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Twentieth Century Physics Volume I Twentieth Century Physics Volume I Edited by Laurie M Brown Northwestern University Abraham Pais Rockefeller University and Niels Bohr Institute Sir Brian Pippard University of Cambridge Institute of Physics Publishing Bristol and Philadelphia and American Institute of Physics Press New York Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. 0IOP Publishing Ltd, AIP Press Inc., 1995 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Multiple copying is permitted in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency under the terms of its agreement with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use, or the intemal or personal use of specific clients in the USA, is granted by IOP Publishing and AIP Press to libraries and other users registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) Transaction Reporting Service, providing that the base fee of $19.50 per copy is paid directly to CCC, 27 Congress Street, Salem, MA 01970, USA British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. In UK and the Rest of the World, excluding North America: ISBN 0 7503 0353 0 Vol. I 0 7503 0354 9 Vol. I1 0 7503 0355 7 Vol. I11 0 7503 0310 7 (3 vol. set) In North America (United States of America, Canada and Mexico): ISBN 1-56396-047-8 Vol. I 1-56396-048-6 Vol. I1 1-56396-049-4 Vol. I11 1-56396-314-0 (3 vol. set) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Pub2icationData are available Published jointly by Institute of Physics Publishing, wholly owned by The Institute of Physics, London, and American Institute of Physics Press, wholly owned by the American Institute of Physics, New York. Institute of Physics Publishing, Techno House, Redcliffe Way, Bristol BS1 6NX, UK Institute of Physics Publishing, Suite 1035, The Public Ledger Building, Independence Square, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA American Institute of Physics Press, 500 Sunnyside Boulevard, Woodbury, New York 11797-299, USA Printed and bound in the UK by Bookcraft Ltd, Bath. Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. CONTENTS VOLUME I Preface ix List of contributors xiii Biographical captions xvii 1 PHYSICS IN 1900 1 Sir Brian Pippard 1.1 The community of scientists 3 1.2 The education of a physicist 8 1.3 The research physicist 16 1.4 The support of research 19 1.5 Black-body radiation 22 1.6 Experimental facilities 24 1.7 The world-picture 29 1.8 The seeds of modern physics 36 2 INTRODUCING ATOMS AND THEIR NUCLEI 43 Abraham Pais Part 1 ATOMS 43 2.1 Prelude 43 2.2 The decade of transition: 1895-1905 52 2.3 Radioactivity: 1896-1905 56 2.4 The structure of atoms: 1897-1906 63 2.5 The birth of quantum physics 65 2.6 Niels Bohr, father of quantum dynamics 72 2.7 First the good news. More successes for the old quantum theory 89 2.8 Now the bad news. The crisis of the old quantum theory 101 Part 2 NUCLEI 103 2.9 /?-ray spectroscopy, 190614 103 2.10 Models of the nucleus, the beginnings 109 2.11 192632: the years of nuclear paradoxes 115 Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. Twentieth Century Physics 2.12 The neutron 119 2.13 p-spectra: the end of the beginning 126 2.14 Fission 129 3 QUANTA AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 143 Hefmut Rechenberg 3.1 Introduction 143 3.2 Quanta-the empirical foundations (1900-28) 145 3.3 Origin and completion of quantum mechanics (1913-29) 173 3.4 The world of microphysics (1925-35) 210 4 HISTORY OF RELATIVITY 249 John Stachel 4.1 Introduction 249 4.2 The special theory of relativity 254 4.3 The general theory of relativity 286 4.4 Unified field theories 320 5 NUCLEAR FORCES, MESONS, AND ISOSPIN SYMMETRY 357 Laurie M Brown 5.1 The status of physics circa 1930 357 5.2 Annus mirabilis-the new physics of 1932 370 5.3 Two fundamental theories of nuclear forces 375 5.4 Cosmic rays in the 1930s: QED, showers, and the mesotron 383 5.5 Mesotrons, mesons, and the birth of particle physics 394 5.6 Discoveries during and just after World War I1 405 5.7 Conclusion 409 6 SOLID-STATE STRUCTURE ANALYSIS 421 William Cochran 6.1 Crystallography and x-rays before 1912 421 6.2 The discovery of x-ray diffraction by crystals 424 6.3 Experimental techniques 432 6.4 Methods of structure determination 439 6.5 Accurate structure analysis 450 6.6 Neutron diffraction 453 6.7 Electron diffraction 463 6.8 Surface crystallography 465 6.9 Imperfect crystals and non-crystalline solids 471 6.10 The impact of crystal-structure analysis 484 6.11 Biomolecular structures 496 6.12 The International Union of Crystallography and related topics 511 7 THERMODYNAMICS AND STATISTICAL MECHANICS (IN EQUILIBRIUM) 521 Cyril Domb Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. Contents 7.1 Introduction-nineteenth century background 521 7.2 Impact of the quantum theory 524 7.3 Formal theoretical developments 531 7.4 The third law of thermodynamics 535 7.5 Phase transitions and critical phenomena 542 7.6 Further topics 574 8 NON-EQUILIBRIUM STATISTICAL MECHANICS OR THE VAGARIES OF TIME EVOLUTION 585 Max Dresden 8.1 A phase of transition and consolidation 585 8.2 A history in three parts 592 Illustration acknowledgments A1 Subject index 51 Name index N1 VOLUME I1 9 ELEMENTARY PARTICLE PHYSICS IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 635 Val L Fitch and Jonathan L Rosner 10 FLUID MECHANICS 795 Sir James Lightkill 11 SUPERFLUIDS AND SUPERCONDUCTORS 913 A J Leggett 12 VIBRATIONS AND SPIN WAVES IN CRYSTALS 967 R A Cowley and Sir Brian Pippard 13 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS 1023 Ugo Fano 14 MAGNETISM 1111 K W H Stevens 15 NUCLEAR DYNAMICS 1183 David M Brink 16 UNITS, STANDARDS AND CONSTANTS 1233 Arlie Bailey Illustration acknowledgments A7 Subject index 51 Name index N1 Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. Twentieth Centuy Physics VOLUME I11 17 ELECTRONS IN SOLIDS 1279 Sir Brian Pippard 18 A HISTORY OF OPTICAL AND OPTOELECTRONIC PHYSICS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 1385 R G W Brown and E R Pike 19 PHYSICS OF MATERIALS 1505 Robert W Cahn 20 ELECTRON-BEAM INSTRUMENTS 1565 T Mulvey 21 SOFT MATTER: BIRTH AND GROWTH OF CONCEPTS 1593 P G de Gennes 22 PLASMA PHYSICS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 1617 Richard F Post 23 ASTROPHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY 1691 Malcolm S Longair 24 COMPUTER-GENERATED PHYSICS 1823 Mitchell J Feigenbaum 25 MEDICAL PHYSICS 1855 John R Mallard 26 GEOPHYSICS 1943 S G Brush and C S Gillmor 27 REFLECTIONS ON TWENTIETH CENTURY PHYSICS: THREE ESSAYS 2017 Historical overview of the twentieth century in physics 2017 Philip Anderson Nature itself 2033 Steven Weinberg Some reflections on physics as a social institution 2041 John Ziman Illustration acknowledgments All Journal abbreviations J1 Subject index s1 Name index N1 Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. PREFACE It is easy enough to find an excuse for celebrating the achievements of physics in the twentieth century. As the year 1900 approached, the splendid edifice of classical physics, founded on the ideas of Newton, Maxwell, Helmholtz, Lorentz, and many others, appeared to be reaching a state of near-perfection; but this very advanced state revealed some structural flaws, which turned out to be more than superficial. The experimental and theoretical discoveries of the years around the tum of the century led to revolutions that transformed the basic outlook of physicists: atomic structure, quantum theory, and relativity. It must be emphasized, however, that the older classical successes were not discarded, but could be seen ultimately as special cases of more general conceptions; the modem physicist must still have a sound appreciation of the old dynamics and electromagnetism. In most technological applications (except for the most advanced 'hi-tech'), it would be futile to drag in relativity or quantum mechanics; with few exceptions, the classical description of everyday events and devices is the best available. Nevertheless, the switch to what is referred to as Modem Physics, essentially the creation of the present century, enormously enlarged the scope of physical science. Not only was the architecture of the atom and its nucleus, and even that of the nuclear constituents themselves, gradually revealed, but at the other end of the scale of sizes the universe as a whole became accessible to observation, reason, and informed imagination. Quantum mechanics made sense of atomic structure and showed, within a year or two of its invention, that it could explain, at least in principle, the origin of the chemical bond. In the fifties, the elucidation of some of the simpler proteins and of the DNA double helix by the methods of crystallography transformed the study of biological mechanisms. This is not to imply at all that chemistry and biology are branches of physics-hemists and biologists have their own ways of handling their immensely complex material. Working alone, physicists are no match for them, and can continue with their own adventures, secure in the knowledge that the other sciences are not about to spoil the game by injecting hitherto unsuspected laws of nature, but rather will use the ideas of physics to illuminate their own discoveries. Copyright © 1995 IOP Publishing Ltd. ix Twentieth Century Physics We recognized from the outset that the best we could hope for in these volumes was a first step toward the writing of this history.
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