Biographies, history, personal accounts

Here's another physics history/philosophy paper. I admit (to my shame)I haven't heard of her and I'm not gonna read it until tomorrow. But yeah....

Hey, thanks! I've heard bits about her, but not the full story. It’s kind of disappointing how so many fascinating physicists fly under the radar. It seems like only the ones who stir up controversy with groundbreaking discoveries get all the limelight. But honestly, there are countless others who have poured their heart and soul into studying and progressing physics.

Yeah. It's as if the big names sometimes outshine some of the lesser ones, and I don't mean lesser in a professional capacity. All these other discoveries are important too. I'm ashamed to admit I still haven't even read the paper. (I have a habit of downloading stuff to my cellphone for reading should I be without net or similar. That's how far this paper has come. :) )

It reminds me of the Curies and I'll be surprised if not at least Marie Curie is mentioned in there somewhere.

Happy reading.

Maybe these "biographies" would fit into a thread of their own.

(Arxiv): Lars Brink: November 12, 1943 - October 29, 2022

I posted these elsewhere but as I said collecting them in one thread may not not be such a bad idea:

Autobiographical Notes of a Physicist - N. David Mermin

Georges Lemaitre and the Foundations of Big Bang Cosmology

Another find. Mathematics this one.

Richard A. Litherland: A Brief Biography

Not a biography as such but it still touches on history as well as contemporary issues.


Oppie Op-ed: Reflections on Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.


Another one that kinda fits in here:

The Vatican and the Fallibility of Science: Augustine, Copernicus, Darwin and Race.

Most of us know of this guy:

C.V. Raman as a Science Communicator: A Historical Perspective.

I realize that with this one I'm veering out onto thin ice, but I've just been re-reading the military SciFi Schlock Mercernary, which has an in-universe setting where Terran millitary spaceships are referred to as "battleplates", are the size of e.g.: New York, and all named after major historical impact sites, such as for example Vredefort and Chicxulub crater.

The Evenki accounts of the 1908 Tunguska event collected in 1920s-1930s

Thus, I couldn't help myself.

-----

Here I'm back on track:

Biography of the French astronomer Henri Camichel


Regards.

It's of course pointless to point this one out right?

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Everyone knows that one. I'll beware I don't veer too deep into philosophical metaphysics. We can't lower this forum's bar to the level of Stanford University's. That won't do. :P

Seems to be in Italian unfortunately, but maybe ChatGPT or Google Translate could work some magic.

Bernardo Dessau, fisico, scienziato, maestro, da Bologna a Perugia tra i marosi del secolo breve

So just to be clear, we share here articles about the biography of somebody (no matter the format)?

Here is one that I read recently about Titus Pankey, he is not that well known but still of great importance:
Titus Pankey and his groundbreaking supernova light curve

pines-demon said:

So just to be clear, we share here articles about the biography of somebody (no matter the format)?

Here is one that I read recently about Titus Pankey, he is not that well known but still of great importance:
Titus Pankey and his groundbreaking supernova light curve

That's what I'm thinking yes. Any participation is welcome. It goes without saying that most of the content will come from "History and Philosophy" and the likewise more soft sections of Arxiv, as "Popular Physics" and the like. But if we try to keep it somewhat serious and not veer to far into metaphysics (and by any deity keep popular articles, e.g: phys.org, out of it) we'll collect some usable information. I guess blog posts from serious scientists would be ok as long as there's a real article at the bottom of it.

Regards.

More math-history. Looks like pretty heavy stuff but also interesting!

Emergence of Mathematics in Ancient India: A Reassessment

"This work explores a possible course of evolution of mathematics in ancient times in India when there was no script, no place-value system, and no zero. Reviewing examples of time-reckoning, large numbers, sacrificial altar-making, and astronomy, it investigates the role of concrete objects, natural events, rituals and names in context-dependent arithmetic, revealing its limited scope confined to counting, addition and subtraction. Higher operations, namely, multiplication, division and fractional calculations had to wait until the advent of symbolic numerals and procedures for computation. It is argued that the impression of these higher operations in a period usually known as the Vedic times is caused by inadvertent interpolation of present knowledge of mathematics in modern readings of the ancient texts."


The legacy of Bletchley Park on UK mathematics

This looks like a pretty weird one.

The Author of a Quotation Goethe Adduced Against Newton

https://www.webofstories.com/storytellers

• https://www.webofstories.com/play/john.wheeler/1
• https://www.webofstories.com/play/freeman.dyson/1
• https://www.webofstories.com/play/murray.gell-mann/1
• https://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/1
• ... and many more

https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories

• John Wheeler https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4958
• Abhay Ashtekar https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/45807
• Richard Feynman (several) https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/5020-1
• Robert Wald https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/47228
• C.N. Yang https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4984
• Gerald t' Hooft https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/47016
• ...many more: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/browse/a

Feynman: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1981)

Well it is always worth mentioning MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, it is mostly about mathematics but there are many physicist in the biographies.

pines-demon said:

Well it is always worth mentioning MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive, it is mostly about mathematics but there are many physicist in the biographies.

Those archives are new to me so this thread already paid off.

These may seem a little farfetched but the first concerns itself with culture, myth and human behavior through the lens of contemporary AI, and the second one I guess is as close we'll get to anthropology on arxiv.org:

Cultural evolution in populations of Large Language Models

Climate Immobility Traps: A Household-Level Test.

Good evening.

The history of the discovery of the physical quantum of action (Zur Geschichte der Auffindung des physikalischen Wirkungsquantums).

About the second law of mechanical heat theory (Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie)

I dunno about the second one but they seem to go together....

EDIT:

And well, this one sorta kinda smells a little of contemporary history.

Biophysics in Africa: challenges, priorities, and hopes

sbrothy said:

The history of the discovery of the physical quantum of action (Zur Geschichte der Auffindung des physikalischen Wirkungsquantums).

About the second law of mechanical heat theory (Über den zweiten Hauptsatz der mechanischen Wärmetheorie)

I dunno about the second one but they seem to go together....

EDIT:

And well, this one sorta kinda smells a little of contemporary history.

Biophysics in Africa: challenges, priorities, and hopes

You are not providing enough information. The first two articles are translations of articles by Max Planck. The second is his thesis.

Rutherford: Recollections of the Cambridge Days
Mark Oliphant

https://archive.org/details/rutherfordrecoll0000olip_n4d1

Maxwell Stuff:

https://www.sonnetsoftware.com/bio/maxbio.pdf

https://www.sonnetsoftware.com/bio/MIcroMagJune2009TobysStatue.pdf

https://eurointech.ru/products/Sonnet/Sonnet_MWJ_Jul_2006.pdf

Frabjous said:

You are not providing enough information. The first two articles are translations of articles by Max Planck. The second is his thesis.

No wonder I thought they went together :)

I may need to slow down a little.