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Early history of gauge theory---a science history paper
one way to enrich one's understanding of scientific theories is to
learn about the people who discovered them and what they were thinking about at the time, and how other scientists reacted etc.
gauge theory apparently got started in 1918 - 1929 by Hermann Weyl
he corresponded with Einstein and Pauli about it and got some interesting reactions
it gradually became a prevalent style in theoretical physics. I guess the main theories from 1950 onwards are gauge theories, the ones that have proven useful----and some of the one's that haven't yet too.
maybe you could call the gauge way of doing things a 20th century paradigm or a "mental habit" among theorists---one that has had great success.
So what about the HISTORY of this invention?
I am not an expert about this so I would like to ask what other people think about this RECENT PAPER on gauge history.
http://arxiv.org/hep-ph/0509116
Gauge principle and QED
Norbert Straumann
Invited talk at PHOTON2005, 31.8-04.09, 2005, Warsaw, 19 pages
"One of the major developments of twentieth century physics has been the gradual recognition that a common feature of the known fundamental interactions is their gauge structure. In this talk the early history of gauge theory is reviewed, emphasizing especially Weyl's seminal contributions of 1918 and 1929."
SAMPLE PARAGRAPH:
"The history of gauge theories begins with GR,which can be regarded as a nonAbelian gauge theory of as pecial type. To a large extent the other gauge theories emerged in a slow and complicated process gradually from GR. Their common geometrical structure–best expressed in terms of connections of fiber bundles – is now widely recognized..."
Is this a good History of Science paper? Can one learn anything new, or get to understand the gauge way of doing business any better, by reading it?
one way to enrich one's understanding of scientific theories is to
learn about the people who discovered them and what they were thinking about at the time, and how other scientists reacted etc.
gauge theory apparently got started in 1918 - 1929 by Hermann Weyl
he corresponded with Einstein and Pauli about it and got some interesting reactions
it gradually became a prevalent style in theoretical physics. I guess the main theories from 1950 onwards are gauge theories, the ones that have proven useful----and some of the one's that haven't yet too.
maybe you could call the gauge way of doing things a 20th century paradigm or a "mental habit" among theorists---one that has had great success.
So what about the HISTORY of this invention?
I am not an expert about this so I would like to ask what other people think about this RECENT PAPER on gauge history.
http://arxiv.org/hep-ph/0509116
Gauge principle and QED
Norbert Straumann
Invited talk at PHOTON2005, 31.8-04.09, 2005, Warsaw, 19 pages
"One of the major developments of twentieth century physics has been the gradual recognition that a common feature of the known fundamental interactions is their gauge structure. In this talk the early history of gauge theory is reviewed, emphasizing especially Weyl's seminal contributions of 1918 and 1929."
SAMPLE PARAGRAPH:
"The history of gauge theories begins with GR,which can be regarded as a nonAbelian gauge theory of as pecial type. To a large extent the other gauge theories emerged in a slow and complicated process gradually from GR. Their common geometrical structure–best expressed in terms of connections of fiber bundles – is now widely recognized..."
Is this a good History of Science paper? Can one learn anything new, or get to understand the gauge way of doing business any better, by reading it?
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