The Second Physicist: On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany PDF
Preview The Second Physicist: On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany
Archimedes 48 New Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Christa Jungnickel Russell McCormmach The Second Physicist On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany The Second Physicist Archimedes NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY VOLUME48 EDITOR JEDZ.BUCHWALD,DreyfussProfessorofHistory,CaliforniaInstitute ofTechnology,Pasadena,USA. ASSOCIATEEDITORSFORMATHEMATICSANDPHYSICALSCIENCES JEREMYGRAY,TheFacultyofMathematicsandComputing, TheOpenUniversity,UK. TILMANSAUER,JohannesGutenbergUniversityMainz,Germany ASSOCIATEEDITORSFORBIOLOGICALSCIENCES SHARONKINGSLAND,DepartmentofHistoryofScienceandTechnology, JohnsHopkinsUniversity,Baltimore,USA. MANFREDLAUBICHLER,ArizonaStateUniversity,USA ADVISORYBOARDFORMATHEMATICS,PHYSICALSCIENCESANDTECHNOLOGY HENKBOS,UniversityofUtrecht,TheNetherlands MORDECHAIFEINGOLD,CaliforniaInstituteofTechnology,USA ALLAND.FRANKLIN,UniversityofColoradoatBoulder,USA KOSTASGAVROGLU,NationalTechnicalUniversityofAthens,Greece PAULHOYNINGEN-HUENE,LeibnizUniversityinHannover,Germany TREVORLEVERE,UniversityofToronto,Canada JESPERLU¨TZEN,CopenhagenUniversity,Denmark WILLIAMNEWMAN,IndianaUniversity,Bloomington,USA LAWRENCEPRINCIPE,TheJohnsHopkinsUniversity,USA JU¨RGENRENN,MaxPlanckInstitutefortheHistoryofScience,Germany ALEXROLAND,DukeUniversity,USA ALANSHAPIRO,UniversityofMinnesota,USA NOELSWERDLOW,CaliforniaInstituteofTechnology,USA ADVISORYBOARDFORBIOLOGY MICHAELDIETRICH,DartmouthCollege,USA MICHELMORANGE,CentreCavaille`s,EcoleNormaleSupe´rieure,France HANS-JO¨RGRHEINBERGER,MaxPlanckInstitutefortheHistoryofScience,Germany NANCYSIRAISI,HunterCollegeoftheCityUniversityofNewYork,USA Archimedes has three fundamental goals; to further the integration of the histories of science and technology with one another: to investigate the technical, social and practical histories of specific developmentsinscienceandtechnology;andfinally,wherepossibleanddesirable,tobringthehistories ofscienceandtechnologyintoclosercontactwiththephilosophyofscience.Totheseends,eachvolume willhaveitsownthemeandtitleandwillbeplannedbyoneormoremembersoftheAdvisoryBoardin consultationwiththeeditor.Althoughthevolumeshavespecificthemes,theseriesitselfwillnotbe limitedtooneoreventoafewparticularareas.Itssubjectsincludeanyofthesciences,rangingfrom biologythroughphysics,allaspectsoftechnology,broadlyconstrued,aswellashistorically-engaged philosophyofscienceortechnology.Takenasawhole,Archimedeswillbeofinteresttohistorians, philosophers,andscientists,aswellastothoseinbusinessandindustrywhoseektounderstandhow scienceandindustryhavecometobesostronglylinked. Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/5644 Christa Jungnickel (cid:129) Russell McCormmach The Second Physicist On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany ChristaJungnickel RussellMcCormmach Eugene,Oregon Eugene,Oregon USA USA ThisbookisarevisedandshortenedversionofIntellectualMasteryofNature:Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, a two-volume work by the same authors, which has been published by The University of Chicago Press. Copyright © 1986 Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach ISSN1385-0180 ISSN2215-0064 (electronic) Archimedes ISBN978-3-319-49564-4 ISBN978-3-319-49565-1 (eBook) DOI10.1007/978-3-319-49565-1 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016963224 ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2017 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexempt fromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthis book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland For our parents When Germans start being accurate, there is no end to it. —Tolstoy, War and Peace I was beside myself with ecstasy for days. —Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, January 1916 Preface “Even the formulation of this concept is not entirely without difficulty,” Ludwig Boltzmann wrote in 1895.1 He was referring to the concept of a “theoretical physicist,” which he introduced sothat his readers would understandwhathehad to say about his teacher Josef Stefan. We have taken on a task similar to Boltzmann’s, only with reference to the many physicists who did research in and taughttheoreticalphysicsinGermany. Theinterestofoneofus—weusethefirst-personsingular—wasthatofastudent of the mathematical sciences who wanted to see the history of science integrated into moregeneral history. Myinterest inthe problem arose outofmystudies and work with the German historian Jacqueline Strain, whose example impressed me withtheneedforhistorianstoincorporatetheworkofspecialistsinthehistoryof science into the materials of general history. I wanted to test the idea by studying nineteenth-century German educational and cultural institutions and, at the same time,science.Inparticular,Iwantedtostudyphysics,oneoftheearliestsciencesto partakeofwhat,inothercontexts,mightbeconsideredacharacteristicallyGerman culturalaspiration,theattainmentofaunifiedandcomprehensivevision.Together with many others who are concerned with German history, I also turned to the generalsubjectofGermanculturewiththewishtocontribute,howeverremotely,to theunderstandingofwhatwentwrong,ofwhatproducedtheGermanculturethat, despiteallofitsintellectualandartisticaccomplishments,inmanyrespectsfailed soconspicuouslyinthemiddleyearsofthetwentiethcentury. Thisbookisaresultofthecomplementary,aswellasoverlapping,interestsof itsauthors.Theearlyinterestoftheotherauthorintheoreticalphysicsgoesbackto a demanding senior course on the subject I took at Washington State College. Its teacher was the theoretical physicist William Band, who observed that in recent decades—Inowrefertothetextbookbasedonhislectures—theoreticalphysicshad 1LudwigBoltzmann,“JosefStefan.RedegehaltenbeiderEnthüllungdesStefan-Denkmalsam Dez.1895,”inPopula€reSchriften(Leipzig:J.A.Barth,1905),92–103,on94. ix x Preface moved from its “classical” emphasis on mechanical constructions toward a more abstract mathematical approach, and his course accordingly surveyed “theoretical physicsfromamodernunifiedpointofview.”Therewasatthesametimeacontinuity from the classical period in one of the modern theorist’s primary goals: he sought, Bandsaid,theone“universallawembracingthewholeofphysicalreality,”bornebya “faiththatsuchauniversallawdoesexistandiscomprehensibletothehumanmind.”2 When I took up graduate work in physics, my thesis supervisor handed me a large stack of reprints of papers on superconductivity, a daunting problem in twentieth- century theoretical physics, which Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Richard Feynman, among others, tried to solve and failed. (As it turned out, thatsame year, theproblemwas solved by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schrieffer, for which they received Nobel Prizes, complicating my intended thesis area.) I was struck by what Einstein said at the beginning of his paper on superconductivity: “nature is a merciless and harsh judge of the theorist’s work. In judging a theory, it never rules ‘Yes,’ in the best case says ‘Maybe,’ but mostly‘No.’Intheend,everytheorywillseea‘No’.”3OnereasonIlaterchosethe history of science as my field of study was to understand the history of theoretical physics, which in Band’s presentation had impressed me with its power to describe widelydifferentphenomenainauniformwayandwhichinEinstein’scharacterization hadimpressedmebyitschallenge.AsIstudiedearlyworksintheoreticalphysics,I became increasingly interested in the “theoretical physicist”—Boltzmann’s difficult concept—andinhissearchforuniversallawsencompassingthephysicalworld.Ihave undertaken this study in part to answer my questions about the historical circum- stancesthatgaverisetothetheoreticalphysicistandaboutwhatitmeantforsomeone tobecomeaspecialistofthatkindandtodothatkindofwork. Ourbooktreatsthedevelopmentoftheoreticalphysicsinonecountry,Germany. Thisisnottoimplythatthesubjectwasinventedonlythere;Germanphysicistsplayed animportantpart,butsodidphysicistsfromBritainandothercountries.Toavoida misrepresentationofoursubject,weshowthemanypointsatwhichGermanphysicists brought together their work with the work of their colleagues abroad. Nevertheless, there is a proper sense in which we may define our subject as German theoretical physics: in the course of the nineteenth century, German physicists organized their fieldwithintheiruniversities,anativeinstitutionalframework,whichwasalsofound inafewGerman-speakinglocationsoutsideofGermany.Wegiveahistoricalaccount oftheworkoftheoreticalphysicsinitsinstitutionalsettinginGermany. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the German universities had no functionthatcalledformorethanelementaryphysicslecturesforstudentsseeking a general education before going on to professional studies in medicine, law, or 2WilliamBand,IntroductiontoMathematicalPhysics(Princeton,NJ:VanNostrand,1959). 3AlbertEinstein,“TheoretischeBemerkungenzurSupraleitungderMetalle,”inHetNatuurkundig LaboratoriumderRijksuniversiteitteLeidenindeJaren1904–1922,ed.HeikeKamerlinghOnnes (Leiden: Eduard Ijdo, 1922), 429. The crisp translation of the Einstein quotation is by Jo˝rg Schmalian,“FailedTheoriesofSuperconductivity,”inBSC:50Years,ed.LeonN.Cooperand DmitriFeldman(Singapore,HackensackNJ,andLondon:WorldScientificPublishingCo.,2010), 40–55,on43. Preface xi theology. Consequently, they made no provisions for what we have come to associate with a scientific field such as physics: a comprehensive course ofstudy, advancedtraininginresearch,andresearchbytheestablishedscientistswhoarethe mentors(themodelofscientificeducationatGermanuniversitiesthatintimewould spread round the admiring world). The idea that the production of new knowledge couldliftthesestateinstitutionstoahigherplateauandtherebyraisetheculturaland political reputation of the German states that maintained them supplied the main argument for educational reform during and for a time following the Napoleonic wars.Itwasalsoanideathatatleastwherethenaturalscienceswereconcernedhad almost no hope of being formally realized then, since providing the means for research would have required relatively large amounts of money, which the then beleagueredandimpoverishedGermanstateshadmoreurgentusesfor.Itwouldalso haverequiredanunderstandingofwhosebusinessitwastoprovidethemoneyand what, in fact, research in the natural sciences consisted of. That information was soughtnotfromscientistsbutfrombureaucratsandeducatorswhohadlittleinterest in promoting experimental science. In time, the idea that research belonged at the Germanuniversitiessucceeded,becomingcommonplace,andtheunionofresearch and teaching became a defining characteristic of a “German” university and, by implication,ofa“German”scientificfield.ThepracticeofphysicsinGermanywas influencedbytheuniversities’systemoforganization. The development of theoretical physics into a separate field is, of course, an instance of specialization within the natural sciences. The designation of new spe- cialized fields was common at German universities during the period of our study. Thespecificformthatspecializationtookwithinphysicswasadivisionintotheoret- icalandexperimentalphysicsbasedonthepartiallydifferentmethodstheyappliedto a common subject. Although every empirical science was understood to require theoretical guidance, as one of our physicists observed, it was only in physics that theoretical work developed into a major teaching and research specialty in its own rightwithitsownmethods.4Thedivisionofphysicsintotheoreticalandexperimental physics perpetuated arrangements that had arisen out of practical necessity and elevatedthemintosomethingofanidealofscientificcooperation. Todrawascompleteaportraitaspossibleoftheworkinglivesofphysicists,we dividetheiractivitiesintotwocategories.5First,westudytheindividualphysicistand hisrelationswithothersworkingwithhiminthesamefield.InGermanuniversities ofourperiod,physicswasusuallyrepresentedbyonlyoneseniorphysicist,andthis meant that his interactions with fellow physicists of equal rank occurred by corre- spondence, visits, occasional formal meetings, and publications in specialized journalsoracademyproceedings.Second,westudytheindividualphysicistandhis relationswithotherswithintheinstitutionemployinghim,usuallyhisuniversity,and withthebureaucracyofthestateinwhichheworked.Intheuniversity,hedealtwith 4WilhelmWien,“ZieleundMethodendertheoretischenPhysik,”JahrbuchderRadioaktivita€tund Elektronik12(1915):241–259,on241. 5As done, for example, in Edward Gross, Work and Society (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1967),12.
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