Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2007 APS April Meeting
Volume 52, Number 3
Saturday–Tuesday, April 14–17, 2007; Jacksonville, Florida
Session R10: History of Physics II |
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Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: David C. Cassidy, Hofstra University Room: Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront City Terrace 6 |
Monday, April 16, 2007 10:45AM - 11:09AM |
R10.00001: Walther Nernst, Albert Einstein, Otto Stern, and the Specific Heat of Hydrogen. Clayton Gearhart In 1911, the German physical chemist Walther Nernst observed that the new quantum theory might both clarify unresolved problems in the specific heats of gases and shed new light on quantum theory itself. He noted that measurements of the specific heat of hydrogen gas at low temperatures might be particularly informative. Arnold Euken, working in Nernst's laboratory in Berlin, published the first measurements in 1912. They showed a sharp drop, corresponding to the rotational degrees of freedom ``freezing out.'' Nernst also developed a theory in his 1911 paper, in which, remarkably, rotational energies were \textit{not} quantized. Instead, the specific heat fell off because the gas was in equilibrium with quantized Planck oscillators. Nernst's theory was flawed But Einstein adopted an improved version at the 1911 Solvay Conference, and in 1913, he and Otto Stern published a more detailed treatment, in which they suggested tentatively that Planck's recently introduced zero-point energy might reduce or even eliminate the need to quantize physical systems. This episode points out just how mysterious quantum phenomena seemed early in the 20th century. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
R10.00002: Einstein in the City Danian Hu On his first trip to the United States in April 1921, Albert Einstein visited The City College of New York before he proceeded to Columbia and Princeton Universities. As a result, Einstein gave his very first scientific speech in the United States at The City College, known simply and cordially to New Yorkers as ``the City.'' That visit, however, is now rarely known. This paper will investigate why Einstein came to the City, what he spoke there, and the significance and consequences of his visit. In particular, the paper will discuss Einstein's associations with Reinhard Wetzel, a physicist, and Morris R. Cohen, a philosopher, at the City. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
R10.00003: Einstein's Viscous Advice Flowed Freely Nonetheless Paul Halpern This talk will examine a 1930 letter from Einstein to a medicinal chemistry assistant in Leiden, whose full name isn't identified in the text. I have ascertained that the letter was likely addressed to a student named Jan Lens who was writing his doctoral thesis in Utrecht on the properties of lyophilic colloids. I show how the letter refers to the Einstein relation for viscosity that first appeared in erroneous form in 1906 and corrected form in 1911. In the letter, Einstein alludes to the possibility of an extension of his formula to charged particles. It offers an interesting example of Einstein's free- flowing generosity in offering advice to students. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
R10.00004: The Unfinished Revolution: Einstein's revenge James Beichler Thomas Kuhn defined the characteristics of scientific revolutions based upon his knowledge of the first and second Scientific Revolutions. He concluded that such revolutions are the result of crises in science. However, he missed some important clues of how revolutions develop. Instead of looking at crises, we should look at the major trends in scientific and human thought prior to the revolutions and then we could gain a better understanding of how scientific revolutions emerge from the normal course of scientific evolution. Instead of defining revolutions by the crises that precede them, revolutions actually emerge from the successes of previous science while each revolution contains the seeds for the next revolution that follows. These seeds eventually grow into the crises that trigger revolutions. Under these circumstances, it can be shown that the space-time revolution of relativity theory was never completed, thus laying the foundations for the next revolution in science. Knowing this, we can determine if we have we already entered the pre-revolutionary period of the Third Scientific Revolution. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
R10.00005: Fermi's Conundrum: Proliferation and Closed Societies Wendy Teller, Catherine Westfall On January 1, 1946 Emily Taft Douglas, a freshman Representative at Large for Illinois, sent a letter to Enrico Fermi. She wanted to know whether, if atomic energy was used for peaceful purposes, it might be possible to clandestinely divert some material for bombs. Douglas first learned about the bomb not quite five months before when Hiroshima was bombed. Even though she was not a scientist she identified a key problem of the nuclear age. Fermi responded with requirements to allow peaceful uses of atomic energy and still outlaw nuclear weapons. First, free interchange of information between people was required, and second, people who reported possible violations had to be protected. Fermi had lived in Mussolini's Italy and worked under the war time secrecy restrictions of the Manhattan Project. He was not optimistic that these conditions could be met. This paper discusses how Douglas came to recognize the proliferation issue and what led Fermi to his solution and his pessimism about its practicality. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
R10.00006: Physics in the international arms control effort: a history and introduction William Mendoza, Ann Ganzer, Amy Westling The U.S. Government has regulations in place to control the international traffic in arms. The growth of science and engineering since the inception of this governmental effort has produced many remarkable military-related systems, some existing purely for information gathering and defensive purposes. Defense trade is now a multi-billion dollar multi-national industry. U.S. defense trade in particular is strongly influenced by national security and foreign policy rather than economic impact, unlike many of its competitors. A brief history of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations will be presented, followed by an overview of some of the categories on the United States Munitions List and the Missile Technology Control Regime Annex which have strong connections to physics in terms of theory, concepts, and measurement. Following this category overview, particular emphasis will be given to the existing radiation hardening standards for semiconductors, and the basic structure of night vision devices. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
R10.00007: Evolution \textit{versus} creation in the public school curriculum: History of the legal battles Ruprecht Machleidt In 2004, the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania, ordered Intelligent Design (ID) to be included in the Biology curriculum of Dover High School. Tammy Kitzmiller and ten other parents of Dover students filed suit in Federal Court contending that the Dover ID policy constituted an establishment of religion prohibited by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The six-week trial in fall 2005 made national headlines. The judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. The Kitzmiller case cannot be understood properly without knowledge of the legal landscape and the history of court cases of similar kind. It is the purpose of this contribution to provide this background. Thus, I will review the 80+ year history of the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution \textit{versus} creation in public schools. [Preview Abstract] |
Monday, April 16, 2007 12:21PM - 12:33PM |
R10.00008: Founding \emph{The Physical Review} and its early years Guy Emery In 1893 \emph{The Physical Review}, ``a journal of experimental and theoretical physics,'' was founded by Edward L. Nichols at Cornell University. Nichols and his colleagues Ernest Merritt and Frederick Bedell had to solicit (and sometimes very politely reject) manuscripts, deal with questions of multiple publication, manage challenges by European physicists to papers by young American authors, see to book reviews, obituaries, and news notes, and keep the operation financially viable. A time of revolutionary change in physical ideas was about to start, and some in the vigorously growing American community, including at times the editors, found it difficult to keep up. The story of the beginnings of the journal gives some of the flavor of physics and the physics community at the turn of the twentieth century. [Preview Abstract] |
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