Heisenberg's Visit to Niels Bohr in 1941 and the Bohr Letters
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PHIL 20604 Fall 2019 Prof. Don Howard Modern Physics and Moral
PHIL 20604 Fall 2019 Prof. Don Howard Modern Physics and Moral 308 Malloy Hall Responsibility Tel: 631-7547 TTh 11:00-12:15 [email protected] 625 Flanner Office Hours: TTh 12:30-1:30 Texts: Michael Frayn. Copenhagen. New York: Anchor, 2000. Robert Jungk. Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of Atomic Scientists. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1970. Russell McCormmach. Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Sylvan S. Schweber. In the Shadow of the Bomb: Bethe, Oppenheimer, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Requirements: There will be three components in the computation of your final grade for the course: (1) Discussion Papers (60 %). Each student will be required to submit three discussion papers, each a minimum of 1,500 words, or, roughly, five pages, on topics to be worked out in consultation with the instructor. Each of the three discussion papers will be worth 20 % of the final course grade. Papers will be graded on the basis of both content and mechanics, the latter counting for approximately 20% of the grade on each paper. (2) Journals (25 %). You will be required to keep a journal to be used primarily to record your critical reactions to the assigned readings. At a minimum, you should write a one-page ($300 words) critical response to each reading assignment, though you are encouraged to write more, taking advantage of this opportunity to record your thoughts on any topic related to the course and the readings. Journal entries will be graded on a random, unannounced basis several times over the course of the semester. -
Copenhagen, 1941
Copenhagen, 1941 Heisenberg visited his mentor and former teacher, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen in 1941, perhaps to ask his advice on the right course of action for the development of atomic energy. It is not certain what was said during this meeting, however Bohr came away with the impression that the Nazis were actively developing a nuclear bomb. Letter of Niels Bohr (1885 – 1962) to Werner Heisenberg (1901 –1976) - released 6 February 2002 Transcription: Kære Heisenberg, Jeg har set en bog “Stærkere end tusind sole” af Robert Jungk, der for nylig er udkommet på dansk, og jeg synes jeg skylder dig at sige, at det har forbavset mig meget at se, hvor stærkt din hukommelse har svigtet dig i dit brev til bogens forfatter, der i uddrag er aftrykt i den danske udgave. Translation. Dear Heisenberg, I have seen a book, “Stærkere end tusind sole” [“Brighter than a thousand suns”] by Robert Jungk, recently published in Danish, and I think that I owe it to you to tell you that I am greatly amazed to see how much your memory has deceived you in your letter to the author of the book, excerpts of which are printed in the Danish edition. Personally, I remember every word of our conversations, which took place on a background of extreme sorrow and tension for us here in Denmark. In particular, it made a strong impression both on Margrethe and me, and on everyone at the Institute that the two of you spoke to, that you and Weizsäcker expressed your definite conviction that Germany would win and that it was therefore quite foolish for us to maintain the hope of a different outcome of the war and to be reticent as regards all German offers of cooperation. -
Bringing out the Dead Alison Abbott Reviews the Story of How a DNA Forensics Team Cracked a Grisly Puzzle
BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT DADO RUVIC/REUTERS/CORBIS DADO A forensics specialist from the International Commission on Missing Persons examines human remains from a mass grave in Tomašica, Bosnia and Herzegovina. FORENSIC SCIENCE Bringing out the dead Alison Abbott reviews the story of how a DNA forensics team cracked a grisly puzzle. uring nine sweltering days in July Bosnia’s Million Bones tells the story of how locating, storing, pre- 1995, Bosnian Serb soldiers slaugh- innovative DNA forensic science solved the paring and analysing tered about 7,000 Muslim men and grisly conundrum of identifying each bone the million or more Dboys from Srebrenica in Bosnia. They took so that grieving families might find some bones. It was in large them to several different locations and shot closure. part possible because them, or blew them up with hand grenades. This is an important book: it illustrates the during those fate- They then scooped up the bodies with bull- unspeakable horrors of a complex war whose ful days in July 1995, dozers and heavy earth-moving equipment, causes have always been hard for outsiders to aerial reconnais- and dumped them into mass graves. comprehend. The author, a British journalist, sance missions by the Bosnia’s Million It was the single most inhuman massacre has the advantage of on-the-ground knowl- Bones: Solving the United States and the of the Bosnian war, which erupted after the edge of the war and of the International World’s Greatest North Atlantic Treaty break-up of Yugoslavia and lasted from 1992 Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), an Forensic Puzzle Organization had to 1995, leaving some 100,000 dead. -
11/03/11 110311 Pisp.Doc Physics in the Interest of Society 1
1 _11/03/11_ 110311 PISp.doc Physics in the Interest of Society Physics in the Interest of Society Richard L. Garwin IBM Fellow Emeritus IBM, Thomas J. Watson Research Center Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 www.fas.org/RLG/ www.garwin.us [email protected] Inaugural Lecture of the Series Physics in the Interest of Society Massachusetts Institute of Technology November 3, 2011 2 _11/03/11_ 110311 PISp.doc Physics in the Interest of Society In preparing for this lecture I was pleased to reflect on outstanding role models over the decades. But I felt like the centipede that had no difficulty in walking until it began to think which leg to put first. Some of these things are easier to do than they are to describe, much less to analyze. Moreover, a lecture in 2011 is totally different from one of 1990, for instance, because of the instant availability of the Web where you can check or supplement anything I say. It really comes down to the comment of one of Elizabeth Taylor later spouses-to-be, when asked whether he was looking forward to his wedding, and replied, “I know what to do, but can I make it interesting?” I’ll just say first that I think almost all Physics is in the interest of society, but I take the term here to mean advising and consulting, rather than university, national lab, or contractor research. I received my B.S. in physics from what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1947 and went to Chicago with my new wife for graduate study in Physics. -
I. I. Rabi Papers [Finding Aid]. Library of Congress. [PDF Rendered Tue Apr
I. I. Rabi Papers A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 1992 Revised 2010 March Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact Additional search options available at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms998009 LC Online Catalog record: http://lccn.loc.gov/mm89076467 Prepared by Joseph Sullivan with the assistance of Kathleen A. Kelly and John R. Monagle Collection Summary Title: I. I. Rabi Papers Span Dates: 1899-1989 Bulk Dates: (bulk 1945-1968) ID No.: MSS76467 Creator: Rabi, I. I. (Isador Isaac), 1898- Extent: 41,500 items ; 105 cartons plus 1 oversize plus 4 classified ; 42 linear feet Language: Collection material in English Location: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Summary: Physicist and educator. The collection documents Rabi's research in physics, particularly in the fields of radar and nuclear energy, leading to the development of lasers, atomic clocks, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and to his 1944 Nobel Prize in physics; his work as a consultant to the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and as an advisor on science policy to the United States government, the United Nations, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during and after World War II; and his studies, research, and professorships in physics chiefly at Columbia University and also at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Selected Search Terms The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein. -
Physics Nobel Prize 1975
Physics Nobel Prize 1975 Nobel prize winners, left to right, A. Bohr, B. Mottelson and J. Rainwater. 0. Kofoed-Hansen (Photos Keystone Press, Photopress) Before 1949 every physicist knew that mooted, it was a major breakthrough from 1943-45. From December 1943 the atomic nucleus does not rotate. in thinking about the nucleus and he was actually in the USA. Back in The reasoning behind this erroneous opened a whole new field of research Denmark after the war, he obtained belief came from the following argu• in nuclear physics. This work has for his Ph. D. in 1954 for work on rota• ments. A quantum-mechanical rotator years been guided by the inspiration tional states in atomic nuclei. His with the moment of inertia J can take of Bohr and Mottelson. thesis was thus based on the work for up various energy levels with rota• An entire industry of nuclear which he has now been recognized at tional energies equal to h2(l + 1)| research thus began with Rainwater's the very highest level. He is Professor /8TC2J, where h is Planck's constant brief contribution to Physical Review at the Niels Bohr Institute of the ^nd I is the spin. As an example, I may in 1950 entitled 'Nuclear energy level University of Copenhagen and a nave values 0, 2, 4, ... etc. If the argument for a spheroidal nuclear member of the CERN Scientific Policy nucleus is considered as a rigid body, model'. Today a fair-sized library is Committee. then the moment of inertia J is very needed in order to contain all the Ben Mottelson was born in the USA large and the rotational energies papers written on deformed nuclei and in 1926 and has, for many years, become correspondingly very small. -
Appendix E Nobel Prizes in Nuclear Science
Nuclear Science—A Guide to the Nuclear Science Wall Chart ©2018 Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP) Appendix E Nobel Prizes in Nuclear Science Many Nobel Prizes have been awarded for nuclear research and instrumentation. The field has spun off: particle physics, nuclear astrophysics, nuclear power reactors, nuclear medicine, and nuclear weapons. Understanding how the nucleus works and applying that knowledge to technology has been one of the most significant accomplishments of twentieth century scientific research. Each prize was awarded for physics unless otherwise noted. Name(s) Discovery Year Henri Becquerel, Pierre Discovered spontaneous radioactivity 1903 Curie, and Marie Curie Ernest Rutherford Work on the disintegration of the elements and 1908 chemistry of radioactive elements (chem) Marie Curie Discovery of radium and polonium 1911 (chem) Frederick Soddy Work on chemistry of radioactive substances 1921 including the origin and nature of radioactive (chem) isotopes Francis Aston Discovery of isotopes in many non-radioactive 1922 elements, also enunciated the whole-number rule of (chem) atomic masses Charles Wilson Development of the cloud chamber for detecting 1927 charged particles Harold Urey Discovery of heavy hydrogen (deuterium) 1934 (chem) Frederic Joliot and Synthesis of several new radioactive elements 1935 Irene Joliot-Curie (chem) James Chadwick Discovery of the neutron 1935 Carl David Anderson Discovery of the positron 1936 Enrico Fermi New radioactive elements produced by neutron 1938 irradiation Ernest Lawrence -
The Future Workshop: Democratic Problem Solving
The Future Workshop: Democratic problem solving Rene Victor Valqui Vidal Informatics and Mathematical Modelling Technical University of Denmark 2800 Lyngby Denmark [email protected] www.imm.dtu.dk/~vvv October 2005 Abstract The origins, principles and practice of a very popular method known as The Future Workshop are presented. The fundamental theory and principles of this method are presented in an introductory way. In addition, practical guidelines to carry out such a workshop are outlined and several types of applications are shortly described. The crucial importance of both the facilitation process and the use of creative tools in team work are enhanced. Keywords: Future workshop, problem solving, facilitation, social fantasy, creativity, group work 1. Introduction “Dreams, not desperation make communities survive”. This slogan was written on a wall of a shantytown in the outskirts of Lima, a community that has developed from nothing to become a well-functioning town. Visions, collaboration and hard work have been the factors that have transformed a desert into a well-developed town. To create dreams about the future is an important task for many groups of individuals and organizations both in grass root activities, public institutions and small businesses. To create visions is the ability to think about the future with great imagination and wisdom. In general, to change or transform the actual situation of a system you can use two main approaches: 1 • First to criticize the actual situation, them to dream about a preferable future situation, and finally to find ways to move from the actual situation to a preferable one; or • First depict a future preferable situation, then analyze the actual situation, and finally find ways to move from the actual situation to a preferable one. -
Nobel Prize Physicists Meet at Lindau
From 28 June to 2 July 1971 the German island town of Lindau in Nobel Prize Physicists Lake Constance close to the Austrian and Swiss borders was host to a gathering of illustrious men of meet at Lindau science when, for the 21st time, Nobel Laureates held their reunion there. The success of the first Lindau reunion (1951) of Nobel Prize win ners in medicine had inspired the organizers to invite the chemists and W. S. Newman the physicists in turn in subsequent years. After the first three-year cycle the United Kingdom, and an audience the dates of historical events. These it was decided to let students and of more than 500 from 8 countries deviations in the radiocarbon time young scientists also attend the daily filled the elegant Stadttheater. scale are due to changes in incident meetings so they could encounter The programme consisted of a num cosmic radiation (producing the these eminent men on an informal ber of lectures in the mornings, two carbon isotopes) brought about by and personal level. For the Nobel social functions, a platform dis variations in the geomagnetic field. Laureates too the Lindau gatherings cussion, an informal reunion between Thus chemistry may reveal man soon became an agreeable occasion students and Nobel Laureates and, kind’s remote past whereas its long for making or renewing acquain on the last day, the traditional term future could well be shaped by tances with their contemporaries, un steamer excursion on Lake Cons the developments mentioned by trammelled by the formalities of the tance to the island of Mainau belong Mössbauer, viz. -
Communications-Mathematics and Applied Mathematics/Download/8110
A Mathematician's Journey to the Edge of the Universe "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." ― Socrates Manjunath.R #16/1, 8th Main Road, Shivanagar, Rajajinagar, Bangalore560010, Karnataka, India *Corresponding Author Email: [email protected] *Website: http://www.myw3schools.com/ A Mathematician's Journey to the Edge of the Universe What’s the Ultimate Question? Since the dawn of the history of science from Copernicus (who took the details of Ptolemy, and found a way to look at the same construction from a slightly different perspective and discover that the Earth is not the center of the universe) and Galileo to the present, we (a hoard of talking monkeys who's consciousness is from a collection of connected neurons − hammering away on typewriters and by pure chance eventually ranging the values for the (fundamental) numbers that would allow the development of any form of intelligent life) have gazed at the stars and attempted to chart the heavens and still discovering the fundamental laws of nature often get asked: What is Dark Matter? ... What is Dark Energy? ... What Came Before the Big Bang? ... What's Inside a Black Hole? ... Will the universe continue expanding? Will it just stop or even begin to contract? Are We Alone? Beginning at Stonehenge and ending with the current crisis in String Theory, the story of this eternal question to uncover the mysteries of the universe describes a narrative that includes some of the greatest discoveries of all time and leading personalities, including Aristotle, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton, and the rise to the modern era of Einstein, Eddington, and Hawking. -
Release of Documents Relating to 1941 Bohr-Heisenberg Meeting
Release of documents relating to 1941 Bohr-Heisenberg meeting DOCUMENTS RELEASED 6 FEBRUARY 2002 The family of Niels Bohr has decided to release all documents deposited at the Niels Bohr Archive, either written or dictated by Niels Bohr, pertaining specifically to the meeting between Bohr and Heisenberg in September 1941. There are in all eleven documents. The decision has been made in order to avoid possible misunderstandings regarding the contents of the documents. The documents supplement and confirm previously published statements of Bohr's recollections of the meeting, especially those of his son, Aage Bohr. The documents have now been organised, transcribed and translated into English at the Niels Bohr Archive. Because of the overwhelming interest in the material, it has been decided that the material should be published in full instead of being made available to scholars upon individual application, as is normal practice at the Niels Bohr Archive. This has been done by placing facsimiles, transcriptions and translations on this website here. An illustrated edition of the transcriptions and translations is published in the journal Naturens Verden, Vol. 84, No. 8 - 9. Reprints can be obtained from the Niels Bohr Archive for USD8/EUR8/DKK50 (prepaid). Release of documents relating to 1941 Bohr-Heisenberg meeting. Document 1. Draft of letter from Bohr to Heisenberg, never sent. In the handwriting of Niels Bohr's assistant, Aage Petersen. Undated, but written after the first publication, in 1957, of the Danish translation of Robert Jungk, Heller als Tausend Sonnen, the first edition of Jungk's book to contain Heisenberg's letter. -
Absolute Zero, Absolute Temperature. Absolute Zero Is the Lowest
Contents Radioactivity: The First Puzzles................................................ 1 The “Uranic Rays” of Henri Becquerel .......................................... 1 The Discovery ............................................................... 2 Is It Really Phosphorescence? .............................................. 4 What Is the Nature of the Radiation?....................................... 5 A Limited Impact on Scientists and the Public ............................ 6 Why 1896? .................................................................. 7 Was Radioactivity Discovered by Chance? ................................ 7 Polonium and Radium............................................................. 9 Marya Skłodowska .......................................................... 9 Pierre Curie .................................................................. 10 Polonium and Radium: Pierre and Marie Curie Invent Radiochemistry.. 11 Enigmas...................................................................... 14 Emanation from Thorium ......................................................... 17 Ernest Rutherford ........................................................... 17 Rutherford Studies Radioactivity: ˛-and ˇ-Rays.......................... 18 ˇ-Rays Are Electrons ....................................................... 19 Rutherford in Montreal: The Radiation of Thorium, the Exponential Decrease........................................... 19 “Induced” and “Excited” Radioactivity .................................... 20 Elster