The Golden Age of Quantum Physics

https://www.privatdozent.co/p/the-golden-age-of-quantum-physics-ff7

by privatdozent • 5 years ago

79 33 5 years ago

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seaman1921• 5 years ago

Was hoping to find Feynman in there :)

auntienomen3• 5 years ago

Feynman was Silver Age of quantum physics. Dirac was already middle aged when they met.

billfruit• 5 years ago

What about Von Neumann? How do his contributions to Quantum Mechanics weigh up in terms of the development of the field.

kgwgk• 5 years ago

He was 23 years old at the time.

(But he was already doing important work on QM, like the introduction of the density matrix earlier that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_Foundations_of_Qu... would be published five years later.)

throwaway815232• 5 years ago

von Neumann gave a mathematically rigorous treatment of QM, synthesizing the work by physicists that had previously gotten a confused reaction from mathematicians. In that way he explained QM and also made a mathematical platform for others to build on. It was absolutely brilliant work. But I think he didn't exactly advance QM. He took the physics version that made mathematicians say wtf, and created a mathematician version that made physicists say wtf. I think physicists mostly used Dirac's book "The Principles of QM" (1930), which went through 5 or 6 later editions and may still be in print.

sam-2727• 5 years ago

Hah! For a second, I thought from the HN title that this was written in 1927.

dang• 5 years ago

Thanks - I've taken it out of the title now.

auntienomen3• 5 years ago

The video at the bottom -- taken at the conference by Langmuir -- is remarkable.

vardhanw• 5 years ago

Is there a good book which covers the historical development of quantum theory (in the 1900-1930's period) along-with the in depth technical exposition? Reading either independently does not provide the kind of engagement which can be provided with a combined exposition.

privatdozent• 5 years ago

Check out Purrington (2018), «The Heroic Age»

srathi• 5 years ago

Quantum by Manjit Kumar is my favorite. It is a novel like walkthrough of quantum development over the years.

leopd• 5 years ago

"Thirty Years that Shook Physics", by George Gamow, fits the bill pretty well.

edge17• 5 years ago

I'm a fan of biographies. The first half of Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography fits this. Helped me appreciate how unobvious certain things were prior to discovery.

grilledcheez• 5 years ago

Was going to recommend this too, one of the few biographies I have read cover to cover.

sparrigan3• 5 years ago

You absolutely want this, relatively obscure, book:

https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Interpretation-Quantum-Me...

There are some translation/copy-writing issues but don't let that put you off. It has a solid coverage of quantization of Hamiltonian mechanics in both matrix mechanics and wave mechanics, and then the unification of the two - all following the historical narrative.

leephillips3• 5 years ago

Looks interesting, but at $969 for the hardcover and over $100 for the paperback, I think I’ll wait for the movie.

auntienomen3• 5 years ago

The definitive history is Abraham Pais' treatise _Inward Bound_. He was a particle physicist who turned to writing history. Had the advantage not having been there and known the players.

jeffwass• 5 years ago

Below snippet is from the bottom of the article :

Those interested in reading more about the “golden age” of quantum physics are encouraged to look up the books:

Purrington, R. D. 2018. The Heroic Age. The Creation of Quantum Mechanics 1925-1940. Oxford University Press.

Greenspan, N. T. 2005. The End of the Certain World. The Life and Science of Max Born. Wiley.

Kumar, M. 2008. Quantum. Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality. Icon Books.

lisper3• 5 years ago

the historical development of quantum theory (in the 1900-1930's period) along-with the in depth technical exposition

Unfortunately, those are two completely different things because the history of the development of QM is a story of people stumbling around in the dark and making tons of mistakes, some of which still weigh down QM pedagogy to this day. So you can have historically accurate, or you can have technically clear, but you cannot have both at the same time. (It is, ironically, a sort of wave-particle duality with respect to quantum theory itself.)

The biggest disconnect between the history and the technical reality is that, historically, entanglement was treated as not much more than a side show, an intellectual curiosity, but not really worthy of a central role in an exposition of QM. Today we know that entanglement is absolutely central to QM. It is in fact what QM is really all about, the thing that really distinguishes it from classical mechanics. And the reason for the long-standing intellectual disconnect is that entanglement doesn't manifest itself until you have two particles (obviously) but the vast majority of the heavy lifting in the early days was analyzing systems consisting of a single particle. Starting out that way incredibly misleading because it hides the distinction between physical space (where particles live) and configuration space (where the wave function lives). When you have only one particle, physical space and configuration space are the same. But that is just a very special case, one which leads you badly astray when you try to understand what is really going on under the QM hood. That's the reason it took so long to figure it out.

I strongly recommend understanding the technical side first, which is really not all that hard if presented properly (which, unfortunately, it very rarely is). But once you understand the technical side in a modern light, the history becomes much easier to grok.

Nitrolo• 5 years ago

Any good books or other resources where it is presented well?

sparrigan3• 5 years ago

Not to be too contrary, but I disagree with this sentiment. First let me say I'm assuming that the OP wants to involve a historical narrative to gain a deeper conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics.

Under that assumption, the interesting thing about QM is that there is very little inherent conceptual justification for the technical descriptions we have of quantum systems other than that 'they work'. Or more precisely, understanding why QM systems are mathematically described in the way they are is still an active area of research.

Therefore, often the closest you can come to a deeper understanding is by tracing how someone stumbled into, or was forced into, using a particular mathematical approach. At least then you are left at the same precipice of knowledge over which experts have been dangling for nearly 100 years now.

I hope that one day we can give deeper explanations for why we have Hilbert spaces and what-not, but until then, learning the history is the closest you can get to understanding why things ended up the way they are on a technical level. And assuming a decent mathematical background, there's no reason you can't also learn the technical detail itself for the first time right along with that historical narrative.

f0e4c2f7• 5 years ago

Something Deeply Hidden by Sean Carroll came out recently and fits what you're describing. While I enjoyed it a lot of it went over my head so I may not be the best guide here.

He also has a podcast that's pretty good called Mindscape.

throwaway815232• 5 years ago

Helge Kragh's biography of Dirac is sort of a subset of what you want. It goes past the 1930s and it focuses on Dirac, but Dirac's most famous works were in the 1920s and 1930s, and it covers them pretty well.

sparrigan3• 5 years ago

Since a lot of general intros to QM are being suggested (rather than technical/historical texts), then here's another recommendation which is not technical nor historical, but comes as close as you can get to a proper understanding of QM without mathematical detail:

https://www.qisforquantum.org/

drumhead• 5 years ago

Do younger physicists still come up with revolutionary discoveries in physics anymore. Most of the recent Nobel prizewinners have been in their 40's or older.

leephillips3• 5 years ago

Einstein was about 41 when he got the Prize. Usually it’s awarded many years after the work that it’s awarded for. And most of the Prizes were not for “revolutionary discoveries”, just important work.

tobmlt• 5 years ago

From the title, I thought it was going to be an article about the present day. Sort of a “surprise! -it’s right now” kind of feel, and then talk about the second quantum revolution etc etc.

hackernj• 5 years ago

Love that Curie is in the photo!

The Golden Age of Quantum Physics

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