Constructing Quantum Mechanics

Michel Janssen is a historian of modern physics at the University of Minnesota. He has a Master's in physics from the University of Amsterdam and a PhD in history and philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh. Before his current position in Minnesota, he was an editor at the Einstein Papers Project. He co-authored The Genesis of General Relativity (Springer, 2007) and co-edited The Cambridge Companion to Einstein (Cambridge, 2014). More recently he has published a series of papers co-authored with Anthony Duncan on the genesis of quantum mechanics.Anthony Duncan received his PhD in theoretical elementary particle physics in 1975 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Steven Weinberg. Following postdoctoral and junior faculty positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and Columbia University in New York, he joined the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1981 as Associate Professor of Physics. He has taught a wide range of courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, including courses on the history of modern physics. He is now (since 2015) professor emeritus of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh.

An excellent work which innovatively combines conceptual clarity with penetrating analysis of relevant theory.

• 1: Introduction to Volume One Part I: Early Developments 2: Planck, the Second Law, and Black-Body Radiation 3: Einstein, Equipartition, Fluctuations, and Quanta 4: The Birth of the Bohr Model Part II: The Old Quantum Theory 5: Guiding Principles 6: Successes 7: Failures Appendices A: Classical Mechanics B: Spectroscopy