German Physicist Research Articles

Die Mathematisierung der Naturwissenschaften vor dem Hinter‐grund der Bildungsvorstellungen des 19. Jahrhunderts

Both, astronomy in the first half of the 19th century and physics in the second half of the 19th century functioned as models and paradigms for the other sciences. The paradigmatic character of a theoretical, mathematical astronomy was due mainly to its capability to predict future events. According to the influence of the Romantische Naturphilosophie the mathematization of physics in Germany took place belatedly compared to France. A modified Newtonian research program with its mathematical implications was adopted by German physicists only after the establishment of the principle of energy conservation. German physicists of the late 19th century claimed over and above the results of physicists the successes of German technology for physics and interpreted these achievements as “cultural” achievements.They combined this claim with a request for a better representation of physics in the curricula of secondary schools so as to be comparable to that of mathematics. The resistance of the most prestigious secondary schools, the Humanistische Gymnasien, against this request meant that the concept of Bildung as propagated by physicists was not accepted generally in Germany.

East German Physicist Released by US in East–West Exchange

East German Physicist Released by US in East–West Exchange

Chemical kinetics and the radiation hypothesis

The fact that chemical reaction can be induced by radiation has been known at least since the eighteenth century. An important investigation was that of the German physicist C. J. D. von Grotthuss1 (1785-1822) who demonstrated in 1819 that for radiation to bring about chemical reaction it must first be absorbed. This conclusion was rediscovered in 1841 by John W. Draper2 (18111882), and is now often referred to as the Grotthuss-Draper law. Other investigations during the nineteenth century were concerned with quantitative aspects of the problem. Studies carried out in 1809 by the English chemist John Dalton3 (1766-1844) and in 1855 by W. C. Wittwer4 led to the important result that the rate of a photochemical reaction is proportional to the intensity of the radiation absorbed. Later, with the advent of the quantum theory, and particularly Einstein's realization that radiation can be regarded as a beam of quanta, later to be called photons5, it became possible to relate the number of molecules involved in a photochemical change to the number of quanta of radiation absorbed. In 1908 the German physicist Johannes Stark6 (1874-1957), and later Albert Einstein7 in 1912, proposed that one quantum

To Catch a Spy

To Catch a Spy

Space Flight: Europeans in space

Latest news from the European Space Agency concerns the choice of payload specialists for the first Spacelab mission, and ESA's work on the failure of the Ariane L5 space flight back in September. Dr Ulf Merbold, the German physicist, will accompany Dr Byron Lichtenberg of NASA on the Spacelab flight, with the second European, Dr Wubbo Ockels of The Netherlands, and the second American, Dr Michael Lampton, as flight 'back-ups'.

The philosophical interpretation of contemporary physics

The well-known German physicist and cosmologist, Karl-Friedrich von Weizs?cker, presented two papers before the German Academy of Natural Sciences: 'Development and Science'and 'The Unity of Physics'. So important are they that they have appeared in three editions and have been brought together under the title which I have employed in the heading of the present paper. In what follows I shall undertake a precise critical survey of the author's position. In these papers, as well as in his voluminous study Die Einheit der Natur (Munich, 1971), Weizs?cker showed himself to be a decided monist. He set out with the idea that the development of science, which leads to its ever greater diversification, occasions at the same time the creation of a unifying fundamental science, viz. physics. As such, physics can be considered the 'science of development'. It should be noted that physics can be considered the fundamental science only to the extent that the physical form of matter's motion lies at the basis of all other higher forms. However, if physics was until recently the basic science in this sense simply because it was the primary object of attention, today the biological sciences are attracting attention. And it may be supposed that this displacement will continue in the direction of the human sciences. Weizs?cker stresses that the development of both the organic and inorganic world is an irreversible process of change. Two theories of irreversible pro cesses exist, static thermodynamics and the Darwinian theory of natural selection. An apparent contradiction exists between them. According to the second principle of thermodynamics, there exists a tendency for increasing disorder, while according to the theory of natural selection, on the contrary, a tendency to ever greater order prevails. The majority of scientists endeavors to find the solution to this seeming paradox in the fact that the decrease in entropy as a result of the emergence of new and higher organisms exceeds its increase, occasioned by the exchange of matter. Weizs?cker says that, during thirty years he also adhered to this view, but now he considers it mistaken. The development of organic life causes an increase in entropy. It is

Anglo-German physics

The Anglo-German physics conference, held in Bonn on 14–17 September 1976, was an adaptation of the annual autumn meeting of the German Physical Society (DPG). The scientific programme was organized jointly by British and German physicists and included a significant proportion of speakers from the UK (speaking in English for the most part).

The Hanle effect

The history of the discovery, study, and explanation of the effect discovered fifty years ago by the German physicist Hanle and its development and generalization by the French school of physicists led by Kastler are described. The effect is observed optically in an increase in the degree of depolarization of the resonance fluorescence. It is studied in the range of magnetic fields in which the Zeeman splitting of the atomic magnetic sublevels does not exceed the level widths determined by thermal relaxation mechanisms and electromagnetic interaction. It is a direct optical manifestation of interference of degenerate atomic states and is intimately connected with the conservation law for the angular momentum of the photon-atom system. In the review, different applications of the effect to the measurement of mean lifetimes, linewidths, and Stark splitting constants of atoms in excited states are given. The resonance scattering of light by atoms in the ground state in a weak magnetic field is considered in detail—in particular, in the presence of radio-frequency magnetic fields oriented in different ways. The different possible types of parametric resonances in one or two radio-frequency fields for arbitrary orientation of the constant magnetic field are interpreted as the effect of crossing of the levels of an atom that is dressed by the radio-frequency field. Applications of the effect in the quantum magnetometry of ultraweak fields (down to 10-10 Oe) are examined.

Too many West German physicists

Too many West German physicists

The Poggendorff Illusion: A Neurophysiologically Based Hypothesis

Recent neurophysiological findings on the organization of the visual perceptual systems and psychophysical evidence on the mechanisms of visual information processing combine to form the basis of a variety of hypotheses about the Poggendorff illusion. These hypotheses were systematically explored by psychophysical and phenomenological techniques. The illusion is shown to result from multiple factors that are separately manipulatable by alterations in the distal stimulus-alterations which sum to produce the final visual percept. Late in the nineteenth century, several leading German physicists became intrigued by the variance between the perceptual experience and the actual properties of stimuli yielding opticogeometric illusions, and studied that variance in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the operation of the visual system. The methods developed by these pioneers involved both introspective phenomenological reports and psychophysical judgments, and they remain standard techniques today. Due to the virtual absence of neurophysiological information at that time, it became traditional to use the results obtained with these methods in hypothesizing about the neurophysiological mechanisms supposedly producing the observed phenomenon. After the discovery of the illusions and with the onset of behaviorism in psychology, interest in the illusory phenomena waned. Two recent developments, however, have reopened their study as a profitable endeavor: the rapid development of a body of neurophysiological information, and the discovery of a number of cognitive-perceptual mechanisms involved in the processing of visual information.

J. S. C. Schweigger: His Romanticism and His Crystal Electrical Theory of Matter

Previous articleNext article No AccessJ. S. C. Schweigger: His Romanticism and His Crystal Electrical Theory of MatterH. A. M. SneldersH. A. M. Snelders Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 62, Number 3Autumn, 1971 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/350763 Views: 10Total views on this site Citations: 7Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1971 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:J. Theo Kloprogge, Concepcion P. Ponce, Tom A. Loomis Period 3, (Jan 2021): 165–252.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-821279-0.00004-2Clifford J. Cunningham The Music of the Spheres, (Jun 2017): 71–92.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32875-1_4Peter Bechtold, Maik Zimmermann, Stephan Roth, Ilya Alexeev, Michael Schmidt Beam Guidance, Focal Position Shifting and Beam Profile Shaping in Ultrashort Pulsed Laser Materials Processing, (Oct 2015): 245–281.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17659-8_12Elizabeth Cavicchi Experiences with the magnetism of conducting loops: Historical instruments, experimental replications, and productive confusions, American Journal of Physics 71, no.22 (Feb 2003): 156–167.https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1507791Kenneth L. Caneva Physics and Naturphilosophie : A Reconnaissance, History of Science 35, no.11 (Jul 2016): 35–106.https://doi.org/10.1177/007327539703500102Stephen G. Brush Romantik und Realismus, (Jan 1987): 18–31.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-88803-7_2Henricus Adrianus Marie Snelders Atomismus und Dynamismus im Zeitalter der Deutschen Romantischen Naturphilosophie, (Jan 1978): 187–201.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-476-04397-9_14

Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918-1927: Adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a Hostile Intellectual Environment

Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918-1927: Adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a Hostile Intellectual Environment

From recent meetings: German physicists meet in Salzburg

The annual autumn meeting of the German Physical Society is probably the largest regular gathering of physicists in Europe. This year, the 34th meeting was held in Salzburg on 29 September–4 October, in conjunction with the Austrian Physical Society and the German Geophysical Society, and attracted an attendance of over 2500.

German Physicists Choose Dyson for Planck Medal

German Physicists Choose Dyson for Planck Medal

Else Holm, German Physicist, Dies at 73

Else Holm, German Physicist, Dies at 73

Physics in West Germany

IN WEST GERMANY the training of physicists is influenced by the organization of the school system with its scheme of intensive academic training for a small number of students and by the high social esteem for humanistic and literary culture, which the schools both reflect and enforce. When he comes to take employment, the German physicist faces a choice among industrial laboratories, government service, university research institutes and the institutes of the Max Planck Society. If he chooses either of the last two alternatives (and possibly also some of the others), he will find himself in an environment where small research groups operate under the very strong influence of a dominant senior personality whose interests usually determine the direction of research. Advancement comes mainly by succession to a professorial chair or the directorship of a research institute of one's own.

Experiments on the Sondhauss Thermoacoustical Phenomenon

When heat is added steadily to the gas in the closed end of a pipe having only one closed end, a large-amplitude pressure oscillation occurs. Such heat-generated sounds are known as Sondhauss thermoacoustical oscillations, after the German physicist, C. Sondhauss (1850). A physical analysis of the heat-exchange mechanism driving the Sondhauss oscillator indicates that it operates like a heat engine having a specified thermodynamic-engine cycle. Experimental measurements of sound-pressure level and velocity of the heat-driven acoustic wave have been made to define the thermodynamic cycle. Other measurements of the various geometric and energy flow parameters of the system have been compiled. A theoretical model of the Sondhauss oscillator has been derived and solved. Theoretical solutions predict the sound-pressure levels generated for specified heat inputs with less than 4% deviation from the experimental results.

Defector's Odyssey: Personal Look at Soviet-Bloc Science Provided by High-Ranking German Physicist

Defector's Odyssey: Personal Look at Soviet-Bloc Science Provided by High-Ranking German Physicist

Suicide in Eighteenth-Century England: The Myth of a Reputation

XTEAR THE start of eighteenth century English people 1N acquired a reputation that they came to regard as a major national problem. They were accused of committing suicide at slightest provocation and of having highest suicide rate in world. They accepted this reputation as a fait accompli for so many years that it became proverbial for both foreigners and Englishmen to refer to suicide as great English malady. How did they acquire this reputation and to what extent was it justified? It is generally assumed that England got its reputation from abroad. The French and German tourists who visited England in such great numbers undoubtedly helped to perpetrate notion that England was a land of suicide. In I 7 2 5, for example, an observer wrote that the English die by their own hands with as much indifference as by another's: 'Tis common to hear People talk of Men and Women, that make away with themselves, as they call it, and generally for Reasons that would appear to us but as Trifles'. Twelve years later another traveler was puzzled by frequent suicides committed by Persons of good Families, as well as by Dregs of People'2 In 1 775 a famous German physicist repeated a popular belief about England's gloomy climate:

Beiträge Sur Physik Und Chemie Des 20 Jahrhunderts

By O. R. Frisch, F. A. Paneth, F. Laves and P. Rosbaud Braunschweig: Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn. Pp. 285. Price DM 29.50 Between November, 1958, and October, 1959, three of the foremost German physicists—Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn and Max von Laue—attained the age of eighty; this book forms a tribute paid to them by thirty eminent physicists from all parts of the world. It takes the form of a heterogeneous collection of essays varying in length from one page to thirty, in vein from the light and inconsequential to the weighty and deliberate, in content from the historical to the purely scientific.