The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics

The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics brings together 37 selected essays. Many of these essays were first presented as lectures at various universities in Europe and the USA, and then published as reports or articles. Their enlarged, final versions were published in the joint work of Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, while the other essays were published as articles in scientific journals or in edited books. Here they are published together as a tribute to the Mehra-Rechenberg collaboration sustained for several decades, and cover various aspects of quantum theory, the special and general theories of relativity, the foundations of statistical mechanics, and some of their fundamental applications. Two essays, ‘Albert Einstein's “First” Paper’ (Essay 1) and ‘The Dream of Leonardo da Vinci’ (Essay 37), lie outside the major themes treated in this book, but are included here because of their historical interest. The origin of each essay is explained in a footnote. This book deals with the most important themes developed in the first 40 years of the twentieth century by some of the greatest pioneers and architects of modern physics. It is a vital source of information about what can veritably be described as ‘the golden age of theoretical physics’. Contents: Volume 1:Albert Einstein's ‘First’ PaperMax Planck and the Law of Blackbody RadiationPlanck's Half-Quanta: A History of the Concept of Zero-Point EnergyJosiah Willard Gibbs and the Foundations of Statistical MechanicsEinstein and the Foundation of Statistical MechanicsAlbert Einstein and Marian von Smoluchowski: Early History of the Theory of Fluctuation PhenomenaThe Historical Origins of the Special Theory of RelativityThe Historical Origins of the General Theory of RelativityAlbert Einstein and the Origin of Light-Quantum TheoryNiels Bohr and the Quantum Theory of the AtomArnold Sommerfeld and Atoms as Conditionally Periodic SystemsThe Göttingen Tradition of Mathematics and Physics from Gauss to Hilbert and Born and FranckThe Bohr Festival in Göttingen: Bohr's Wolfskehl Lectures and the Theory of the Periodic System of ElementsSatyendra Nath Bose, Bose–Einstein Statistics, and the Quantum Theory of an Ideal GasLouis de Broglie and the Phase Waves Associated with MatterWolfgang Pauli and the Discovery of the Exclusion PrincipleThe Discovery of Electron SpinThe Discovery of the Fermi–Dirac StatisticsVolume 2:Werner Heisenberg and the Birth of Quantum Mechanics‘The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics’: PAM Dirac's Scientific Work from 1924 to 1933Erwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. I. Schrödinger's Scientific Work Before the Creation of Wave MechanicsErwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. II. The Creation of Wave MechanicsErwin Schrödinger and the Rise of Wave Mechanics. III. Early Response and ApplicationsNiels Bohr's Discussions with Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger: The Origins of the Principles of Uncertainty and ComplementarityEugene Paul Wigner: Aspects of His Life Work, and PersonalityLev Davidovich Landau: Some Aspects of His Life and PersonalityThe Origin of Quantum Field TheoryThe Solvay Conferences of 1927 and 1930 and the Consistency DebateRelativistic Electrons and Quantum FieldsNew Elementary Particles in Nuclear and Cosmic-Ray PhysicsBetween Hope and Despair: Quantum Electrodynamics in the 1930sUniversal Nuclear Forces and Yukawa's New Intermediate Mass Particle (1933–1937)New Fields Describing Elementary Particles, Their Properties and InteractionsEnergy Generation in Stars and the Origins of Nuclear FissionThe Einstein–Bohr Debate on the Completion of Quantum Mechanics and Its Description of Reality (1931–1936)The Quantum Principle: Its Interpretation and EpistemologyThe Dream of Leonardo da Vinci Readership: Physicists, historians and philosophers of science. Keywords:The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics;Max Planck, J Willard Gibbs, Albert Einstein, Arnold Sommerfeld, David Hilbert, Henri Poincare, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Niels Bohr, Max Born, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, PAM Dirac, Pascual Jordan, Erwin Schrodinger, Eugene Wigner, Enrico Fermi, John Von Neumann, Hans A Bethe, Hideki Yukawa, and Their Collaborators;The Dream of Leonardo Da Vinci: Man's Changing Vision of the Universe from Pythagoras to Kinstein;The Creation of Quantum Theory and Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Field Theory;The Creation of Statistical Mechanics;The Solvay Conferences on Physics;The Interpretation of Quantum MechanicsReviews:“Whatever subject Mehra writes about, he does it concisely and authoritatively, and with great technical competence. He covers an incredible amount of information and yet he manages to present his material in a clear and highly readable way.”Physics World