Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2005 APS April Meeting
Saturday–Tuesday, April 16–19, 2005; Tampa, FL
Session R13: History of Physics II |
Hide Abstracts |
Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: Roger H. Stuewer, University of Minnesota Room: Marriott Tampa Waterside Room 12 |
Monday, April 18, 2005 10:45AM - 11:09AM |
R13.00001: Plato's TIMAIO$\Sigma$ (TIMAEUS) and Modern Particle Physics Ruprecht Machleidt It is generally known that the question, ``What are the smallest particles (elementary particles) that all matter is made from?'', was posed already in the antiquity. The Greek natural philosophers Leucippus and Democritus were the first to suggest that all matter was made from atoms. Therefore, most people perceive them as the ancient fathers of elementary particle physics. It will be the purpose of my contribution to point out that this perception is wrong. Modern particle physics is not just a primitive atomism. More important than the materialistic particles are the underlying symmetries (e.~g., $SU(3)$ and $SU(6)$). A similar idea was first advanced by Plato in his dialog TIMAIO$\Sigma$ (Latin translation:\ TIMAEUS): Geometric symmetries generate the materialistic particles from a few even more elementary items. Plato's vision is amazingly close to the ideas of modern particle physics. This fact, which is unfortunately little known, has been pointed out repeatedly by Heisenberg (see, e.~g., Werner Heisenberg, {\it Across the Frontiers}, Harper \& Row, New York, 1974). [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2005 11:09AM - 11:33AM |
R13.00002: Early radium experiments in Guadalajara, M\'{e}xico Durruty Jes\'{u}s de Alba Mart\'{i}nez In April 01, 1904, two catholic lay priests, Severo D\'{i}az Galindo and Jos\'{e} Mar\'{i}a Arreola Mendoza, performed firsts Radium experiments in Guadalajara, M\'{e}xico, just after Radium experiments realized in Mexico City by Prof. Luis G. Le\'{o}n. Results of such experiences where published in the {\it Bolet\'{i}n Eclesi\'{a}stico y Cient\'{i}fico del Arzobispado de Guadalajara\/} (Eclesiastic and Scientific Bulletin of the Guadalajara Archbishopric), here is show this paper and some of the first Radium plates obtained. Scientific and educational situation in Guadalajara is described and how both persons became founders of the modern scientific activity in the city. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2005 11:33AM - 11:57AM |
R13.00003: U.S. Scientists and the Chinese Reception of Relativity Danian Hu Li Fangbai (1890-1959) was the first Chinese physicist who introduced relativity in China. Although Li was educated in Japan, his introduction was based completely on his reading of Western physics works, especially those by U.S. scientists Gilbert N. Lewis and Richard C. Tolman. Since then U.S. scientists had an increasingly significant influence on the Chinese reception and research of relativity. For example, two leading Chinese theoretical physicists, who carried on researches in general relativity in the 1930s and 1940s, graduated from Caltech and MIT respectively. There were many other connections between U.S. physicists and China's reception of relativity. This paper presents findings of the historical investigation on such connections, which will also reveal the U.S. contributions to the rise of theoretical physics in China. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 18, 2005 11:57AM - 12:21PM |
R13.00004: Disaster Scenarios at Nuclear Accelerators Joseph Kapusta The Bevalac accelerator was created at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1974 to study dense nuclear matter. The possibility that Lee-Wick density isomers could be formed and destroy the Earth was considered by an internal committee which concluded that the possibility was remote and the experiments should proceed. This was mentioned in an article in Physics Today in 1993, which resulted in the authors being put on the Unabomber's list. The RHIC accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory began operation in 2000 to create quark-gluon plasma. Concerns that strange quark matter or mini-black holes could be formed that would destroy the Earth were aired in the Sunday Times of London in 1999, which resulted in an open committee review whose report was published in Reviews of Modern Physics. [Preview Abstract] |
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