The 1957 quantum gravity meeting in Copenhagen: An analysis of Bryce S. DeWitt’s report

Blum, Alexander S.; Hartz, Thiago

doi:10.1140/epjh/e2017-80015-8

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 97 publications

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“…We can ignore for our story the approach then prevalent among particle physicists, of transforming general relativity into a quantum theory of "gravitons" in full analogy to the photons of quantum electrodynamics. Even within the emerging relativity community there were (at least) two starkly different attitudes toward quantum gravity, which we can associate with two physicists, Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt (Blum and Hartz, 2017).…”

Section: The Rise and Fall Of Geometrodynamics Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 99%

How John Wheeler lost his faith in the law

Blum¹,

Furlan²

2022

Preprint

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In 1972, at a symposium celebrating the 70th birthday of Paul Dirac, John Wheeler proclaimed that "the framework falls down for everything that one has ever called a law of physics". Responsible for this "breakage [. . . ] among the laws of physics" was the general theory of relativity, more specifically its prediction of massive stars gravitationally collapsing to "black holes", a term Wheeler himself had made popular some years earlier. In our paper, we investigate how Wheeler reached the conclusion that gravitational collapse calls into question the lawfulness of physics and how, subsequently, he tried to develop a new worldview, rethinking in his own way the lessons of quantum mechanics as well as drawing inspiration from other disciplines, not least biology.

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Section: The Rise and Fall Of Geometrodynamics Revisitedmentioning

confidence: 99%

How John Wheeler lost his faith in the law

Blum¹,

Furlan²

2022

Preprint

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From Wood Chuck Holes to Worm Holes—A Look into the Notebooks of John A. Wheeler

Blum

2022

Annalen der Physik

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This article offers an introduction to the notebooks of the American physicist John Archibald Wheeler and argues that they represent a unique historical source. Several salient features of these notebooks are highlighted by following the example of the emergence of the concept of a "wormhole," one of Wheeler's most famous ideas.John Archibald Wheeler [1] was the inventor and promoter of some of physics' most iconic terms and phrases, such as black hole, wormhole, or "it from bit." He was a world-leading nuclear physicist, who provided the first full theoretical analysis of nuclear fission, together with Niels Bohr; and, after World War II, he became the leader of the renaissance of general relativity. To those who knew him, he was also famous for his notebooks. In a piece on Wheeler, published in the Alcalde (1978, Issue 1, p. 30), the alumni magazine of the University of Texas at Austin, we read:[W]hen he gets a new idea, what does he do with it? He records it in a hardbound, handwritten notebook. Dr. Wheeler has filled almost forty of these notebooks since he started keeping them during the war ("You had to keep classified notebooks then, to keep your work together so that you didn't end up with a lot of loose pages," said Dr. Wheeler, "who jokingly calls himself the most disorganized person in the world.") When he talks with a colleague, he records what the person told him and what he thought about it afterward. When he is asked to give a lecture, he organizes what he will say in the notebook, writing it out in black ink, in beautiful, legible script.

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How John Wheeler Lost His Faith in the Law

Blum

Furlan²

2022

Rethinking the Concept of Law of Nature

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The 1957 quantum gravity meeting in Copenhagen: An analysis of Bryce S. DeWitt’s report

Cited by 6 publications

References 97 publications

How John Wheeler lost his faith in the law

How John Wheeler lost his faith in the law

From Wood Chuck Holes to Worm Holes—A Look into the Notebooks of John A. Wheeler

How John Wheeler Lost His Faith in the Law

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