Call for participation: CHSTM working group on the History and Philosophy of Contemporary Theoretical Physics

[Guy Hetzroni]

Dear friends, 

On behalf of the convenors of the History and Philosophy of Contemporary Theoretical Physics working group at the Consortium for the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, I want to extend an open call for participation for the upcoming academic year.

To register, please visit the group website: https://www.chstm.org/content/history-and-philosophy-contemporary-theoretical-physics-0

This year, the working group will focus on the philosophical and conceptual foundations that guided the development of theoretical physics from the mid-19th to the early 20th century. The scope of the group readings will include sources associated with the philosophical foundations of modern physics (e.g. by Mach and Poincaré) and the early development of quantum theory and general relativity (e.g. by Heisenberg and Einstein) together with their elaborations (e.g. in unified field theory). Each week, the group will host a scholar whose work is focused on one of this year's themes. The reading for each month's meeting will include both a secondary source by the hosted scholar, and a selection from the primary sources on which it is based. The aim of this working group is to foster a network of scholars working on the history and philosophy of modern physics, and to discuss both historical papers and recent work by its members.

In our first meeting for the new academic year, which will take place on September 13th, at 15:30 CET (16:30 Israel time), we will host Paul Forman, and discuss his "Why Was It Schrödinger Who Developed de Broglie's Ideas?" (1969). The paper has been uploaded to the group page.

In the following two meetings, we will host Yemima Ben-Menahem (on Poincaré) and Karim Thébault (on Mach).

The group meetings will run for an hour and a half and will be held over Zoom on the second Wednesday of every month.

Hope to see you there, 

Guy. 

Dr. Guy Hetzroni

Department of Natural Sciences

The Open University of Israel

https://www.openu.ac.il/en/personalsites/GuyHetzroni.aspx

https://philpeople.org/profiles/guy-hetzroni/