Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2006 APS April Meeting
Saturday–Tuesday, April 22–25, 2006; Dallas, TX
Session Q14: History of Physics |
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Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: Robert H. Romer, Amherst College Room: Hyatt Regency Dallas Cumberland I |
Monday, April 24, 2006 1:30PM - 1:54PM |
Q14.00001: Was Nazi Germany on the Road to an Atomic Bomb after all? Harry Lustig The story of Germany’s efforts to develop a nuclear weapon during World War II is a much written about and contentious subject. However there has been agreement on one thing: by the end of the War the Germans had not achieved and were nowhere near to building a bomb. The dispute therefore has been about why Germany did not succeed. Now, from Germany, comes a challenge to this truth, in the provocative book Hitlers Bombe by Rainer Karlsch. The bombshell in Hitler’s Bombe is the assertion that German scientists developed and tested a primitive fission and fusion nuclear weapon in March 1945. Karlsch bases this claim on testimony of witnesses in 1962, previously secret Russian documents, and the results of soil tests carried out in 2004 and 2005. However the physics is very murky and it seems out of the question that Germany had enough Uranium 235 or produced any Plutonium for a bomb. Hitlers Bombe also makes other, better documented and more credible revisionist assertions. These include the claim that the Nazis did continue to try to build a bomb after 1942 and that not Werner Heisenberg, but Kurt Diebner and Walther Gerlach were then the leaders of the German Uranium project. Karlsch’s book therefore deserves more attention from physicists and historians than it has received in the United States. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 24, 2006 1:54PM - 2:18PM |
Q14.00002: Einstein and Oskar Klein: The Fifth Dimension as a Bridge across Quantum Chasms Paul Halpern In the mid 1920s, various physicists grappled with the underlying mechanisms for quantization. While at Ann Arbor, Oskar Klein developed a deterministic theory based upon the assumption of an undetectable fifth-dimension. With the rise of modern quantum mechanics, Klein, along with his colleagues, embraced the idea of wave functions acting in Hilbert space, and abandoned, for a time, the concept of an extra physical dimension. During the same period, Einstein, in contrast, began to explore five-dimensional unified field theories---first along with Walther Mayer, then with Peter Bergmann and Valentine Bargmann. This talk will explore connections---conceptual and philosophical---between Einstein's and Klein's theories, analyze the differences, examine the correspondence between the two theorists, and delve into the reasons each came to embrace and abandon the idea of the fifth dimension. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 24, 2006 2:18PM - 2:42PM |
Q14.00003: SED Alumni---breeding ground for scientists Benjamin Bederson In 1943 the US Army established the Special Engineering Detachment (SED), in which mostly drafted young soldiers possessing some scientific credentials (though usually quite minimal) were reassigned from other duties to the Manhattan Project to assist in various research and development aspects of nuclear weapons. The Los Alamos contingent, never more than a few hundred GIs, worked with more senior scientists and engineers, often assuming positions of real responsibility. An unintended consequence of this circumstance was the fact that being in the SEDs turned out to be a fortuitous breeding ground for future physicists, chemists, and engineers. SEDs benefited from their close contacts with established scientists, working with them side by side, attended lectures by luminaries, and gained invaluable experience that would help them establish academic and industrial careers later in life. I will discuss some of these individuals (I list only those of whom I am personally aware). These include Henry ``Heinz'' Barschall*, Richard Bellman*-RAND Corporation, Murray Peshkin-ANL, Peter Lax-Courant Institute, NYU, William Spindel*-NRC,NAS, Bernard Waldman- Notre Dame, Richard Davisson*-U of Washington, Arnold Kramish- RAND, UNESCO, Josef Hofmann- Acoustic Research Corp, Val Fitch- Princeton U. *deceased [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 24, 2006 2:42PM - 3:06PM |
Q14.00004: Rosenfeld, Bergmann, and the Invention of Constrained Hamiltonian Dynamics Donald Salisbury Significant progress in the invention of constrained Hamiltonian dynamics was made by Leon Rosenfeld in a paper he published in the Annalen der Physik in 1930. He applied his general formalism to general relativity with electrodynamical field and Dirac electron sources. His proposed Hamiltonian will be compared and contrasted with an independently developed precursor investigated by Peter Bergmann and collaborators in 1949-50. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 24, 2006 3:06PM - 3:18PM |
Q14.00005: Historic Patterns in Astronomical Incomprehension Virginia Trimble Because astronomy is old, it has had a chance to display some very prolonged battles in the war between ideas (theories) and observations (data) that we call science. It is possible to discern two major patterns -- data leading vs. ideas leading -- and very short to very long durations of the events that eventually led to understanding. A variant has the community converging with vigor around a wrong answer (gamma ray bursters are a recent example). The talk will explore some of the author's favorite examples of each pattern. These include the rapid basic understanding of quasars and pulsars vs. the extremely long times required to figure out the solar corona and pulsating variable stars. Among the cases where theory has led via prediction, discovery was almost immediate for 21 cm radio emission and superluminal motion in quasars, but very slow for fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation, certain kinds of polarization, and (surely a record never to be broken) heliocentric parallax. [Preview Abstract] |
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