Archimedes 48 New Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Christa Jungnickel Russell McCormmach The Second Physicist On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany The Second Physicist Archimedes NEW STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY VOLUME 48 EDITOR JED Z. BUCHWALD, Dreyfuss Professor of History, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA. ASSOCIATE EDITORS FOR MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES JEREMY GRAY, The Faculty of Mathematics and Computing, The Open University, UK. TILMAN SAUER, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany ASSOCIATE EDITORS FOR BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES SHARON KINGSLAND, Department of History of Science and Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA. MANFRED LAUBICHLER, Arizona State University, USA ADVISORY BOARD FOR MATHEMATICS, PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY HENK BOS, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands MORDECHAI FEINGOLD, California Institute of Technology, USA ALLAN D. FRANKLIN, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA KOSTAS GAVROGLU, National Technical University of Athens, Greece PAUL HOYNINGEN-HUENE, Leibniz University in Hannover, Germany TREVOR LEVERE, University of Toronto, Canada JESPER LU¨ TZEN, Copenhagen University, Denmark WILLIAM NEWMAN, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA LAWRENCE PRINCIPE, The Johns Hopkins University, USA JU¨ RGEN RENN, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany ALEX ROLAND, Duke University, USA ALAN SHAPIRO, University of Minnesota, USA NOEL SWERDLOW, California Institute of Technology, USA ADVISORY BOARD FOR BIOLOGY MICHAEL DIETRICH, Dartmouth College, USA MICHEL MORANGE, Centre Cavaille`s, Ecole Normale Supe´rieure,France HANS-JO¨ RG RHEINBERGER, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Germany NANCY SIRAISI, Hunter College of the City University of New York, USA Archimedes has three fundamental goals; to further the integration of the histories of science and technology with one another: to investigate the technical, social and practical histories of specific developments in science and technology; and fi nally, where possible and desirable, to bring the histories of science and technology into closer contact with the philosophy of science. To these ends, each volume will have its own theme and title and will be planned by one or more members of the Advisory Board in consultation with the editor. Although the volumes have specifi c themes, the series itself will not be limited to one or even to a few particular areas. Its subjects include any of the sciences, ranging from biology through physics, all aspects of technology, broadly construed, as well as historically-engaged philosophy of science or technology. Taken as a whole, Archimedes will be of interest to historians, philosophers, and scientists, as well as to those in business and industry who seek to understand how science and industry have come to be so strongly linked. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5644 Christa Jungnickel • Russell McCormmach The Second Physicist On the History of Theoretical Physics in Germany Christa Jungnickel Russell McCormmach Eugene, Oregon Eugene, Oregon USA USA This book is a revised and shortened version of Intellectual Mastery of Nature: Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, a two-volume work by the same authors, which has been published by The University of Chicago Press. Copyright © 1986 Christa Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach ISSN 1385-0180 ISSN 2215-0064 (electronic) Archimedes ISBN 978-3-319-49564-4 ISBN 978-3-319-49565-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49565-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016963224 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For our parents When Germans start being accurate, there is no end to it. —Tolstoy, War and Peace I was beside myself with ecstasy for days. —Einstein to Paul Ehrenfest, January 1916 Preface “Even the formulation of this concept is not entirely without difficulty,” Ludwig Boltzmann wrote in 1895.1 He was referring to the concept of a “theoretical physicist,” which he introduced so that his readers would understand what he had to say about his teacher Josef Stefan. We have taken on a task similar to Boltzmann’s, only with reference to the many physicists who did research in and taught theoretical physics in Germany. The interest of one of us—we use the first-person singular—was that of a student of the mathematical sciences who wanted to see the history of science integrated into more general history. My interest in the problem arose out of my studies and work with the German historian Jacqueline Strain, whose example impressed me with the need for historians to incorporate the work of specialists in the history of science into the materials of general history. I wanted to test the idea by studying nineteenth-century German educational and cultural institutions and, at the same time, science. In particular, I wanted to study physics, one of the earliest sciences to partake of what, in other contexts, might be considered a characteristically German cultural aspiration, the attainment of a unified and comprehensive vision. Together with many others who are concerned with German history, I also turned to the general subject of German culture with the wish to contribute, however remotely, to the understanding of what went wrong, of what produced the German culture that, despite all of its intellectual and artistic accomplishments, in many respects failed so conspicuously in the middle years of the twentieth century. This book is a result of the complementary, as well as overlapping, interests of its authors. The early interest of the other author in theoretical physics goes back to a demanding senior course on the subject I took at Washington State College. Its teacher was the theoretical physicist William Band, who observed that in recent decades—I now refer to the textbook based on his lectures—theoretical physics had 1 Ludwig Boltzmann, “Josef Stefan. Rede gehalten bei der Enthüllung des Stefan-Denkmals am Dez. 1895,” in Populare€ Schriften (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1905), 92–103, on 94. ix x Preface moved from its “classical” emphasis on mechanical constructions toward a more abstract mathematical approach, and his course accordingly surveyed “theoretical physics from a modern unified point of view.” There was at the same time a continuity from the classical period in one of the modern theorist’s primary goals: he sought, Band said, the one “universal law embracing the whole of physical reality,” borne by a “faith that such a universal law does exist and is comprehensible to the human mind.”2 WhenItookupgraduateworkinphysics,mythesissupervisorhandedmealarge stack of reprints of papers on superconductivity, a daunting problem in twentieth- century theoretical physics, which Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Richard Feynman, among others, tried to solve and failed. (As it turned out, that same year, the problem was solved by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schrieffer, for which they received Nobel Prizes, complicating my intended thesis area.) I was struck by what Einstein said at the beginning of his paper on superconductivity: “nature is a merciless and harsh judge of the theorist’s work. In judging a theory, it never rules ‘Yes,’ in the best case says ‘Maybe,’ but mostly ‘No.’ In the end, every theory will see a ‘No’.”3 One reason I later chose the history of science as my field of study was to understand the history of theoretical physics, which in Band’s presentation had impressed me with its power to describe widely different phenomena in a uniform way and which in Einstein’s characterization had impressed me by its challenge. As I studied early works in theoretical physics, I became increasingly interested in the “theoretical physicist”—Boltzmann’s difficult concept—and in his search for universal laws encompassing the physical world. I have undertaken this study in part to answer my questions about the historical circum- stances that gave rise to the theoretical physicist and about what it meant for someone to become a specialist of that kind and to do that kind of work. Our book treats the development of theoretical physics in one country, Germany. This is not to imply that the subject was invented only there; German physicists played an important part, but so did physicists from Britain and other countries. To avoid a misrepresentation of our subject, we show the many points at which German physicists brought together their work with the work of their colleagues abroad. Nevertheless, there is a proper sense in which we may define our subject as German theoretical physics: in the course of the nineteenth century, German physicists organized their field within their universities, a native institutional framework, which was also found in a few German-speaking locations outside of Germany.