Jun 24, 2024
Love, War, and Physics: Between Two Evils: Houtermans’ Saga and Other Episodes
- 14:00 to 16:00
- Seminar
- Max Planck Research Group (Final Theory Program)
- Mikhail Shifman
In 1929 a yоung quantum physicist from Vienna, Fritz Houtermans, still a student at Göttingen, published a paper (with R. Atkinson) in Zeitschrift für Physik arguing that thermonuclear fusion reactions are the source of energy in stars. In 1941 he authored a secret report on the use of Plutonium in nuclear bombs. In the early 1960s he became one of the founding fathers of nuclear geochronology. His career began in a terrible time of two bloody dictatorships: Bolsheviks in the East of Europe and National Socialists in its heart, in Germany. His life was full of adventures and misadventures in both countries. Access to new archival data in the former USSR, Germany and the US allowed me to fill many gaps in Houtermans’ life story which bears lessons instructive even today. My narrative will cover a broad range of social, political, and scientific processes spanning 40 years since the late 1920s.
Contact and Registration
Link to the Zoom-Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/94690790127 Meeting-ID: 946 9079 0127 no registration required. For more information contact Kseniia Mohelsky officeblum@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
About This Series
The seminar series of the Research Group “Historical Epistemology of the Final Theory Program” runs once a month, usually on a Monday at 14:00 in the seminar room of the Villa (Harnackstraße 5). The talks deal primarily with the history, philosophy, and foundations of modern (post-WWII) physics or with wider epistemological questions related to the work of the group. There are no pre-circulated papers.