Roger H. Stuewer - Böcker

'Highly Recommended' CHOICE A fascinating account of the experimental innovations and theoretical breakthroughs in nuclear physics in the period between the two world wars told through the lives and personalities of the physicists who made them. The two decades between the first and second world wars saw the emergence of nuclear physics as the dominant field of experimental and theoretical physics, owing to the work of an international cast of gifted physicists. Prominent among them were Ernest Rutherford, George Gamow, the husband and wife team of Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, Gregory Breit and Eugene Wigner, Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch, the brash Ernest Lawrence, the prodigious Enrico Fermi, and the incomparable Niels Bohr.Their experimental and theoretical work arose from a quest to understand nuclear phenomena; it was not motivated by a desire to find a practical application for nuclear energy. In this sense, these physicists lived in an 'Age of Innocence'. They did not, however, live in isolation. Their research reflected their idiosyncratic personalities; it was shaped by the physical and intellectual environments of the countries and institutions in which they worked. It was also buffeted by the political upheavals after the Great War: the punitive postwar treaties, the runaway inflation in Germany and Austria, the Great Depression, and the intellectual migration from Germany and later from Austria and Italy.Their pioneering experimental and theoretical achievements in the interwar period therefore are set within their personal, institutional, and political contexts. Both domains and their mutual influences are conveyed by quotations from autobiographies, biographies, recollections, interviews, correspondence, and other writings of physicists and historians.

The two decades between the first and second world wars saw the emergence of nuclear physics as the dominant field of experimental and theoretical physics, owing to the work of an international cast of gifted physicists. Prominent among them were Ernest Rutherford, George Gamow, the husband and wife team of Frédéric and Irène Joliot-Curie, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, Gregory Breit and Eugene Wigner, Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch, the brash Ernest Lawrence, the prodigious Enrico Fermi, and the incomparable Niels Bohr.Their experimental and theoretical work arose from a quest to understand nuclear phenomena; it was not motivated by a desire to find a practical application for nuclear energy. In this sense, these physicists lived in an 'Age of Innocence'. They did not, however, live in isolation. Their research reflected their idiosyncratic personalities; it was shaped by the physical and intellectual environments of the countries and institutions in which they worked. It was also buffeted by the political upheavals after the Great War: the punitive postwar treaties, the runaway inflation in Germany and Austria, the Great Depression, and the intellectual migration from Germany and later from Austria and Italy.Their pioneering experimental and theoretical achievements in the interwar period therefore are set within their personal, institutional, and political contexts. Both domains and their mutual influences are conveyed by quotations from autobiographies, biographies, recollections, interviews, correspondence, and other writings of physicists and historians.

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives of Science was first published in 1970. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.The series of essays published in this book, which is Volume V of the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, are (with the exception of two essays) based on papers presented or discussed at a conference devoted to exploring the relationships between the history and the philosophy of science, held at the University of Minnesota in the fall of 1969. In a forward Peter Caws notes that the conference grew out of the deliberations of subcommittee of the U.S. National Committee for the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science.The contributors are Herbert Feigl, Ernan McMullin, Wesley C. Salmon, Peter Archinstein, Arnold Thackray, Mary Hesse, Edward Rosen, Paul K. Feyerabend, Erwin N. Hiebert, Gerd Buchdahl, Roger H. Stuewer, Howard Stein, and Kenneth F. Schaffner. Some of the papers draw philosophical conclusions from examples in the history of science; others point out the significance of philosophical insights for a study of the history of science; still others explore special aspects of the history or philosophy of science.

To all four of us, Carsten was the best possible friend and colleague. To Finn, he was a fellow student in the history of science for several years at the Niels Bohr Institute; to Relge, he was a welcome resource for personal and intellectual interac­ tion in an otherwise less than fertile environment for the history of science; Roger was Carsten's friend and advisor, not least in the development of the dissertation on which the present book is based; and as director of the Niels Bohr Archive, Erik was his main advisor in his historical work. Because he was the person closest to Carsten's work on his Ph. D. dissertation on the history of beta decay, on which the present book is based, it is only fitting that Erik stands as single author of the words in Carsten's memory at the very beginning of this book. Before his untimely death shortly after the completion of the Ph. D. disser­ tation, Carsten had himself plans to develop the dissertation into a book. Being a true perfectionist, he wanted to rework the manuscript substantively, especially with regard to relating it to the broader discussion among historians of science.

To all four of us, Carsten was the best possible friend and colleague. To Finn, he was a fellow student in the history of science for several years at the Niels Bohr Institute; to Relge, he was a welcome resource for personal and intellectual interac­ tion in an otherwise less than fertile environment for the history of science; Roger was Carsten's friend and advisor, not least in the development of the dissertation on which the present book is based; and as director of the Niels Bohr Archive, Erik was his main advisor in his historical work. Because he was the person closest to Carsten's work on his Ph. D. dissertation on the history of beta decay, on which the present book is based, it is only fitting that Erik stands as single author of the words in Carsten's memory at the very beginning of this book. Before his untimely death shortly after the completion of the Ph. D. disser­ tation, Carsten had himself plans to develop the dissertation into a book. Being a true perfectionist, he wanted to rework the manuscript substantively, especially with regard to relating it to the broader discussion among historians of science.