The Quantum Century: A History of 20th Century
Physics
Reading
List
Required Reading
Holton, Gerald, The Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein, 2nd edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), $19.50 paper.
Kevles, Daniel, The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America, 2nd edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), $17.95 paper.
Riordan, Michael, and Lillian Hoddeson, Crystal Fire: The Invention of the Transistor and the Birth of the Information Age (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), $15.00 paper.
History 143/HPS 104 Course Reader, Price to be determined.
Recommended Reading (on reserve
at Green Library)
Einstein, Albert, Relativity: The Special and General Theory, 15th edition (New York: Crown Publishers, 1961), $4.95 paper.
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), $13.00 paper.
March, Robert H., Physics for Poets, 5th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002).
Nye, Mary Jo, Before
Big Science: The Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics, 1800
Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), $20.00 paper.
Riordan, Michael, The Hunting of the Quark: A True Story of Modern Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987).
Segrè, Emilio, From X-Rays to Quarks: Modern Physicists and Their Discoveries (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1980).
Kragh, Helge, Quantum Generations: A History of Physics in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999),24.95 paper.
Suggested Additional Reading
Brown, Laurie, and Lillian Hoddeson, eds., The Birth of Particle Physics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Brown, Laurie, Max Dresden, and Lillian Hoddeson, eds., Pions to Quarks: Particle Physics in the 1950s (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Brown, Laurie M., Abraham Pais, and Sir Brian Pippard, Twentieth Century Physics, in three volumes (New York: American Insitute of Physics Press, 1995).
Buchwald, Jed Z., and Andrew Warwick, eds., Histories of the Electron: The Birth of Microphysics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).
Cassidy, David C., Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1992).
Crease,
Robert P., Making Physics: A Biography of Brookhaven National Laboratory,
1946
Crease, Robert P., and Charles C. Mann, The Second Creation: Makers of the Revolution in 20th-Century Physics (New York, Macmillan, 1986).
Einstein, Albert, and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961).
Everdell, William R., The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
Franklin, Allan, The Neglect of Experiment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Frayn, Michael, Copenhagen (London: Methuen Drama, 1998).
Ford, Kenneth W., The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
Fraser, Gordon, ed. The Particle Century (Bristol, UK: Institute of Physics, 1998).
Galison, Peter, How Experiments End (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Galison, Peter, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
Galison, Peter, and Bruce Hevly, Big Science: The Growth of Large-Scale Research (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1992).
Goldberg, Stanley, Understanding Relativity: Origin and Impact of a Scientific Revolution (Boston, Birkhauser Publishing Co., 1984).
Greenberg, Daniel, The Politics of Pure Science, 2nd edn. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
Greenberg, Daniel, Science, Money and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Hacking, Ian, Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Heilbron, J. L., The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as a Spokesman for German Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).
Heilbron, J. L., ed. Historical Studies in the Theory of Atomic Structure (New York: Arno Press, 1981).
Heilbron, J. L. and Robert W. Seidel, Lawrence and his Laboratory: Nuclear Science at Berkeley (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
Hermann, Armin, The Genesis of the Quantum Theory (1899-1913), translated from German by Claude W. Nash (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971).
Hoddeson, Lillian, et al., eds., The Rise of the Standard Model: Particle Physics in the 1960s and 1970s (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Hoddeson,
Lillian et al., Critical Assembly: A Technical History of Los Alamos during
the Oppenheimer Years, 1943
Hoddeson, Lillian et al., eds., Out of the Crystal Maze: Chapters in the History of Solid-State Physics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
Horgan, John, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1996).
Hughes, Thomas P., American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
Hughes, Thomas P., Rescuing Prometheus (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998).
Kuhn, Thomas S., Black-Body Theory and the Quantum Discontinuity, 1894-1912, 2nd edition (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987).
Leslie, Stuart, The Cold War and American Science (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993).
Lindley, David, Boltzmann's Atom: The Great Debate That Launched a Revolution in Physics (New York: The Free Press, 2001).
McCormmach, Russell, Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
Millikan, Robert Andrews, The Electron: Its Isolation and Measurements and the Determination of Some of Its Properties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1917).
Pais, Abraham, Inward Bound: Of Matter and Forces in the Physical World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
Pais, Abraham, Niels Bohr's Times, In Physics, Philosophy and Polity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
Pais, Abraham, Subtle is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Pickering, Andrew, Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).
Pickering, Andrew, The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency & Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Rhodes, Richard, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).
Riordan, Michael, and David N. Schramm, The Shadows of Creation: Dark Matter and the Structure of the Universe (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1991).
Snow, C. P., The Physicists: A Generation That Changed the World (London: Macmillan, 1981).
Stachel, John, ed. Einstein's Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
Suplee, Curt, Physics in the 20th Century (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999).
Traweek, Sharon, Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High-Energy Physicists (Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).
Trefil, James, From Atoms to Quarks: An Introduction to the Strange World of Particle Physics, revised edition (New York: Anchor Books, 1994).
Weinberg, Steven, The Discovery of Subatomic Particles (New York: Scientific American Books, 1983).
Weinberg, Steven, Dreams of a Final Theory: The ScientistÍs Search for the Ultimate Laws of Nature (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).
Weinberg, Steven, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, 2nd edition (New York: Basic Books, 1988).
Weiner, Charles, ed., History of Twentieth Century Physics (New York: Academic Press, 1977).
Zachary, G. Pascal, Endless Frontier: Vannevar Bush, Engineer of the American Century (New York: The Free Press, 1997}.