History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 9: Symmetries – On physical and aesthetic argument in the development of relativity Dr Richard Staley https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/people/richard-staley raws1@cam.ac.uk https://www.people.hps.cam.ac.uk/index/teaching-officers/staley Research interests: The history of the physical sciences (broadly construed) from the 19th century to the present. https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-staley-87b676105/?originalSubdomain=uk My notes from the lecture (if they don’t make sense then it is entirely my fault) In […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 8: Newton’s 1st Law – a history Paul Ranford Paul Ranford is a Chartered Accountant, although more-or-less retired from this career. He is also a tutor for the Open University in Business Studies and Personal Finance, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. About sixteen years ago he discovered a discipline called […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 7: The paradigm shift of physics-religion-unbelief relationship from renaissance to the 21st century Dr Elisabetta Canetta Elisabetta graduated from the Department of Physics of the Universita’ di Bologna, Bologna (Italy) with an MPhys in Theoretical Nuclear Physics. In 2000, she moved to the Universite’ Joseph Fourier, Grenoble (France) and obtained a PhD in Experimental […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 6: Interrogating the legend of Einstein’s “biggest blunder” Dr.Cormac O’Raifeartaigh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_O%27Raifeartaigh Cormac O’Raifeartaigh (Cormac O’Rafferty) is an Irish physicist based at Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. A solid-state physicist by training, he is best known for several contributions to the study of the history and philosophy of 20th century science, including the discovery […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 5: A partial history of cosmic ray research in the UK Professor Alan Watson https://physicalsciences.leeds.ac.uk/staff/664/professor-alan-watson https://royalsociety.org/people/alan-watson-12492/ Prof. Watson’s work focuses on cosmic rays of the highest energy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qm3yr My notes from the lecture (if they don’t make sense then it is entirely my fault) Julian Barnes stated “History is that certainty produced at the […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 4: When condensed matter became King Dr. Joseph D. Martin Dr. Martin is a historian of modern science and technology, focusing on the physical sciences in Cold War America. His interests lie in the sciences of complex matter—solid state physics, condensed matter physics, and materials science—and the ways in which physicists’ philosophical and ideological […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 3: Psychical and optical research between Lord Rayleigh’s naturalism and dualism Gregory Bridgman Mr Bridgman is a PhD student whose research explores how and why a concept of “colour vision”, and its cognate nexus of scientific practices and theories, managed to negotiate its place within an older family of “colour” related sciences, in 19th […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 2: The origins and development of free-electron lasers in the UK Prof. Elaine Seddon E.A.Seddon@dl.ac.uk https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elaine_Seddon My notes from the lecture (if they don’t make sense then it is entirely my fault) Definition of laser from Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/technology/laser A laser is a device that stimulates atoms or molecules to emit light at particular […]

History of Physics Group meeting “From Newton to the free electron laser”

Lecture 1: Maxwell, Kelvin and the Inverse Square Law of Electrostatics Dr Isobel Falconer Dr Falconer is a historian of mathematics and physics at St Andrews University. She is especially interested in the relations between maths and physics in the nineteenth century, and the interaction of both with the cultural context. https://isobelf.wordpress.com/about/ https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/maths/people/?mode=profile&group=staff&user_id=ijf3 My notes […]

Cosmology Day July 2018

Lecture 7: Hawking’s cosmology Professor Thomas Hertog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hertog Thomas Hertog is a Belgian cosmologist at KU Leuven University and a key collaborator of Professor Stephen Hawking. https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/00010845 Abstract Professor Hertog discussed the development of Hawking’s cosmology, starting from his big bang singularity theorems in the 1950s and ending with his efforts to get theoretical control […]