Lawrence, E.O
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Rutherford's Nuclear World: the Story of the Discovery of the Nuc
Rutherford's Nuclear World: The Story of the Discovery of the Nuc... http://www.aip.org/history/exhibits/rutherford/sections/atop-physic... HOME SECTIONS CREDITS EXHIBIT HALL ABOUT US rutherford's explore the atom learn more more history of learn about aip's nuclear world with rutherford about this site physics exhibits history programs Atop the Physics Wave ShareShareShareShareShareMore 9 RUTHERFORD BACK IN CAMBRIDGE, 1919–1937 Sections ← Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next → In 1962, John Cockcroft (1897–1967) reflected back on the “Miraculous Year” ( Annus mirabilis ) of 1932 in the Cavendish Laboratory: “One month it was the neutron, another month the transmutation of the light elements; in another the creation of radiation of matter in the form of pairs of positive and negative electrons was made visible to us by Professor Blackett's cloud chamber, with its tracks curled some to the left and some to the right by powerful magnetic fields.” Rutherford reigned over the Cavendish Lab from 1919 until his death in 1937. The Cavendish Lab in the 1920s and 30s is often cited as the beginning of modern “big science.” Dozens of researchers worked in teams on interrelated problems. Yet much of the work there used simple, inexpensive devices — the sort of thing Rutherford is famous for. And the lab had many competitors: in Paris, Berlin, and even in the U.S. Rutherford became Cavendish Professor and director of the Cavendish Laboratory in 1919, following the It is tempting to simplify a complicated story. Rutherford directed the Cavendish Lab footsteps of J.J. Thomson. Rutherford died in 1937, having led a first wave of discovery of the atom. -
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 -
Cockcroft: a Novel This One, the Comprehensive Compilation Lutely Fundamental Discovery
~7~~-------------------------------------SPRINGBCXJKS------------------------N_A_ru_~__ v_o_L._Jo_s_~_AP __ Rr_L_r9M_ same, when it's compiled as successfully as what was in the sheer physics of it an abso Cockcroft: a novel this one, the comprehensive compilation lutely fundamental discovery. The authors perspective undeniably earns its place in the library. of this book take in their stride Cockcroft I was an admirer of Cockcroft, a fine, and Walton's being made to wait so long William Cooper stocky, sensible, cautious Yorkshireman, theirs not to reason why, they say. But what who indulged in a minimum of speech and about ours? Did it take the Nobel Cockcroft and the Atom. in practically no change of facial committee nineteen years to recognize the By Guy Hartcup and T.E. Allibone. expression. (That expression was neverthe experiment as breaking open an entirely Adam Hilger, Bristol!Heyden, Phila- less amiable, thoughtful, smiling.) If one new line of powerful experiments to be delphia: 1984. Pp.320. £18.95, $34. addressed a remark to him, it was only made with particle-accelerators? Or did it when, after the ensuing silence, he either take those members who opposed the took the famous black notebook out of his award all that time to disappear from the SrNCE the title of Hartcup and Allibone's pocket or actually said something, that one scene? Or what? Someone must know. book may sound a bit vague, perhaps I knew for certain that he'd heard. It gave me There's a fascinating detail I should really should begin by saying what Cockcroft and lasting pleasure to think that at a dinner like to be told. -
Joseph Rotblat: the Nuclear Physicist John Finney 1515
Joseph Rotblat: The Nuclear Physicist John Finney ‘‘I don’t know if you have met Rotblat, a Pole who has been here about nine months. He is an extremely able man, one of the best I have come across for some years.’’1) So wrote the discoverer of the neutron, James Chadwick, to John Cockcroft at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1940. Over the ten years or so that Rot- blat spent working with Chadwick and in the Liverpool University Physics Department, Chadwick’s initial assessment only grew. So much so that Chadwick tried hard to dissuade Rotblat from taking the Chair in Physics at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in 1950. Rotblat’s moving the focus of his work to medical applica- tions would, he said, be a great loss to nuclear physics. Moreover, it would mean, argued Chadwick, that Rotblat would never be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In the light of this very positive assessment of Rotblat’s work in nuclear physics from one of the ‘‘greats’’ of the field, it is perhaps a little surprising that, apart from his work on the atomic bomb in the early 1940s, his contributions to the early developments of nu- clear physics are little appreciated. Both his early nuclear physics and later medical physics achievements tend to be overshadowed by his tireless work aimed at ridding the world of nuclear weapons. But his achievements in nuclear physics were also major. They de- serve to be noted and recognized. What were his main achievements as an early nuclear physicist? 1) Letter from J. -
The Adventures of a Citizen Scientist
The Adventures of a Citizen Scientist Perhaps one never knows one’s parents, really knows them. You never know their early lives and, as a kid, you’re living inside your own skin, not theirs. After that you’re out of there. Growing up in Chicago, I never knew my dad was famous. He was just a firm, affectionate, if too busy father figure, who loved music and the outdoors, played tennis better than I could, was awfully good with tools, and could explain scientific ideas so well that I almost understood them. I knew he was a physicist and taught at the University, and he and mother often took me on lecture or research trips, but I didn’t know what it was all about. During the war, when he was one of those in charge of the bomb project and we’d moved to Oak Ridge, he was just a hard-working ordinary man doing a job like everybody else. August 6th, 1945, brought a dramatically different perspective, as you might expect. My father was suddenly a national and world figure. That fall, as I went off to college, I began to hear something of his achievements — not only the bomb, but the cosmic ray studies and the Nobel Prize, with all that seemed to entail. At that moment, too, he’d become Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, and my college was his college, where his father had been Professor of Philosophy and Psychology and Dean. I was in Wooster, Ohio, the town in which my father had grown up, with his childhood house just down College Avenue. -
Prelim Reading List for Modern Physical Science (Last Updated: February 27, 2006)
Prelim Reading List for Modern Physical Science (last updated: February 27, 2006) Proposed preliminary examination reading list for Dana Freiburger. List of categories: 1 – Overview, Historiography, some ‘Classics’, and Survey Works 2.1 – 19th Century Physics 2.2 – 20th Century Physics 3 – Big Science 4 – Astronomy 5.1 – National Histories 5.2 – Atomic Weapons 6 – Sites of Research 7 – Instruments and Experiments 8 – Biography 9 – Japan Document History: 09/12/05 – First draft submitted to Richard 11/14/05 – Updated based on 10/12/05 meeting with Richard 02/27/06 – Updated to add categories to Endnote records, close to ‘final’ page 1 Prelim Reading List for Modern Physical Science (last updated: February 27, 2006) 1 – Overview, Historiography, some ‘Classics’, and Survey Works 01 Brown, Pais and Pippard, Twentieth century physics, 1995. 02 Cajori, A history of physics in its elementary branches (through 1925): including the evolution of physical laboratories, 1962. 03 Collins and Pinch, The Golem: What You Should Know About Science, 1998. 04 Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and its Ambitions, 1500-1700, 2001. 05 Forman, The environment and practice of atomic physics in Weimar, Germany; a study in the history of science, 1968. 06 Fraser, The particle century, 1998. 07 Galison and Stump, The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power, 1996. 08 Kragh, Quantum Generations: a History of Physics in the Twentieth Century, 1999. 09 Kuhn, Black-body theory and the quantum discontinuity, 1894-1912, 1987. 10 Morus, When physics became king, 2005. 11 Nye, Before Big Science: the Pursuit of Modern Chemistry and Physics, 1800-1940, 1996. -
Applications in Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Physics
On Fer and Floquet-Magnus Expansions: Applications in Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance and Physics Eugene Stephane Mananga The City University of New York New York University International Conference on Physics June 27-29, 2016 New Orleans, LA, USA OUTLINE A. Background of NMR: Solid-State NMR • Principal References B. Commonly Used Methods in Solid-State NMR • Floquet Theory • Average Hamiltonian Theory C. Alternative Expansion Approaches Used Methods in SS-NMR • Fer Expansion • Floquet-Magnus Expansion D. Applications of Fer and Floquet-Magnus expansion in SS-SNMR E. Applications of Fer and Floquet-Magnus expansion in Physics A. Background of NMR: Solid-State NMR • NMR is an extraordinary versatile technique which started in Physics In 1945 and has spread with great success to Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biology, and Medicine, finding applications also in Geophysics, Archeology, Pharmacy, etc... • Hardly any discipline has remained untouched by NMR. • It is practiced in scientific labs everywhere, and no doubt before long will be found on the moon. • NMR has proved useful in elucidating problems in all forms of matter. In this talk we consider applications of NMR to solid state: Solid-State NMR BRIEF HISTORY OF NMR • 1920's Physicists Have Great Success With Quantum Theory • 1921 Stern and Gerlach Carry out Atomic and Molecular Beam Experiments • 1925/27 Schrödinger/ Heisenberg/ Dirac Formulate The New Quantum Mechanics • 1936 Gorter Attempts Experiments Using The Resonance Property of Nuclear Spin • 1937 Rabi Predicts and Observes -
Bibliography
Bibliography F.H. Attix, Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry (John Wiley & Sons, New York, New York, USA, 1986) V. Balashov, Interaction of Particles and Radiation with Matter (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1997) British Journal of Radiology, Suppl. 25: Central Axis Depth Dose Data for Use in Radiotherapy (British Institute of Radiology, London, UK, 1996) J.R. Cameron, J.G. Skofronick, R.M. Grant, The Physics of the Body, 2nd edn. (Medical Physics Publishing, Madison, WI, 1999) S.R. Cherry, J.A. Sorenson, M.E. Phelps, Physics in Nuclear Medicine, 3rd edn. (Saunders, Philadelphia, PA, USA, 2003) W.H. Cropper, Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking (Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2001) R. Eisberg, R. Resnick, Quantum Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei and Particles (John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, USA, 1985) R.D. Evans, TheAtomicNucleus(Krieger, Malabar, FL USA, 1955) H. Goldstein, C.P. Poole, J.L. Safco, Classical Mechanics, 3rd edn. (Addison Wesley, Boston, MA, USA, 2001) D. Greene, P.C. Williams, Linear Accelerators for Radiation Therapy, 2nd Edition (Institute of Physics Publishing, Bristol, UK, 1997) J. Hale, The Fundamentals of Radiological Science (Thomas Springfield, IL, USA, 1974) W. Heitler, The Quantum Theory of Radiation, 3rd edn. (Dover Publications, New York, 1984) W. Hendee, G.S. Ibbott, Radiation Therapy Physics (Mosby, St. Louis, MO, USA, 1996) W.R. Hendee, E.R. Ritenour, Medical Imaging Physics, 4 edn. (John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, USA, 2002) International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU), Electron Beams with Energies Between 1 and 50 MeV,ICRUReport35(ICRU,Bethesda, MD, USA, 1984) International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU), Stopping Powers for Electrons and Positrons, ICRU Report 37 (ICRU, Bethesda, MD, USA, 1984) 646 Bibliography J.D. -
A Public Discussion on the Future of Nuclear Energy Was Organized By
A public discussion on the future of nuclear energy was organized by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency inVienna on 22 September 1959 in conjunction with the third regular session of the Agency's General Con ference. The three eminent scientists who participated in the discussion - Dr. Homi J. Bhabha of India, Sir John Cockcroftofthe United Kingdom and Dr. Bertrand Goldschmidt of France - are members of the Agency's Scientific Advisory Committee. The Secretary of the Committee, Dr. Henry Seligman, Deputy Director General of IAEA, acted as moder ator. The meeting was presided over by the Director General, Mr. Sterling Cole. The discussion began with opening statements by the three scientists surveying recent developments, current trends and future possibilities. After these general statements, they answered a number of questions from the audience. A record of the discussion, including the opening statements as well as the questions and answers, is contained in this special number of the IAEA Bulletin. STATEMENT BY SIR JOHN COCKCROFT The period since the 1958 Geneva Conference has been spent in accumulating experience of the opera tion of the first prototype nuclear power stations and in building the large output commercial nuclear power stations which are to come into operation in the early 1960s. There has been some narrowing of the field of reactor development and no essentially new types have appeared. One reason for this has been the appreciation of the long time scale and the enormous amount of research and development effort which is requiredtosee anynew type through successive stages of development to final production and operation. -
From the Executive Director Kathryn Sullivan to Receive Sigma Xi's Mcgovern Award
May-June 2011 · Volume 20, Number 3 Kathryn Sullivan to From the Executive Director Receive Sigma Xi’s McGovern Award Annual Report In my report last year I challenged the membership to consider ormer astronaut the characteristics of successful associations. I suggested that we Kathryn D. emulate what successful associations do that others do not. This FSullivan, the first year as I reflect back on the previous fiscal year, I suggest that we need to go even further. U.S. woman to walk We have intangible assets that could, if converted to tangible outcomes, add to the in space, will receive value of active membership in Sigma Xi. I believe that standing up for high ethical Sigma Xi’s 2011 John standards, encouraging the earlier career scientist and networking with colleagues of diverse disciplines is still very relevant to our professional lives. Membership in Sigma P. McGovern Science Xi still represents recognition for scientific achievements, but the value comes from and Society Award. sharing with companions in zealous research. Since 1984, a highlight of Sigma Xi’s Stronger retention of members through better local programs would benefit the annual meeting has been the McGovern Society in many ways. It appears that we have continued to initiate new members in Lecture, which is made by the recipient of numbers similar to past years but retention has declined significantly. In addition, the the McGovern Medal. Recent recipients source of the new members is moving more and more to the “At-large” category and less and less through the Research/Doctoral chapters. have included oceanographer Sylvia Earle and Nobel laureates Norman Borlaug, Mario While Sigma Xi calls itself a “chapter-based” Society, we have found that only about half of our “active” members are affiliated with chapters in “good standing.” As long Molina and Roald Hoffmann. -
The History and Impact of the CNO Cycles in Nuclear Astrophysics
Phys. Perspect. 20 (2018) 124–158 Ó 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 1422-6944/18/010124-35 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-018-0216-0 Physics in Perspective The History and Impact of the CNO Cycles in Nuclear Astrophysics Michael Wiescher* The carbon cycle, or Bethe-Weizsa¨cker cycle, plays an important role in astrophysics as one of the most important energy sources for quiescent and explosive hydrogen burning in stars. This paper presents the intellectual and historical background of the idea of the correlation between stellar energy production and the synthesis of the chemical elements in stars on the example of this cycle. In particular, it addresses the contributions of Carl Friedrich von Weizsa¨cker and Hans Bethe, who provided the first predictions of the carbon cycle. Further, the experimental verification of the predicted process as it developed over the following decades is discussed, as well as the extension of the initial carbon cycle to the carbon- nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) multi-cycles and the hot CNO cycles. This development emerged from the detailed experimental studies of the associated nuclear reactions over more than seven decades. Finally, the impact of the experimental and theoretical results on our present understanding of hydrogen burning in different stellar environments is presented, as well as the impact on our understanding of the chemical evolution of our universe. Key words: Carl Friedrich von Weizsa¨cker; Hans Bethe; Carbon cycle; CNO cycle. Introduction The energy source of the sun and all other stars became a topic of great interests in the physics community in the second half of the nineteenth century. -
María Goeppert Mayer: De Gotinga a Premio Nobel De Física
José Manuel Sánchez Ron José Manuel Sánchez Ron María Goeppert Mayer: de Gotinga a Premio María Goeppert Mayer: Nobel de Física de Gotinga a Premio María Goeppert Mayer (1906-1972) fue una de las cuatro José Manuel Sánchez Ron se Nobel de Física mujeres que, hasta la fecha, han obtenido el Premio Nobel licenció en Física en la Universidad de Física: Marie Curie (1903), María Goeppert Mayer Complutense de Madrid y doctoró en la Universidad de Londres. (1963), Donna Strickland (2018) y Andrea Ghez (2020). Desde 2019 es catedrático emérito Insertando su biografía y contribuciones en el contexto de de Historia de la Ciencia en la los mundos científico y nacional en los que vivió (Alemania Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, y Estados Unidos), el catedrático emérito de Historia de la donde antes de obtener esa cátedra en 1994 fue profesor titular Ciencia en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y miembro de Física Teórica. Es autor de de la Real Academia Española, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, numerosas e influyentes obras de reconstruye en este libro los avatares de su carrera, que la historia de la ciencia internacional llevó de la Universidad de Gotinga a la de California en San y española. En 2015 recibió el Diego, pasando por Johns Hopkins, Columbia y Chicago. Premio Nacional de Ensayo por El mundo después de la revolución. Dotada especialmente para la física teórica, sin embargo las La física de la segunda mitad del “circunstancias” de su vida no le permitieron desarrollar un siglo xx, el primer Premio Nacional programa de investigación con cierta coherencia y continuidad.