Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties

Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties PDF Author: Gennady E. Gorelik
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 3034884885
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The true history of physics can only be read in the life stories of those who made its progress possible. Matvei Bronstein was one of those for whom the vast territory of theoretical physics was as familiar as his own home: he worked in cosmology, nuclear physics, gravitation, semiconductors, atmospheric physics, quantum electrodynamics, astro physics and the relativistic quantum theory. Everyone who knew him was struck by his wide knowledge, far beyond the limits of his trade. This partly explains why his life was closely intertwined with the social, historical and scientific context of his time. One might doubt that during his short life Bronstein could have made truly weighty contributions to science and have become, in a sense, a symbol ofhis time. Unlike mathematicians and poets, physicists reach the peak oftheir careers after the age of thirty. His thirty years of life, however, proved enough to secure him a place in theGreaterSovietEncyclopedia. In 1967, in describing the first generation of physicists educated after the 1917 revolution, Igor Tamm referred to Bronstein as "an exceptionally brilliant and promising" theoretician [268].

Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties

Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties PDF Author: Gennady E. Gorelik
Publisher: Birkhäuser
ISBN: 3034884885
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
The true history of physics can only be read in the life stories of those who made its progress possible. Matvei Bronstein was one of those for whom the vast territory of theoretical physics was as familiar as his own home: he worked in cosmology, nuclear physics, gravitation, semiconductors, atmospheric physics, quantum electrodynamics, astro physics and the relativistic quantum theory. Everyone who knew him was struck by his wide knowledge, far beyond the limits of his trade. This partly explains why his life was closely intertwined with the social, historical and scientific context of his time. One might doubt that during his short life Bronstein could have made truly weighty contributions to science and have become, in a sense, a symbol ofhis time. Unlike mathematicians and poets, physicists reach the peak oftheir careers after the age of thirty. His thirty years of life, however, proved enough to secure him a place in theGreaterSovietEncyclopedia. In 1967, in describing the first generation of physicists educated after the 1917 revolution, Igor Tamm referred to Bronstein as "an exceptionally brilliant and promising" theoretician [268].

Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931

Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931 PDF Author: Chris Talbot
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030700453
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
This book presents key works of Boris Hessen, outstanding Soviet philosopher of science, available here in English for the first time. Quality translations are accompanied by an editors' introduction and annotations. Boris Hessen is known in history of science circles for his “Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principia” presented in London (1931), which inspired new approaches in the West. As a philosopher and a physicist, he was tasked with developing a Marxist approach to science in the 1920s. He studied the history of physics to clarify issues such as reductionism and causality as they applied to new developments. With the philosophers called the “Dialecticians”, his debates with the opposing “Mechanists” on the issue of emergence are still worth studying and largely ignored in the many recent works on this subject. Taken as a whole, the book is a goldmine of insights into both the foundations of physics and Soviet history.

Physics and Politics in Revolutionary Russia

Physics and Politics in Revolutionary Russia PDF Author: Paul R. Josephson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520911474
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Aided by personal documents and institutional archives that were closed for decades, this book recounts the development of physics—or, more aptly, science under stress—in Soviet Russia up to World War II. Focusing on Leningrad, center of Soviet physics until the late 1930s, Josephson discusses the impact of scientific, cultural, and political revolution on physicists' research and professional aspirations. Political and social revolution in Russia threatened to confound the scientific revolution. Physicists eager to investigate new concepts of space, energy, light, and motion were forced to accommodate dialectical materialism and subordinate their interests to those of the state. They ultimately faced Stalinist purges and the shift of physics leadership to Moscow. This account of scientists cut off from their Western colleagues reveals a little-known part of the history of modern physics.

The Making of a Soviet Scientist

The Making of a Soviet Scientist PDF Author: R. Z. Sagdeev
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Writing with extraordinary candor, Dr. Sagdeev reveals startling details of the most politically sensitive scientific issues of the Cold War years. He identifies the key players in the Soviet nuclear weapons program (nearly all of whom he worked with) and recounts the internal battles over SDI technology and his own role in killing Russia's own "Star Wars" program.

Soviet Physics

Soviet Physics PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Physics
Languages : en
Pages : 828

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Theory of Molecular Excitons

Theory of Molecular Excitons PDF Author: A. Davydov
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1489951695
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Stalin and the Bomb

Stalin and the Bomb PDF Author: David Holloway
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300164459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 507

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Book Description
The classic and “utterly engrossing” study of Stalin’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb during the Cold War by the renowned political scientist and historian (Foreign Affairs). For forty years the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race dominated world politics, yet the Soviet nuclear establishment was shrouded in secrecy. Then, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, David Holloway pulled back the Iron Curtain with his “marvelous, groundbreaking study” Stalin and the Bomb (The New Yorker). How did the Soviet Union build its atomic and hydrogen bombs? What role did espionage play? How did the American atomic monopoly affect Stalin's foreign policy? What was the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders? David Holloway answers these questions by tracing the dramatic story of Soviet nuclear policy from developments in physics in the 1920s to the testing of the hydrogen bomb and the emergence of nuclear deterrence in the mid-1950s. This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program―environmental damage, a vast network of institutes and factories, and a huge stockpile of unwanted weapons.

Einstein and Soviet Ideology

Einstein and Soviet Ideology PDF Author: Alexander Vucinich
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804742092
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
This book traces the historical trajectory of one of the most momentous confrontations in the intellectual life of the Soviet Union—the conflict between Einstein's theory of relativity and official Soviet ideology embodied in dialectical materialism. It describes how Soviet attitudes toward Einstein's theory of relativity changed again and again during the eras of Soviet history: pre-Stalin, Stalin, post-Stalin, and perestroika.

The Pontecorvo Affair

The Pontecorvo Affair PDF Author: Simone Turchetti
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226816648
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
In the fall of 1950, newspapers around the world reported that the Italian-born nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo and his family had mysteriously disappeared while returning to Britain from a holiday trip. Because Pontecorvo was known to be an expert working for the UK Atomic Energy Research Establishment, this raised immediate concern for the safety of atomic secrets, especially when it became known in the following months that he had defected to the Soviet Union. Was Pontecorvo a spy? Did he know and pass sensitive information about the bomb to Soviet experts? At the time, nuclear scientists, security personnel, Western government officials, and journalists assessed the case, but their efforts were inconclusive and speculations quickly turned to silence. In the years since, some have downplayed Pontecorvo’s knowledge of atomic weaponry, while others have claimed him as part of a spy ring that infiltrated the Manhattan Project. The Pontecorvo Affair draws from newly disclosed sources to challenge previous attempts to solve the case, offering a balanced and well-documented account of Pontecorvo, his activities, and his possible motivations for defecting. Along the way, Simone Turchetti reconsiders the place of nuclear physics and nuclear physicists in the twentieth century and reveals that as the discipline’s promise of military and industrial uses came to the fore, so did the enforcement of new secrecy provisions on the few experts in the world specializing in its application.

Technical Translations

Technical Translations PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Periodicals
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description