Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2009 APS April Meeting
Volume 54, Number 4
Saturday–Tuesday, May 2–5, 2009; Denver, Colorado
Session H14: History and Philosophy of Science |
Hide Abstracts |
Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: Dan Kleppner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Room: Plaza Court 4 |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 10:45AM - 11:09AM |
H14.00001: Is Einstein the Father of the Atomic Bomb Harry Lustig Soon after the American atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the notion took hold in the popular mind that Albert Einstein was ``the father of the bomb.'' The claim of paternity rests on the belief that E=mc2 is what makes the release of enormous amounts of energy in the fission process possible and that the atomic bomb could not have been built without it. This is a misapprehension. Most physicists have known that all along. Nevertheless in his reaction to the opera Dr. Atomic, a prominent physicist claimed that Einstein's discovery that matter can be transformed into energy ``is precisely what made the bomb possible.'' In fact what makes the fission reaction and one of its applications,the atomic bomb, possible is the smaller binding energies of fission products compared to the binding energies of the nuclei that undergo fission.The binding energies of nuclei are a well understood consequence of the numbers and arrangements of protons and neutrons in the nucleus and of quantum-mechanical effects. The realization that composite systems have binding energies predates relativity. In the 19th century they were ascribed to potential and other forms of energy that reside in the system. With Einstein they became rest mass energy. While E=mc2 is not the cause of fission, measuring the masses of the participants in the reaction does permit an easy calculation of the kinetic energy that is released. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 11:09AM - 11:21AM |
H14.00002: Centrifugation and the Manhattan Project Cameron Reed A study of U. S. Army Manhattan Engineer District documents reveals that consideration of centrifugation as a means of uranium enrichment during World War II was considerably more extensive than is commonly appreciated. By the time the centrifuge project was abandoned in early 1944 a full-scale prototype unit had been fabricated and tested at near-production speeds, enrichments of close to theoretically-expected levels had been demonstrated with pilot-plant units, and plans for production plants had been developed. This paper will review the history of this little-known aspect of the Project and examine the circumstances of how it came to be discontinued. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 11:21AM - 11:33AM |
H14.00003: Unification Accomplished and Forgotten: The story of H.T. Flint James Beichler Since the 1970s, an ever growing number of theoretical physicists have become interested in unifying the quantum and relativity upon a quantum basis. Before the 1970s, only Einstein and a select few sought unification, but their theoretical work was based upon the continuity of relativity rather than quantum's discrete nature of reality. To date neither paradigm has developed anything that would appear to unify physics, except for the work of one physicist and a few of his colleagues. H.T. Flint published more than thirty-five articles in well-known peer-reviewed journals over a period of four decades, extending relativity to include electromagnetism and the quantum. Yet his work and that of his close associates is almost completely unknown today. Flint published his complete unified field theory in the 1960s, well before most quantum theorists even began thinking along the lines of unification. Strangely enough, Flint's unification theory has been completely forgotten by a scientific community that has become enamored enough with the idea of unification that it would accept the most outrageous and non-intuitive ideas as long as they are based on the quantum, but then Kaluza's five-dimensional unification of relativity and electromagnetism supposedly was not known until it was rediscovered by the superstring theorists, or so they claim. In reality, these ideas were lost in plain sight for decades simply because the physics community was unwilling to recognize accomplishments based on relativity theory. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 11:33AM - 11:45AM |
H14.00004: The Clouds of Physics and Einstein's Last Query: Can Quantum Mechanics be Derived from General Relativity? Friedwardt Winterberg Towards the end of the 19$^{th}$ century, Kelvin pronounced as the ``clouds of physics'', 1) the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment to detect an ether wind, and 2) the violation of the classical mechanical equipartition theorem in statistical thermodynamics. And he believed that the removal of these clouds would bring physics to an end. But as we know, the removal of these clouds led to the two great breakthroughs of modern physics: 1) The theory of relativity, and 2) to quantum mechanics. Towards the end of the 20$^{th}$ century more clouds of physics became apparent. They are 1) the riddle of quantum gravity, 2) the superluminal quantum correlations, 3) the small cosmological constant. Furthermore, there is the riddle of dark energy making up 70{\%} of the physical universe, the non-baryonic cold dark matter making up 26{\%} and the very small initial entropy of the universe. An attempt is made to explain the importance of these clouds for the future of physics and conjectures for a possible solution are presented. They have to do with Einstein's last query: ``Can quantum mechanics be derived general relativity'', and with the question is there an ether? [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 11:45AM - 11:57AM |
H14.00005: Schr\"{o}dinger's Unified Field Theory: Physics by Public Relations Paul Halpern We will explore the circumstances surrounding Erwin Schr\"{o}dinger's announcement in January 1947 that he had developed a comprehensive unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism. We will speculate on Schr\"{o}dinger's motivations for the mode and tone of his statements, consider the reaction of the international press within the context of the postwar era, and examine Einstein's response. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 11:57AM - 12:09PM |
H14.00006: X-Ray Astronomy Discovery Experiments, II P.C. Fisher Paper I provided proof of concurrent discovery experiments at the start of cosmic x-ray source studies.\footnote{P. C. Fisher, BAPS \textbf{53} No. 2, 165 (2008).} It was noted that since the Lockheed discovery was postulated before any source was observed, that discovery was of equal or greater importance to the start of such studies than the discovery of Sco X-1. Illusions about the nonexistence of the Lockheed discovery that may have been caused by organizers\footnote{S. B. Pikelner \textit{et al.}, \textit{Transactions of the IAU} (L. Perek ed.), D. Reidel, Dordrecht/Holland and Springer-Verlag, New York \textbf{XIIIA}, p. 179 (1968).} and invited reviewers\footnote{H. Friedman, \textit{op cit}, p.180.}$^,$\footnote{R. Giacconi, \textit{op cit}, p. 184.} of a meeting, and related events (including\footnote{A. E. Whitford, private communication (1975).} and,\footnote{R. Giacconi, \textit{Les Prix Nobel}, Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden, p. 114 (2003).} will be described. This paper's goal is to have the American Institute of Physics require members to properly credit contributions of others. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, May 3, 2009 12:09PM - 12:21PM |
H14.00007: The Leviathan and the Whirlpool Nebula Trevor Weekes Nearly 240 years after Galileo made his first astronomical observations, the Third Earl of Rosse built what was to be the world's largest optical telescope for 75 years. The so-called Leviathan had an aperture of 1.8m and was built entirely by workers on his estate in Birr, Ireland. In April, 1845, shortly after the telescope was commissioned, Lord Rosse trained his telescope on fifty-first object in Messier catalog and saw for the first time its spiral structure. This discovery of what was later called the Whirlpool Nebula was to dramatically change contemporary thinking about the nature of nebulae and redirect emphasis of the Earl's observing program. The initial observations were immediately accepted although they were based on hand drawn representations by the noble amateur based on his unverified observations. Ironically this early discovery was to be the most outstanding achievement of the Leviathan. [Preview Abstract] |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700