Quantum Generations

At the end of the nineteenth century, some physicists believed that the basic principles underlying their subject were already known, and that physics in the future would only consist of filling in the details. They could hardly have been more wrong. The past century has seen the rise of quantum mechanics, relativity, cosmology, particle physics, and solid-state physics, among other fields. These subjects have fundamentally changed our understanding of space, time, and matter. They have also transformed daily life, inspiring a technological revolution that has included the development of radio, television, lasers, nuclear power, and computers. In Quantum Generations, Helge Kragh, one of the world’s leading historians of physics, presents a sweeping account of these extraordinary achievements of the past one hundred years.

The first comprehensive one-volume history of twentieth-century physics, the book takes us from the discovery of X rays in the mid-1890s to superstring theory in the 1990s. Unlike most previous histories of physics, written either from a scientific perspective or from a social and institutional perspective, Quantum Generations combines both approaches. Kragh writes about pure science with the expertise of a trained physicist, while keeping the content accessible to nonspecialists and paying careful attention to practical uses of science, ranging from compact disks to bombs. As a historian, Kragh skillfully outlines the social and economic contexts that have shaped the field in the twentieth century. He writes, for example, about the impact of the two world wars, the fate of physics under Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, the role of military research, the emerging leadership of the United States, and the backlash against science that began in the 1960s. He also shows how the revolutionary discoveries of scientists ranging from Einstein, Planck, and Bohr to Stephen Hawking have been built on the great traditions of earlier centuries.

Combining a mastery of detail with a sure sense of the broad contours of historical change, Kragh has written a fitting tribute to the scientists who have played such a decisive role in the making of the modern world.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: FROM CONSOLIDATION TO REVOLUTION

CHAPTER ONE Fin-de-Si`ecle Physics: A World Picture in Flux

CHAPTER TWO The World of P

CHAPTER THREE Discharges in Gases and What Followed

CHAPTER FOUR Atomic Archite

CHAPTER FIVE The Slow Rise of Quantum Theory

CHAPTER SIX Physics at Low Temperatures

CHAPTER SEVEN Einstein’s Relativity, and Others’

CHAPTER EIGHT A Revolution that Failed

CHAPTER NINE Physics in Industry and War

PART TWO: FROM REVOLUTION TO CONSOLIDATION

CHAPTER TEN Science and Politics in the Weimar Republic

CHAPTER ELEVEN Quantum Jumps

CHAPTER TWELVE The Rise of Nuclear Physics

CHAPTER THIRTEEN From Two to Many Particles

CHAPTER FOURTEEN Philosophical Implications of Quantum Mechanics

CHAPTER FIFTEEN Eddington’s Dream and Other Heterodoxies

CHAPTER SIXTEEN Physics and the New Dictatorships

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Brain Drain and Brain Gain

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN From Uranium Puzzle to Hiroshima

PART THREE: PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS

CHAPTER NINETEEN Nuclear Themes

CHAPTER TWENTY Militarization and Megatrends

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE Particle Discoveries

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO Fundamental Theories

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE Cosmology and the Renaissance of Relativity

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR Elements of Solid State Physics

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE Engineering Physics and Quantum Electronics

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX Science under Attack Physics in Crisis?

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN Unifications and Speculations

PART FOUR: A LOOK BACK

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT Nobel Physics

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE A Century of Physics in Retrospect

About the Author

Helge Kragh is Professor of History of Science at Aarhus University, Denmark. His previous books include An introduction to the Historiography of Science, Dirac A Scientific Biography, and Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe (Princeton).