We also describe some mistakes that Einstein made in his talk, issues surrounding the successful preservation of one of the two blackboards, as well as some aspects of Einstein’s cosmological thinking after the talk.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85697264","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 emergence of protein dynamics simulations: how computational statistical mechanics met biochemistry","authors":"Daniele Macuglia, Benoît Roux, Giovanni Ciccotti","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00043-y","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00043-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this essay, we aim to illustrate how Martin Karplus and his research group effectively set in motion the engine of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of biomolecules. This process saw its prodromes between 1969 and the early 1970s with Karplus’ landing in biology, a transition that came to fruition with the treatment of 11-<i>cis</i>-retinal photoisomerization and the development of an allosteric model to account for the mechanism of cooperativity in hemoglobin. In 1977, J. Andrew McCammon, Bruce Gelin, and Martin Karplus published an article in <i>Nature</i> reporting the MD simulation of bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI). This publication helped initiate the merger of computational statistical mechanics and biochemistry, a process that Karplus undertook at a later stage and whose beginnings we propose to reconstruct in this article through unpublished accounts of the key people who participated in this endeavor.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00043-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73475868","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}
B. Novosyadlyj, B. Hnatyk, Yu. Kulinich, B. Melekh, O. Petruk, R. Plyatsko, M. Tsizh, M. Vavrukh, N. Virun
{"title":"Samuil Kaplan and the development of astrophysical research at the Lviv University","authors":"B. Novosyadlyj, B. Hnatyk, Yu. Kulinich, B. Melekh, O. Petruk, R. Plyatsko, M. Tsizh, M. Vavrukh, N. Virun","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00045-w","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00045-w","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Samuil Kaplan (1921–1978) was a productive and famous astrophysicist. He was affiliated with a number of scientific centers in different cities of former Soviet Union. The earliest 13 years of his career, namely in the 1948–1961 years, he worked in Lviv University in Ukraine (then it was called the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic). In the present paper, the Lviv period of his life and scientific activity is described on the basis of archival materials and his published studies. Kaplan arrived in Lviv in June 1948, at the same month when he obtained the degree of Candidate of science. He was a head of the astrophysics sector at the Astronomical Observatory of the University, was a professor of department for theoretical physics as well as the founder and head of a station for optical observations of artificial satellites of Earth. He was active in the organization of the astronomical observational site outside of the city. During the years in Lviv, Kaplan wrote more than 80 articles and 3 monographs in 9 areas. The focus of his interests at that time was on stability of circular orbits in the Schwarzschild field, on white dwarf theory, on space gas dynamics, and cosmic plasma physics, and turbulence, on acceleration of cosmic rays, on physics of interstellar medium, on physics and evolution of stars, on cosmology and gravitation, and on optical observations of Earth artificial satellites. Some of his results are fundamental for development of theory in these fields as well as of observational techniques. The complete bibliography of his works published during the Lviv period is presented. Respective scientific achievements of Samuil Kaplan are reviewed in the light of the current state of research in these areas.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80362608","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":"Beyond the infrared: a centenary of Heinrich Rubens’s death","authors":"Iñigo González de Arrieta","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00044-x","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00044-x","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Heinrich Rubens (Wiesbaden, 1865, Berlin, 1922) was the first scientist to study the large gap between the conventional infrared range and the electrical wave regime, better known today as the terahertz gap. To this end, he produced numerous original instruments and was almost single-handedly responsible for all research on this region up to the 1920s. His research, motivated by Hertz’s demonstration of the electromagnetic theory of light, led him to contribute seminal works on blackbody radiation and interferometric spectroscopy that have been almost forgotten in modern expositions of these topics. On occasion of the centenary of his death, this work aims to critically assess his legacy, as well as to revitalize this important figure for a newer generation of spectroscopists.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00044-x.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72789505","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":"Fermi’s favorite figure: the history of the pseudopotential concept in atomic physics and neutron physics","authors":"Christopher R. Gould, Eduard I. Sharapov","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00042-z","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00042-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the early 1930’s, Fermi wrote two papers in which he introduced the concepts of “scattering length” and “pseudopotential.” Since that time, these terms have become universally associated with low energy scattering phenomena. Even though the two papers are very different—one in atomic physics, the other in neutron physics—a simple figure underlies both. The figure appears many times in Fermi’s work. We review how the two papers came about and briefly discuss modern developments of the work that Fermi initiated with these two remarkable papers.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00042-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78744660","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":"Schottky’s forgotten step to the Ising model","authors":"Reinhard Folk, Yurij Holovatch","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00041-0","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00041-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>A longstanding problem in natural science and later in physics was the understanding of the existence of ferromagnetism and its disappearance under heating to high temperatures. Although a qualitative description was possible by the Curie–Weiss theory, it was obvious that a microscopic model was necessary to explain the tendency of the elementary magnetons to prefer parallel ordering at low temperatures. Such a model was proposed in 1922 by Schottky within the old Bohr–Sommerfeld quantum mechanics and claimed to explain the high values of the Curie temperatures of certain ferromagnets. Based on this idea Ising formulated a new model for ferromagnetism in solids. Simultaneously the old quantum mechanics was replaced by new concepts of Heisenberg and Schrödinger and the discovery of spin. Thus Schottky’s idea was outperformed and finally replaced in 1928 by Heisenberg exchange interaction. This led to a reformulation of Ising’s model by Pauli at the Solvay conference in 1930. Nevertheless one might consider Schottky’s idea as a forerunner of this development explaining and asserting that the main point is the Coulomb energy leading to the essential interaction of neighboring elementary magnets.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00041-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77400886","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":"Correction to: Einstein’s cosmic model of 1931 revisited: an analysis and translation of a forgotten model of the universe","authors":"C. O’Raifeartaigh, B. McCann","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00040-1","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00040-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72690823","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 history of observables and Hamilton–Jacobi approaches to general relativity","authors":"Donald Salisbury","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00039-8","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00039-8","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The main focus is on the Hamilton–Jacobi techniques in classical general relativity that were pursued by Peter Bergmann and Arthur Komar in the 1960s and 1970s. They placed special emphasis on the ability to construct the factor group of canonical transformations, where the four-dimensional diffeomorphism phase space transformations were factored out. Equivalence classes were identified by a set of phase space functions that were invariant under the action of the four-dimensional diffeomorphism group. This is contrasted and compared with approaches of Paul Weiss, Julian Schwinger, Richard Arnowitt, Stanley Deser, Charles Misner, Karel Kuchař—and especially the geometrodynamical program of John Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt where diffeomorphism symmetry is replaced by a notion of multifingered time. The origins of all of these approaches are traced to Elie Cartan’s invariant integral formulation of classical dynamics. A related correspondence concerning the thin sandwich dispute is also documented.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75533477","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":"On the origin of the Gullstrand–Painlevé coordinates","authors":"N. Nielsen","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00038-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00038-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77404655","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":"On the origin of the Gullstrand–Painlevé coordinates","authors":"N. K. Nielsen","doi":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00038-9","DOIUrl":"10.1140/epjh/s13129-022-00038-9","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Gullstrand’s and Oseen’s papers on the Gullstrand–Painlevé coordinates are translated from German into English, and their significance and their connection with Einstein’s Nobel prize are commented upon.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":791,"journal":{"name":"The European Physical Journal H","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89559418","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}