From: Matthias Heymann
Sent: 22. februar 2016 22:23
To: #CSS VIP; #CSS PhD; #IVS sciencestudies
Subject: Colloquium by Christian Joas on Wednesday

Dear Colleagues,

Our next colloquium will take place Wednesday this week, 14.15 pm in auditorium D4 (1531-219). Historian of physics Christian Joas, University of Munich, currently Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, will give the presentation “From “Quiet Corner” to “Major Crossroad:” Quantum Many-Body Physics in the 1950s”. Please find the abstract below (and on our website: http://css.au.dk/nyheder/nyhed/artikel/css-colloquium-christian-joas-university-of-munich/).

There will also be a dinner with Christian on Wednesday evening for those interested. I will circulate an email with additional information tomorrow.

Best wishes

Matthias

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From “Quiet Corner” to “Major Crossroad:” Quantum Many-Body Physics in the 1950s

After World War II, physics underwent momentous institutional and intellectual changes. As the discipline grew bigger and new subdisciplines emerged, research practices began to diverge: Particle, nuclear, and solid-state physicists began using different terminologies, methods, and techniques. The unity of physics as a discipline was, however, rarely questioned. In my talk, I will study this inner tension in the history of postwar physics by examining the history of many-body physics, a field of research that, in the words of one of its protagonists, David Pines, during the 1950s turned from a "quiet corner of theoretical physics" into a "major crossroad." Many-body physics centered not around a shared object of study, but around a shared set of methods and new heuristics for coming to grips with systems consisting of large numbers of interacting particles. I will present selected case studies (including the Nobel prize winning work of Aage Bohr and Ben Mottelson on the structure of atomic nuclei, and the work of David Bohm and David Pines on the electron gas in metals) and discuss the field's role as mediator between the emerging subdisciplines of physics at a time when physicists were facing an accelerated Balkanization of their discipline. Many-body physics enabled transfer of knowledge between subdisciplines, which deeply affected the research practices of nuclear and solid-state physicists—and, eventually and perhaps surprisingly, also those of particle physicists.

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Matthias Heymann

Centre for Science Studies

Aarhus University

Ny Munkegade 118

8000 Aarhus C

Denmark

Phone: +45 8715-5646