Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 6
Minneapolis, Minnesota (Apr 15-18)
Virtual (Apr 24-26); Time Zone: Central Time
Session K06: Pais Prize Session on Galileo, Newton, EinsteinInvited Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: FHP Chair: Michel Janssen, University of Minnesota Room: MG Salon F - 3rd Floor |
Sunday, April 16, 2023 3:45PM - 4:21PM |
K06.00001: The History of Physics in Collaborations: Archimedes, Galileo, Einstein et al. Invited Speaker: Jurgen Renn The talk reviews some turning points in the history of physics, from the emergence of mechanics in antiquity, via its Renaissance in the early modern period, to the transformation of classical into modern physics around the turn of the twentieth century. It features the approach of a long-term study of the evolution of knowledge pursued in the context of collaborative efforts centered at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. It argues for the usefulness of theoretical concepts such as shared knowledge, challenging objects, borderline problems, scaffolding and other ways to describe the architecture of knowledge for understanding conceptual change from a longue-durée perspective. |
Sunday, April 16, 2023 4:21PM - 4:57PM |
K06.00002: Newton as Geodesist: The Problem of the Earth's Figure and the Argument for Universal Gravitation Invited Speaker: Miguel Ohnesorge Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is usually remembered for its theoretical advances in mechanics and its empirical argument for universal gravitation. This argument, in turn, is taken to rest on Newton’s empirical predictions of astronomical phenomena in the Principia’s third book. For all its merits, this focus on astronomy has led many historians, physicists, and philosophers to overlook an equally important empirical problem in the Principia: deriving the earth’s figure and the variation of gravity on its surface. My talk aims to rectify this situation. After presenting a new reconstruction of Newton’s derivations of the earth’s figure and surface gravity, I illustrate why these results were of primary importance to his argument for universal gravitation. I close by briefly summarising the problem’s subsequent development throughout three centuries of research in physical geodesy and gravitational physics. |
Sunday, April 16, 2023 4:57PM - 5:33PM |
K06.00003: In Elsa's Apartment, Einstein was Hiding an Escaped Soldier and Womanizer Invited Speaker: Alberto A Martinez Einstein's biographies miss some of the drama that happened around him during World War 1. After signing a pacifist manifesto, he shunned certain opportunities to oppose the war. The place where Einstein worked, Captain Fritz Haber's Institute, fell under the oversight of Germany's Ministry of War. After finishing his theory of gravity, strangely, Einstein started to work for a German military contractor, designing airplane wings. He also became so painfully ill that gradually he became disabled, bedridden, such that he had to move in with his cousin Elsa, who wanted him to marry her, despite his long-lasting efforts to not marry her. Einstein created his “Institute of Physics” in Elsa’s attic, and he hired Elsa’s twenty-year-old daughter, Ilse, as his secretary. In turn, Ilse became fascinated by one of Einstein’s friends, who had been demoted, disinherited, fired from his jobs, banished, conscripted into the army, arrested, and imprisoned in a military fortress. He was a married man who had affairs with many women and who believed that he had the necessary vision to end the war. Then, Einstein fell in love with Ilse, and just as he was seriously raising the issue that instead of Elsa he could well marry Ilse, suddenly the soldier escaped from the German military base and he crashed the love triangle: the fugitive arrived to hide in Elsa’s apartment. This talk will reconstruct this historic episode from World War 1, in order to explain one of the elements that Einstein credited as necessary in his formula for success. |
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