Biographies, history, personal accounts

[sbrothy]

Here's another physics history/philosophy paper. I admit (to my shame)I haven't heard of her and I'm not gonna read it until tomorrow. But yeah....

 

[SebasHerbert]

Hey, thanks! I've heard bits about her, but not the full story. It’s kind of disappointing how so many fascinating physicists fly under the radar. It seems like only the ones who stir up controversy with groundbreaking discoveries get all the limelight. But honestly, there are countless others who have poured their heart and soul into studying and progressing physics.

 

[sbrothy]

Yeah. It's as if the big names sometimes outshine some of the lesser ones, and I don't mean lesser in a professional capacity. All these other discoveries are important too. I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't even read the paper. (I have a habit of downloading stuff to my cellphone for reading should I be without net or similar. That's how far this paper has come. :) )

It reminds me of the Curies and I'll be surprised if not at least Marie Curie is mentioned in there somewhere.

Happy reading.

 

[sbrothy]

Maybe these "biographies" would fit into a thread of their own.

(Arxiv): Lars Brink: November 12, 1943 - October 29, 2022

 

[sbrothy]

I posted these elsewhere but as I said collecting them in one thread may not not be such a bad idea:

Autobiographical Notes of a Physicist - N. David Mermin

Georges Lemaitre and the Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology

 

[sbrothy]

Another find. Mathematics this one.

Richard A. Litherland: A Brief Biography

 

[sbrothy]

Not a biography as such but it still touches on history as well as contemporary issues.


Oppie Op-ed: Reflections on Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.


Another one that kinda fits in here:

The Vatican and the Fallibility of Science: Augustine, Copernicus, Darwin and Race.

 

[sbrothy]

Most of us know of this guy:

C.V. Raman as a Science Communicator: A Historical Perspective.

 

[sbrothy]

I realize that with this one I'm veering out onto thin ice, but I've just been re-reading the military SciFi Schlock Mercernary, which has an in-universe setting where Terran millitary spaceships are referred to as "battleplates", are the size of e.g.: New York, and all named after major historical impact sites, such as for example Vredefort and Chicxulub crater.

The Evenki accounts of the 1908 Tunguska event collected in 1920s-1930s

Thus, I couldn't help myself.

-----

Here I'm back on track:

Biography of the French astronomer Henri Camichel


Regards.

 

[sbrothy]

It's of course pointless to point this one out right?

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Everyone knows that one. I'll beware I don't veer too deep into philosophical metaphysics. We can't lower this forum's bar to the level of Stanford University's. That won't do. :P

 

[sbrothy]

Seems to be in Italian unfortunately, but maybe ChatGPT or Google Translate could work some magic.

Bernardo Dessau, fisico, scienziato, maestro, da Bologna a Perugia tra i marosi del secolo breve

 

[pines-demon]

So just to be clear, we share here articles about the biography of somebody (no matter the format)?

Here is one that I read recently about Titus Pankey, he is not that well known but still of great importance:
Titus Pankey and his groundbreaking supernova light curve

 

[sbrothy]

So just to be clear, we share here articles about the biography of somebody (no matter the format)?

Here is one that I read recently about Titus Pankey, he is not that well known but still of great importance:
Titus Pankey and his groundbreaking supernova light curve

That's what I'm thinking yes. Any participation is welcome. It goes without saying that most of the content will come from "History and Philosophy" and the likewise more soft sections of Arxiv, as "Popular Physics" and the like. But if we try to keep it somewhat serious and not veer to far into metaphysics (and by any deity keep popular articles, e.g: phys.org, out of it) we'll collect some usable information. I guess blog posts from serious scientists would be ok as long as there's a real article at the bottom of it.

Regards.

 

[sbrothy]

Research and teaching in physics at the University of Franche-Comté 1845-1970.

Looks like a little goldmine.

 

[sbrothy]

More math-history. Looks like pretty heavy stuff but also interesting!

Emergence of Mathematics in Ancient India: A Reassessment

"This work explores a possible course of evolution of mathematics in ancient times in India when there was no script, no place-value system, and no zero. Reviewing examples of time-reckoning, large numbers, sacrificial altar-making, and astronomy, it investigates the role of concrete objects, natural events, rituals and names in context-dependent arithmetic, revealing its limited scope confined to counting, addition and subtraction. Higher operations, namely, multiplication, division and fractional calculations had to wait until the advent of symbolic numerals and procedures for computation. It is argued that the impression of these higher operations in a period usually known as the Vedic times is caused by inadvertent interpolation of present knowledge of mathematics in modern readings of the ancient texts."


The legacy of Bletchley Park on UK mathematics

 

[sbrothy]

This looks like a pretty weird one.

The Author of a Quotation Goethe Adduced Against Newton

 

[robphy]

https://www.webofstories.com/storytellers

• https://www.webofstories.com/play/john.wheeler/1
• https://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/1
• https://www.webofstories.com/play/murray.gell-mann/1
• https://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/1
• ... and many more

https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories

• John Wheeler https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4958
• Abhay Ashtekar https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/45807
• Richard Feynman (several) https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/5020-1
• Robert Wald https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/47228
• C.N. Yang https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4984
• Gerald t' Hooft https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/47016
• ...many more: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/browse/a

Feynman: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1981)

 

[pines-demon]

Well it is always worth mentioning MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, it is mostly about mathematics but there are many physicist in the biographies.

 

[sbrothy]

Well it is always worth mentioning MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, it is mostly about mathematics but there are many physicist in the biographies.

Those archives are new to me so this thread already paid off.

 

[sbrothy]

These may seem a little farfetched but the first concerns itself with culture, myth and human behavior through the lens of contemporary AI, and the second one I guess is as close we'll get to anthropology on arxiv.org:

Cultural evolution in populations of Large Language Models

Climate Immobility Traps: A Household-Level Test.

Good evening.

 

[sbrothy]

The history of the discovery of the physical quantum of action (Zur Geschichte der Auffindung des physikalischen Wirkungsquantums).

About the second law of mechanical heat theory (Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie)

I dunno about the second one but they seem to go together....

EDIT:

And well, this one sorta kinda smells a little of contemporary history.

Biophysics in Africa: challenges, priorities, and hopes

 

[Frabjous]

The history of the discovery of the physical quantum of action (Zur Geschichte der Auffindung des physikalischen Wirkungsquantums).

About the second law of mechanical heat theory (Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie)

I dunno about the second one but they seem to go together....

EDIT:

And well, this one sorta kinda smells a little of contemporary history.

Biophysics in Africa: challenges, priorities, and hopes

You are not providing enough information. The first two articles are translations of articles by Max Planck. The second is his thesis.

 

[Swamp Thing]

Rutherford: Recollections of the Cambridge Days
Mark Oliphant

https://archive.org/details/rutherfordrecoll0000olip_n4d1

 

[Swamp Thing]

Maxwell Stuff:

https://www.sonnetsoftware.com/bio/maxbio.pdf

https://www.sonnetsoftware.com/bio/MIcroMagJune2009TobysStatue.pdf

https://eurointech.ru/products/Sonnet/Sonnet_MWJ_Jul_2006.pdf

 

[sbrothy]

You are not providing enough information. The first two articles are translations of articles by Max Planck. The second is his thesis.

No wonder I thought they went together :)

I may need to slow down a little.

 

[sbrothy]

Matter and cosmogenesis in Kant's Theory of the Heavens.

I just love it when physics explanations include god. I wonder if Kant meant that the heavens was "ein ding an sich" or perhaps some other thing. I'm sure he thought it was "dings" all the way down. :)

Newton may not have had the whole picture but at least he wasn't sitting in an armchair and guessing. I'm sure he got him good. Every time I've tried to read Kant I've been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of gibberish.

But then again we've already established I'm not that smart.

 

[sbrothy]

Potentially interesting tidbits from Arxiv's physics.hist-ph (oldest first.)

The Compton scientific mission in Brazil in 1941: a perspective from national newspaper and documents of the time

Revisiting Taylor and the Trinity Test

An English Translation of Gröbli's Ph.D. Dissertation: "Specielle Probleme über die Bewegung geradliniger paralleler Wirbelfäden"

Richard Kirwan a [United] Irish Men of Science in Europe

(So I guess I'm enlarging the scope of the thread to physics history in general but I think everyone saw that coming.)

EDIT1:

Heh, 1. of April:

On the Superiority of the University of Arizona's Physics Club.

At least this time I noticed and wasn't taken for an embarrassing tour! :P

 

[pines-demon]

Physics Today obituary section is usually written by people close to the late scientist:
https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/collection/31382/Online-Obituaries

 

[sbrothy]

Nice find. Very tasteful (is that the word? Sober maybe?).

 

[Hornbein]

I liked Shing Tung Yao's autobiography The Shape Of A Life He started out as a hoodlum, later won the Fields medal.

 

[BWV]

Fritz Haber is a fascinating and tragic figure. On one hand, his eponymous process saved 2.7 billion human lives by some estimates. However he also led the German chemical weapons program in World War One and developed Zyklon B, which the Nazis used some 25 years later to murder his surviving family members

 

[sbrothy]

More from Arxiv's physics.hist-ph

Swedish Beams -- The Story of Particle Accelerators in Sweden
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Did Louis de Broglie miss the discovery of the Schrödinger equation?
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E. Amaldi, C. Dilworth, G.P.S. Occhialini on F.G. Houtermans

Synopsis for this one as it doesn'y really say much in the title.

"In the Occhialini-Dilworth Archives of the University of Milan are preserved four typescripts by E. Amaldi, dealing with F.G. Houtermans, German physicist, who fled to the USSR to escape the Nazis. During a Stalinist purge he was arrested. The typescripts were sent to the two Milanese physicists so that they might give a judgement. G.S. Occhialini and C. Dilworth, in fact, had personally met Houtermans in 1934 and in 1950. The scenario is that of the role of nuclear physicists during the WW2. The exchange of letters between Amaldi and the two Milanese physicists will be analysed in order to identify possible influences on Amaldi. I will highlight Dilworth's contribution, which found room in a chapter of Amaldi's biography of Houtermans."
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Regards.

 

[pines-demon]

Did Louis de Broglie miss the discovery of the Schrödinger equation?

This is curious. He seems to have missed the equation because he wanted relativistic equations. Same as with Schrödinger's initial guess. I wonder how quick we would have found the Schrödinger equation if the discovery of relativity was delayed.

 

[sbrothy]

Yes. An Schrödinger was kinda one of the last naturalist philosophers wasn't he? He span widely. His "What is Life?" book springs to mind. Thank God he evaded the Nazis.

 

[pines-demon]

Yes. An Schrödinger was kinda one of the last naturalist philosophers wasn't he? He span widely. His "What is Life?" book springs to mind. Thank God he evaded the Nazis.

Not sure if he was the last, what about Bell or Bohm? Many now work on quantum interpretations. Schrödinger is surely one of the last successful ones.

According to what I could find Klein, Gordon, Fock, de Broglie, de Donder, Schrödinger and more came up with Klein-Gordon equation in an attempt to find the Schrödinger's equation.