EPJ H Special Issue - From history of physics to “history for physics”
- Details
- Published on 18 September 2024
The special issue “History for Physics: Contextualizing modern developments in the foundations of quantum theory” aims at demonstrating the importance of the history of physics within physics itself.
With their special issue “History for Physics: Contextualizing modern developments in the foundations of quantum theory” the guest editors aim to bridge contemporary topics in physics with their historical context and to draw attention to the history of physics as a subject of study and research for the active practitioner in physics but also hope to encourage historians of physics to engage with contemporary questions in physics, to possibly draw from this inspiration, or recognize need, for further historical research.
Central to carrying over the “history for physics” theme to the special issue format is the concept of tandem articles. Each tandem article consists of two parts: a part written by a historian of physics and a part written by a physicist. Both parts are supposed to treat one and the same aspect of a foundational issue involving quantum theory in a broad sense. In their respective parts, each author treats this aspect from their own respective perspective: The physicist contributes to the description of the state of the art of an open problem or debated phenomenon related to quantum physics, whereas the historian provides an appropriate historical account related to this actual case. The precise shaping and proportioning of the parts were left to the authors.
EPJ H Highlight - Were Bohr and von Neumann really in conflict over quantum measurements?
- Details
- Published on 18 September 2024
Analysis suggests that the two pioneers of quantum mechanics may have had more similar views than previously thought regarding the nature of quantum systems, and the classical apparatus used to measure them.
In the early years of quantum theory, two foundational thinkers developed independent ideas about how measurements of quantum systems should be interpreted. While Niels Bohr suggested that these measurements require a clear distinction between the quantum system being measured and the classical apparatus performing the measurement, John von Neumann argued that quantum mechanics should apply to everything, including the measurement apparatus.
Since these interpretations emerged, quantum theorists have widely viewed them as being in conflict with each other. Yet through new analysis published in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, Federico Laudisa at the University of Trento suggests that Bohr and von Neumann’s views are far closer than currently thought.
EPJ H welcomes new Editors-in-Chief after merger with Quaderni
- Details
- Published on 31 July 2024
Effective 1 July 2024, EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics has merged with one of the very few other journals exclusively devoted to the history of physics, the Quaderni di Storia della Fisica. The new Editors-in-Chief, Alexander Blum and Matteo Leone, take the baton from the previous Editor-in-Chief, James D. Wells, and his predecessors Wolf Beiglböck, who founded EPJH in 2010 and was responsible for shaping its profile, Francesco Guerra and Michael Eckert.
With the merger EPJH has undergone a major editorial reorganization and in their Editorial Alexander Blum and Matteo Leone describe how they see this as an opportunity for the journal’s growth and development.
EPJ H Highlight - The importance of the 1949 Florence conference “StatPhys I” to physics
- Details
- Published on 11 July 2024
The first international conference devoted to statistical mechanics was also of great importance to scientific reconstruction in post-war Italy.
International science conferences are now a fixture in the calendar of most scientists. These face-to-face meetings allow researchers to gather and exchange the latest information, thus maintaining the scientific culture of the relevant disciplines by emphasising that no one researcher is an island.
Statistical physics, or statistical mechanics as it was once known, is the branch of physics that deals with the application of statistics to large systems, usually groups of particles. It, too, has its own international conferences, the origin of which goes back to the 17th to the 20th of May 1949 when around 70 physicists from eight countries met in Florence, Italy. This conference would later come to be regarded as “StatPhys I” with StatPhys referring to International Conferences on Statistical Physics, the series of conferences organised by the IUPAP.
A new paper published in the journal EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics discusses the importance of the 1949 statistical mechanics conference not just for physics but also for Italy’s post-war reemergence. The paper is authored by Roberto Lalli, Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic University of Turin and Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and Paolo Politi, of the Florence Unit of the Institute for Complex Systems, who teaches statistical physics at the University of Florence.
EPJ H Highlight - Tracing the history of perturbative expansion in quantum field theory
- Details
- Published on 17 May 2024
Contrary to long-standing assumptions, simplified descriptions of quantum systems have played a central role in shaping the foundations of quantum field theory.
Perturbative expansion is a valuable mathematical technique which is widely used to break down descriptions of complex quantum systems into simpler, more manageable parts. Perhaps most importantly, it has enabled the development of quantum field theory (QFT): a theoretical framework which combines principles from classical, quantum, and relativistic physics, and serves as the foundation of the Standard Model of particle physics.
Yet despite its importance in shaping our understanding of the universe, the role of perturbative expansion has often been understated when discussing the mathematical and philosophical foundations of QFT. Through new analysis published in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, James Fraser at the University of Wuppertal, together with Kasia Rejzner at the University of York, bring the special status of perturbative expansions into sharper focus, by highlighting their deep-rooted relationship with the foundations of QFT.
EPJ H Highlight - Quantum Gravity, Effective Field Theory, and Strings
- Details
- Published on 03 May 2024
A historical overview of different approaches to the quantum theory of gravitation from the early twentieth century shows how they have been combined to set our modern view of a unified ‘theory of everything’.
Gravity is one of four fundamental interactions. The most precise description of this force is still provided by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, published in 1915, an entirely classical theory. This description sets gravity apart from the other three forces - strong, weak, and electromagnetism - all described by quantum fields. Therefore, any attempt to unify the four forces must depend on a description of gravity that uses the principles of quantum mechanics. This has been an active area of theoretical physics since the 1930s. A historian and a physicist, Alessio Rocci from VUB in Brussels and Thomas Van Riet from KU Leuven in Belgium have set out a historical overview of the development of quantum theories of gravity to explain our current view on a future unified theory of the four forces. This work has now been published in the journal EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics.
EPJ H Highlight - The Quark Model: A Personal Perspective
- Details
- Published on 15 November 2023
The properties of hadrons - both protons and neutrons, and heavier short-lived particles - are explained by the quark model. This was introduced by André Petermann (whose 1963 paper, in French, went unnoticed for 50 years); Murray Gell-Mann (whose insistence that they are purely mathematical entities discouraged take-up of the idea); and George Zweig.
The idea that protons and neutrons were composed of even smaller particles, with non-integral electric charges, was proposed in 1963/64 by Andre Petermann, George Zweig and Murray Gell-Mann, who dubbed them ‘quarks’. It was not until the mid-1970s, however, that the quark model became widely accepted. Chris Llewellyn Smith, now an emeritus professor at the University of Oxford and formerly the Director-General of CERN who put together the proposal to build the Large Hadron Collider, has published a ‘personal perspective’ on the development of the quark model and of the theory of the force that holds them together (quantum chromodynamics or QCD) in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics. He had a ringside seat as a student in theoretical particle physics at Oxford from 1964-7, as a post-doctoral Fellow at CERN and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center where experiments that confirmed the reality of quarks were performed.
EPJ H Highlight - Acquitting a Physicist Accused of “Obscurantism”
- Details
- Published on 06 November 2023
A reanalysis of letters and publications show that David Bohm’s contemptuous contemporaries were misinformed and politically driven.
American-born British theoretical physicist David Bohm made many significant contributions to physics. But he’s most famous for challenging convention and interpreting quantum mechanics in terms of nonlocal or hidden variables. Several eminent contemporaries accused him of defending outdated ideals based in deterministic physics, rather than embracing his contemporaries’ non-deterministic views. In a study published in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, Andrea Oldofredi, of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, revisits Bohm’s private correspondences and academic works to reconstruct the evolution of his philosophical trajectory. The analysis indicates that bias against Bohm was mostly not based on scientific grounds, and instead underlines the originality of his ontological reflections.
EPJ H Highlight – Would Matrix Mechanics Win Recognition Today?
- Details
- Published on 31 October 2023
A re-evaluation of contributions to the development of quantum mechanics suggests that a belated Nobel Prize was a product of its times.
Albert Einstein, best known for his work in relativity, won the Nobel Prize for his formula for the photoelectric effect, which often surprises modern physicists. He’s not the only physicist whose Nobel award misaligns with the winner's modern claim-to-fame. In a study published in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, John Heilbron of the University of California, Berkeley, USA, and Carlo Rovelli of Western Ontario University, Canada, analyze why the Nobel Prize in 1954 recognized Max Born’s interpretation of the quantum mechanical wave function, while ignoring his leadership in the development of matrix mechanics. The researchers conclude that assessments made by historical actors can serve as a barometer of the changing consensus of interpretations of quantum mechanics.
EPJ H Highlight - Is the end of the “particle era” of physics upon us?
- Details
- Published on 28 June 2023
New research looks at the potential for new discoveries in particle physics
The discovery of the Higgs Boson in 2012 represented a major turning point for particle physics marking the completion of what is known as the standard model of particle physics. Yet, the standard model can’t answer every question in physics, thus, since this discovery at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) physicists have searched for physics beyond the standard model and to determine what shape future physics will take.
A new paper in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics by Robert Harlander and Jean-Philippe Martinez of the Institute for Theoretical Particle Physics and Cosmology, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and Gregor Schiemann from the Faculty of Humanities and Cultural Studies, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany, considers the idea that particle physics may be on the verge of a new era of discovery and understanding in particle physics. The paper also considers the implications of the many possible scenarios for the future of high-energy physics.
