Marie Curie, looking directly at the camera, her head is resting on her hand
DC friends! Registration is open for our last Lyne Starling Trimble public event of this spring:
Dava Sobel
Wednesday, May 27
"At Mme. Curie's Lab: Radioactivity and a Place for Women in Science"
More details here: www.aip.org/history/dava...
Video still showing David DeVorkin, holding a microphone behind a laptop, dressed in a salmon polo shirt with a bowtie. An overlay states 'David DeVorkin, Senior Curator Emeritus, National Air and Space Museum"
Now available: David DeVorkin's April 17 Trimble lecture, "The Quiet Genius of George Carruthers."
David's among the most skilled and prolific historians of astronomy we have. He's been through some ill health, so it was extra wonderful to have him with us.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CEh...
Also! You can now watch the panel discussion we had last week with Oppenheimer biographer Kai Bird and grandchildren Charles Oppenheimer and Dorothy Oppenheimer Vanderford, moderated by MIT historian Dave Kaiser.
Good discussion of Wells, Churchill, and others. Also dovetails with the literature on air power, esp. Waqar Zaidi's work the concept of an international air force (which Churchill advocated) as a prelude to the idea of int'l control of atomic energy www.cambridge.org/core/books/a...
I probably spend way too much time laboring over things like photo selection, but when you have a playground like AIP's Segrè collection it's irresistible. I've always thought young JRO has a Bob Dylan vibe, and this parallel was too good to pass up.
For today's AIP History Weekly Edition, we asked nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social to comment on the interviews with Robert Oppenheimer we just opened to the public. He highlights little details and insights into Oppenheimer's broader perspective that jumped out at him.
So, to sum up, back in the old days of 1991, when I was but a lad, the right attributed teen pregnancy to the left's depraved licentuousness, but now in this brave new era, the right is attributing the lack of teen pregnancy to the left's depraved work ethic and responsible family planning.
This is fun! @jowiph.bsky.social recently did an oral history with Tony Tyson that is now in our collection: repository.aip.org/node/129829
His work at Bell Labs on weak gravitational lensing is pretty amazing.
New Special Section Call for Proposals for @hsnatsci.bsky.social ! My co-editor Dominik Huenniger and I are seeking short essays (800-1000 words) on the theme of "Revisiting Classics and Major Influences." More below.
The Spanish Inquisition! (from Monty Python)
Is it time?
(Typo at the beginning of the thread: it's McEachern!)
I really enjoyed working on these guides and was inspired to pull together this short piece a few weeks ago
Under Pickering, the observatory played a central role in developing the field of astrophysics, making systematic observations of stellar brightness and photographic records of spectra. It is also an oft-revisited topic in women's history as a site where women often made major contributions.
The guide also focuses in on Fleming's discovery of the peculiar spectrum of ζ (zeta) Puppis, which had mysterious lines that came to be called the "Pickering series." These lines played an important role in validating Niels Bohr's atomic model, which decisively linked them to ionized helium.
Extraordinarily, Fleming moved from being HCO Director Edward Pickering's maid to leading his staff of women computers. She was the master of the observatory's sprawling glass-plate photograph collection, making many astronomical discoveries and developing a new stellar classification system.
I have been negligent in promoting our latest history guides! We have twins: on Williamina Fleming and the Harvard College Observatory. These were developed in partnership with Bretislav Friedrich and Maria McEachen and the WiHQP working group. www.aip.org/history/will...
www.aip.org/history/harv...
If you're working in our area, our next deadline will be November 15!
www.aip.org/aip/awards/h...
It's US tax day, but it's also deadline day for the spring cycle of AIP's grants-in-aid program for history of the physical sciences.
Honestly, running a grant program is just the best. Seeing emails roll in from all over the world, with proposals for all kinds of interesting projects is great fun.
Good interview with Arnold Thackray in the latest History of Science Society newsletter, covering the establishment of the Penn department and his experiences in the field in the '60s—an era I think we need to understand much better. Looking forward to part 2. hssonline.org/blogpost/198...
Like, seriously, maybe we shouldn't do this sort of thing within two weeks of introducing the concept of "pi" (itself introduced within a unit on the concept of proportional relationships). This is sixth grade, people.
Look K–12 math curriculum developers, I know you mean well with your convoluted explorations of mathematical concepts, but your entire field really needs to develop a much deeper appreciation of the concept of tacit knowledge.
Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" is one of the best plays involving science to have ever graced the stage. Chris Sinclair catches up with Frayn about a new revivial of the play at Hampstead Theatre in London. ⚛️🧪
physicsworld.com/a/michael-fr...
Freedman is usually mentioned as the grad student on John Clauser's entanglement experiment. Even there he is often neglected because Clauser was the true believer, he died prior to the Nobel, and the "Clauser" version of the below photo is usually used. This piece reminds us of the complete person.
BREAKING: the judges who dismissed high-profile cases in immigration court against two international students who have advocated for Palestinian causes, Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi, were fired yesterday, alongside four other judges.
/w @haleaziz.bsky.social and @nicknehamas.bsky.social
Ruward Mulder sits at a conference table gesturing to a screen filled with complicated equations.
Ruward Mulder stands smiling in front of a library stacks shelf full of physics books.
Today AIP Helleman Fellow, philosopher of physics Ruward Mulder at UC Irvine #HPS, paid us a visit while he's on a month-long visit with the HPS group at Pittsburgh. We found him some folks he could talk shop with, and we offered a quick tour of the AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives.
David Kaiser with a microphone. Seated next to him are Charles Oppenheimer, Kai Bird, and Dorothy Oppenheimer Vanderford.
AIP archivist Allison Buser stands in front of a table of materials from the AIP Niels Bohr Library & Archives relating to Oppenheimer's life and work.
A great week at AIP! Mid-week we celebrated three oral histories with Robert Oppenheimer opening to the public. With MIT's Dave Kaiser, biographer Kai Bird, and grandchildren Charles Oppenheimer and Dorothy Oppenheimer Vanderford. AIP archivist Allison Buser did amazing work on this initiative.
In today's AIP History Weekly Edition, we're spotlighting a workshop happening right now at LMU Munich on physicists' efforts to develop methods for working across often vastly different scales. The event extends from the ERC-funded RESCALE project led by Sébastien Rivat. #HPS
Check out my interview with Colin Camerer! So engaging to talk to him 👇 and, of course, have a look at the whole book. It finally exists 🔥
new publication by @michielbron.bsky.social & me (mostly Michiel, tho) in Nuncius: "Scientific Instruments and/as Oil Spillovers: The Role of the Oil Industry in Developing Nuclear Instruments for the Manhattan Project." 1/x
doi.org/10.1163/1825...
It gets a lot better actually!