The Physicist's Conception of Nature

by Jagdish Mehra (Editor)

The fundamental conceptions of twentieth-century physics have profoundly influenced almost every field of modern thought and activity. Quantum Theory, Relativity, and the modern ideas on the Structure of Matter have contributed to a deeper understand ing of Nature, and they will probably rank in history among the greatest intellectual achievements of all time. The purpose of our symposium was to review, in historical perspective, the current horizons of the major conceptual structures of the physics of this century. Professors Abdus Salam and Hendrik Casimir, in their remarks at the opening of the symposium, have referred to its origin and planning. Our original plan was to hold a two-week symposium on the different aspects of five principal 1. Space, Time and Geometry (including the structure of the universe and the theory of gravita tion),2. Quantum Theory (including the development of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory), 3. Statistical Description of Nature (including the discussion of equilibrium and non-equilibrium phenomena, and the application of these ideas to the evolution of biological structure), 4. The Structure of Matter (including the discus sion, in a unified perspective, of atoms, molecules, nuclei, elementary particles, and the physics of condensed matter), and finally, 5. Physical Description and Epistemo logy (including the distinction between classical and quantum descriptions, and the epistemological and philosophical problems raised by them)."

864 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1973

About the author

Indian-American physicist and historian of science born in Meerut, India on April 8, 1937. He came to the United States in 1957, and was educated at Neuchâtel, Switzerland, where he received his Ph.D. in 1963. He subsequently was appointed assistant professor of physics at Purdue University (1964-65), assistant professor of physics at University of Massachusetts, North Dartmouth (1965-67), program director of the Science Research Association at IBM Chicago (1967-69), special research associate at the University of Texas, Austin (1969-73), and professor at the Solvay Institute Brussels (1973-88).

Mehra served as UNESCO-Sir Julian Huxley Distinguished Professor of History of Science in Paris, and Trieste, Italy (1989-93), and was the Citadel Distinguished Professor of Physics in Charleston, South Carolina (1993-96). He has held distinguished visiting appointments in Houston, Texas, and Geneva, Switzerland, and as Regent's Professor in the University of California at Irvine. He now lives in Houston, Texas where he has been professor of science and humanities at the University of Houston since 1996.

Jagdish Mehra was trained as a theoretical physicist in the schools of Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli. He came into close personal contact with all the creators of quantum mechanics, and has used these interactions to great advantage in The Historical Development of Quantum Theory (a six-volume work co-authored with Helmut Rechenberg). Mehra has published extensively on the historical and conceptual development of modern physics.

Taken from: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biogr...