Hacking the quantum revolution: 1925–1975

Schweber, Silvan S.

doi:10.1140/epjh/e2014-50060-9

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 251 publications

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“…Since the mid-1970s, the Division of Condensed Matter Physics and the Division of Particles and Fields have been the two largest topical divisions of the America Physical Society (APS), the flagship professional organization for American physics, with the former hovering between 1.5 and 2 times the size of the latter. 2 Conceptually, both take as their central mission the task of applying one of the foundational physical theories-quantum mechanics-to matter and energy, with high energy physics claiming the realm of elementary particles and condensed matter physics focusing on complex matter, and a significant crosspollination has persisted between them (see James and Joas 2015;Schweber 2015). The distinction between these two types of research has also been institutionalized within the APS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both take as their central intellectual mission the application a foundational physical theory – quantum mechanics – to matter and energy. High energy physics claims the realm of elementary particles and condensed matter physics focuses on complex matter, and a significant crosspollination has persisted between them (James and Joas 2015; Schweber 2015). The distinction between these two types of research has been institutionalized within the APS.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Martin

2017

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Argument Why do similar scientific enterprises garner unequal public approbation? High energy physics attracted considerable attention in the late-twentieth-century United States, whereas condensed matter physics - which occupied the greater proportion of US physicists - remained little known to the public, despite its relevance to ubiquitous consumer technologies. This paper supplements existing accounts of this much remarked-upon prestige asymmetry by showing that popular emphasis on the mundane technological offshoots of condensed matter physics and its focus on human-scale phenomena have rendered it more recondite than its better-known sibling field. News reports about high energy physics emphasize intellectual achievement; reporting on condensed matter physics focuses on technology. And whereas frontier-oriented rhetoric of high energy physics communicates ideals of human potential, discoveries that smack of the mundane highlight human limitations and fail to resonate with the widespread aspirational vision of science - a consequence I call "the purloined letter effect."

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Martin

2017

Sci Context

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“…The style of scientific reasoning we associate with the HT quantum revolution is characterized by the hierarchization of the microscopic physical world and quantum field theory is its language (Cao and Schweber 1993;Schweber 2015). The hierarchization has the property that to a high degree of approximation each level has associated with it an ontology and a dynamics; the dynamics specifies the interactions of the entities that constitute the building blocks of that level and governs the description of the temporal evolution of systems composed of these entities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantum Chemistry and the Quantum Revolution

Schweber

BenPorat

2015

Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science

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The Statistical Style of Reasoning and the Invention of Bose‐Einstein Statistics

Monaldi

2019

Ber Wissenschaftsgesch

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This paper is a preliminary exploration of the connections between the statistical style of reasoning and the research practices of statistical mechanics in the early period of the long quantum revolution. It suggests that before 1925 the instantiations of the statistical style in physics went through two phases. The first phase consisted of the formulation of the Maxwell‐Boltzmann statistics on the basis of the population‐gas analogy. The second phase was characterized by the generalization of the Maxwell‐Boltzmann statistics through analogies between ideal gas molecules and other microphysical entities, analogies that shaped and were shaped by the rise of quantum theory. Einstein's invention of the Bose‐Einstein statistics started a third phase and created the conditions of possibility for a new classification of microphysical entities according to their different statistics.

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Hacking the quantum revolution: 1925–1975

Cited by 9 publications

References 251 publications

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

Quantum Chemistry and the Quantum Revolution

The Statistical Style of Reasoning and the Invention of Bose‐Einstein Statistics

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