摘要:

There seems to be an increasing interest in the history of physics, especially of the physics of the roaring twenties when modern atomic structure and quantum mechanics were born. Writing about so recent a period, with most of the participants still alive, can lead to numerous unpleasant disagreements. It would be most valuable if the principal actors would each tell their own story, just as generals are now writing about their own world war. It must be understood that such stories relate only subjective experiences mixed with uncertain inferences. These accounts can be extremely interesting, but they should not be considered as an objective history of the new physics and should be written in the first person singular. An objective history of science is perhaps only possible in very broad outlines and in its relation to the rest of history. When we try to look at a recent event with a microscope, the resolving power may often be insufficient. We would like to see clearly the lines of thought followed by the participants, but even they themselves may not be aware of why and how they arrived at their important results, and they may tell us instead what are merely rationalizations after the fact. It is rather easy to construct a history which gives a very plausible account of how new ideas and experiments could or should have developed, but it seems impossible to know how they actually arose, particularly when we ask about details.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057597

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

That the meaning of science is somewhat weakly defined is exemplified by the following popular concepts. “Cavendish discovered hydrogen, De Soto discovered the Mississippi River, and Ziegfield discovered Gypsy Rose Lee.” Only one of these discoveries is considered scientific. By scientific evaluation, the discovery of Pikes Peak has a different rating than the discovery of the Van Allen Belts. When James Corbett beat John Sullivan in 1892, he established a reputation that still holds today, of being the most scientific boxer of all time; and when farmer Jones ran a wire from his house to the barn to attach an incandescent lamp on it in the Ozark Mountains in 1922, he was hailed by the neighbors for being a modern, scientific farmer. Scientific research can be carried on in the laboratory, out in the field, or in the library. Some people will tell you that psychology is not a science while physics is, that mathematics is the only one hundred percent exact science, that genealogy ceases to be a science when the investigator looks up his own family tree, and so on.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057598

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

During the last week of June 1960, a three‐day conference on the coherence properties of electromagnetic radiation was held on the campus of the University of Rochester. Sponsored by the US Air Force, the University of Rochester, and the Optical Society of America, the purpose of the conference was to bring together optical and atomic physicists from this country and abroad to discuss problems of common interest dealing with the question of coherence throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. To a large extent motivation was supplied by a number of controversial and surprising developments in widely separated branches of physics within the last decade. Certainly much of the attention paid to questions of coherence after so many years of its having lain dormant is due in no small measure to the now famous Brown‐Twiss experiment (1955) on the correlation in fluctuations of the output currents of two photoelectric detectors exposed to mutually coherent fields of light. The controversy that followed demonstrated clearly the lack of understanding of the statistical properties inherent in the emission, propagation, and detection of radiation. Whether or not one chose to explain the correlation as a natural tendency for bosons to clump or a natural interference effect among Fourier components in the finite spectral width of every natural source (or both) seemed at first to be a question of taste.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057599

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

What should you know of college teaching conditions in order to make an intelligent decision? How, for instance, is one's time allotted? You've probably been spending 80&percent; of your time on brainstorming of one form or another, and 20&percent; on other things: if you have been in graduate school, 80&percent; study and 20&percent; teaching assistantship; if you have been on the staff of a university or of a laboratory, 80&percent; research and 20&percent; teaching duties or staff meetings and attending professional conventions.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057600

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

In October 1960, George B. Kistiakowsky, the Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, requested the National Science Foundation to develop data on the manpower needed in connection with a proposed high‐energy physics program in October, 1960. Specifically, the Foundation was requested to assist in (1) developing “a projection of scientific and engineering manpower needs in high‐energy physics over the ten‐year period, taking into full account…the national program…through an extension of the study conducted by the Technical Committee on High‐Energy Physics…;” (2) “authoritative studies and projection of the likely supply of scientific and engineering manpower over the next ten years;” and (3) “reconciliation of projections of both the manpower needs of high‐energy physics and the likely supply of manpower….”

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057601

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

“Around the Fermi surface in twenty‐four hours” is an appropriate description of the 1960 Midwest Solid State Physics Conference, which was held on October 21 and 22 at the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln. This, the eighth meeting of the conference, was enjoyed by 75 physicists and engineers from 23 laboratories located in 10 states: California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057602

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

GEORG von Be´ke´sy, Hungarian‐born physicist and internationally recognized otologist who for the last dozen years has been a senior research fellow in psychophysics at Harvard University's Psycho‐Acoustic Laboratory, has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Acoustical Society of America. Dr. Be´ke´sy, who received his PhD in physics from the University of Budapest in 1923, was associated for many years with the research laboratory of the Hungarian Telephone System and during the same period (until 1946) was a member of the Budapest faculty.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057604

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

FOR the third consecutive year, the American Association of Physics Teachers has cited ten secondary schools in the United States for excellence in their science and mathematics programs with special emphasis on the teaching of physics. Each school thus honored receives a certificate of commendation from the Association and a donation of laboratory equipment from an instrument‐manufacturing company.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057606

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

THE American Association of Physicists in Medicine adopted its first formal constitution and elected its first set of permanent officers at a meeting held in Cincinnati last December. Under the provisions of the constitution, membership is open only to individuals who are primarily and professionally engaged in the application of physics to medicine and biology in medical installations or research or educational institutions. The objectives of the Association are to encourage interest and training in medical physics and related fields, to prepare and disseminate technical information in medical physics and related fields, to secure and maintain high professional standards for physicists in medicine and biology, and to serve and represent their professional interests.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057608

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.3057610

出版商:AIP    

年代:1961

数据来源: AIP