Remembering Matvei Bronstein: A Forgotten Physicist

[rhody]

From Smolin's Book: "The Trouble with Physics", 2006

This is a good read for someone whose interests lie in a layman's understanding the history and progress in producing a workable/testable theory of quantum gravity.

On page 85, Smolin lays out the problem as understood at the time, which I interpret as, how do you reconcile gravity, when considering general relativity on a background that is independent, in which gravity waves interact with one another, and even more important, obeying the law of general relativity, they actually change the background as they travel.

This problem was understood by Russian physicist http://images.google.com/imgres?img...?q=Matvei+petrovich&gbv=2&ndsp=21&hl=en&sa=N". (I did a search on this forum and only found a single reference to it, from a tribute in a paper) His peers considered him as one of the two most brilliant Soviet physicists of his time.

In 1936 he wrote in a paper that,

the elimination of logical consistencies requires rejection of ordinary concepts of space and time, modifying them by some deeper and nonevident concepts.

Bronsteins view was shared by http://people.bu.edu/gorelik/MPBronstein_100/J_Stachel_on_MPB.htm" , a brilliant young French Physicist.
Unfortunately, Bronstein was captured, tried and executed by the Soviet secret police, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD" , Solomon a few years later by the Germans in 1942, and their ideas were lost to history.

Smolin then states that today, almost seventy years later, those who are taken seriously about quantum gravity agree with these forgotten men, Bronstein, and Solomon. He then says that even though he has studied quantum gravity all of his life, he only learned about these two men shortly before the book was published in 2006, pretty amazing. From this http://images.google.com/imgres?img...?q=Matvei+petrovich&gbv=2&ndsp=21&hl=en&sa=N" I thought the following observation that paid tribute to him by a fellow inmate in the Soviet, Gulag, Boris Velikin: who eventually contacted Bronstein's widow, Lydia Chukovskaya, she made sure her husband's work was not forgotten (timeframe 1990's) and where Lee Smolin became aware of him.

Matvei Bronstein, a physicist, earned applause with his lecture on the relativity theory—then still a mysterious subject. Besides, he proved able to answer any question in any field well beyond the scope of theoretical physics and knew more poetry by heart than anybody else in the cell. What struck Boris Velikin more was Bronstein's ability to penetrate deep into the essence of phenomena. This ability allowed Bronstein to explain to him, who was a professional metallurgist, the subtleties of the special steel technology.

A fair tribute to a forgotten man...

Rhody...

 

[MTd2]

Hmm, what exactly he did?

 

[rhody]

Hmm, what exactly he did?

Sorry, MTD2, I said his research was "forgotten" I hope you have friend's who speak German, the physics math looks universal though. I will keep digging for an english translation and peer reviews, if they exist...

http://people.bu.edu/gorelik/cGh_FirstSteps92_MPB_36/MPB-all_94_e_TOC.htm"

Found one, you can review the entire document in the webpage...

http://books.google.com/books?id=UQ...esnum=5&ved=0CBEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false"

This is in english, Scan to page 86 (using blue arrow at top of webpage) and beyond to view his work...

You are the physicist. You would be better qualified to judge, after taking a look, how about your opinion...

Rhody...

 

[marcus]

Matvei Petrovich Bronstein: forgotten Soviet physicist and founder: Quantum Gravi

Hi Rhody, thanks for this reminder about Matvei Bronstein.

I first encountered Bronstein's name in the book Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli, which I read in draft form in 2003. Rovelli has an appendix at the end of the book which gives the history of QG. And Bronstein is discussed in the first section, which Rovelli calls the "pre-history (1930-1957)". See pages 398-399 in the 2004 edition.

In order to write accurately about Bronstein's role in the earliest QG work, Rovelli consulted with the Russian physics historian Gennady Gorelik. He also cited the work of John Stachel. Stachel has published Early History of Quantum Gravity (1916-1940) and is a recognized expert. This paper has fascinating detail about early QG researchers, including of course Bronstein.

Rovelli's book references the same Bronstein paper you do, Quantentheorie schwacher Gravitationsfelder.
It also cites the 1994 paper by Gorelik and Frenkel which you provided a link to:
Matvei Petrovic Bronstein and the Soviet Theoretical Physics of the Thirties.

Judging from the writings of all these experts: Gorelik, Stachel, Rovelli, we have to acknowledge Bronstein as one of the pioneers of the field, someone who definitely deserves to be remembered.

 

[rhody]

Judging from the writings of all these experts: Gorelik, Stachel, Rovelli, we have to acknowledge Bronstein as one of the pioneers of the field, someone who definitely deserves to be remembered.

Thanks marcus,

Acknowledging Bronstein is a good thing. Along that same vein. in trying to attack the problem of how gravitons interacted with more than just weak gravitational waves, but with the self interaction problem that kept it from contradicting quantum theory. A lot of effort was spent from the 1950's to the 1980's on this problem.

On page 87 Smolin describes the effort that went into this that I was unaware of. In his words:

We are talking about thirty years of continual hard work, involving many complicated equations. Imagine doing your income tax every day, all day, for a week, and still not getting the calculations to add up consistently. You have an error somewhere, but you can't find it. Now imagine a month like that. Can you stretch it for a year ? Now imagine twenty years. Now imagine that there are a couple dozen people around the world spending their time like this. Some are friends, some are rivals. They all have their own schemes to make it work.

and

Once or twice a year, you go to an international conference, where you can present your scheme to the other fanatics. This was the field of quantum gravity before 1984.

IMHO, an extraordinary effort by a group of dedicated physicists.

It mirrors the effort that marcus and a host of others have put into the Oct 03, thread... Intuitive content of loop Gravity thread... where I found the reference to
Bronstein to begin with.

Rhody...

 

[GGorelik]

Good to see this memorial discussion.
Just one correction. The photo above is the prison photo of Lev Landau (who was a close friend of Matvei Bronstein). Here are three relevant photos

In 1935 Bronstein made his dissertation on QG.
He was arrested in Aug 1937 and "disappeared" - executed in Feb 1938.
Landau was arrested in April 1938.

More detailes:
http://people.bu.edu/gorelik/cGh_Bronstein_UFN-200510_Engl.htm" // Physics-Uspekhi 2005, vol 48, no 10, pp. 1039-1053

Good luck to your QG search

"[URL Gorelik,
Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston University
[/URL]

 

[Borek]

Thank you for the clarification. I was sure I have seen the picture and I thought whether it is possible if Bronstein is so forgotten person. If that's Landau it makes me sure my memory have not played any tricks, plenty of his pictures on the web.

 

[rhody]

Good to see this memorial discussion.
Just one correction. The photo above is the prison photo of Lev Landau (who was a close friend of Matvei Bronstein). Here are three relevant photos

Thanks GGorelik for clearing that up, I saw all three photos when I google'd, imaged his name and was a bit confused as well, it would be nice, if someone who is a real physicist could explain in technical and laymen's terms (so I could understand, not being a physicist) what Bronstein's major insight or contribution was.

Rhody...

 

[GGorelik]

Matvei Bronstein was the first who discovered (in 1935) incompatibility of General Relativity and Quantum Theory. In his words:

"The elimination of the logical inconsistencies connected with [combining GR and QT] requires a radical reconstruction of the theory, and in particular, the rejection of a Riemannian geometry dealing, as we see here, with values unobservable in principle, and perhaps also the rejection of our ordinary concepts of space and time, modifying them by some much deeper and nonevident concepts."


Bronstein M "Quantentheorie schwacher Gravitationsfelder" Phys. Z. Sowjetunion 1936, v. 9, p. 140-157.
Bronstein M P "Kvantovanie gravitatsionnykh voln" [Quantization of Gravitational Waves] ZhETF [Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics] 1936 v. 6, p.195
Gorelik G "First steps of quantum gravity and the Planck values", in Studies in the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, Vol. 3, Eds J Eisenstaedt, A J Kox) (Boston: Birkhauser, 1992) p. 364 - 379; Gorelik G E, Frenkel V Ya Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties (Boston: Birkhauser, 1994)