The Golden Years of the History of Physics at the S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

Based on the scientific biographical approach, the history of physics at the Institute for the History of Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences is presented in the article as a succession of scientific biographies of prominent historians of physical science with their main scientific accomplishments and historiographic conceptions. About a dozen such leaders were singled out, including several physicists and philosophers of science. Scientific seminars, periodicals and main collective works of historians of physics as well as their participation in the international congresses on the history of science are considered. The period from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s is shown to be the “golden twenty years” of the history of physics at the Institute. The article includes the fragments of the author’s memoirs.