The Copenhagen Network: The Birth of Quantum Mechanics from a Postdoctoral Perspective

ISBN-13: 9783030591878 / Angielski / Miękka / 2020 / 126 str.

Alexei Kojevnikov

Spis treści

Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 KnabenPhysik

1.2 “Mecca of Theoretical Physics” 

Chapter 2 - Scandinavian Settings

2.1 Experiment under Theory

2.2 New Blood

2.3 Meanings of Internationalism

Chapter 3 - International Networking

3.1 The Manchester Link

3.2 First German Connection

3.3 New Partners

3.4 The Value of Neutrality

Chapter 4 - A “Kuhnian” Crisis

4.1 The Field in Disarray

4.2 American Voyage

4.3 The Copenhagen Putsch

Chapter 5 - Revolt of the Postdoc

5.1 Marginal Intruders and the Light Quantum

5.2 Inflation and Quasi-Free Postdocs

5.3 Werner Heisenberg’s Wanderjahre

5.4 Quantum Mechanics Community

Chapter 6 - Philosophical Wrangling

6.1 The Problem with Quantum Philosophy

6.2 Matrix Mechanics (Fall 1925)

6.3 Wave Mechanics (Spring 1926)

6.4 Quantum Mechanics (Fall 1926)

6.5 Philosophies of Compromise (1927)

6.6 Discussion

Chapter 7 - Conclusions and the Forman Thesis

O autorze

Alexei Kojevnikov received his Ph.D. in History of Science from the Institute for History of Science and Technology in Moscow. After a Humboldt fellowship in Germany and several postdoctoral and faculty positions in the USA, he teaches History of Science at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His research focuses on the history and social relations of modern physics, combining it with approaches from cultural history. He authored Stalin’s Great Science: The Times and Adventures of Soviet Physicists (London, 2004) and Rockefeller Philanthropies and Soviet Science (St. Petersburg, 1993) and edited Science in Russian Context (a special issue of Science in Context, 2002). He is also a Co-Editor of Weimar Culture and Quantum Mechanics (Singapore, 2011), Intelligentsia Science: The Russian Century, 1860-1960 (Chicago, 2008), and Paul Dirac and Physics of the 20th Century (Moscow, 1990).