QED and the men who made it : Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga

QED and the men who made it : Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga /

"In the 1930s, physics was in a crisis. There appeared to be no way to reconcile the new theory of quantum mechanics with Einstein's theory of relativity. In the post-World War II period, four eminent physicists rose to the challenge and developed a calculable version of quantum electrodyn...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Schweber, S. S. (Silvan S.)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1994.
Series:Princeton series in physics
Subjects:
Dyson, Freeman J. > (Freeman John)
Feynman, Richard P. > (Richard Phillips), > 1918-1988.
Schwinger, Julian, > 1918-
Schwinger, Julian, > (1918-1994)
Dyson, Freeman J. > (1923- ...)
Feynman, Richard Phillips, > (1918-1988)
Tomonaga, Shinʼichirō > (1906-1979)
Quantum electrodynamics > History.
Physicists > Biography.
Physics.
Physics
Électrodynamique quantique > Histoire.
Physiciens > Biographies.
Physique.
physics.
Physicists.
Quantum electrodynamics.
Kwantumveldentheorie.
Kwantumchromodynamica.
Électrodynamique quantique > Histoire.
Biographies.
History.
Table of Contents:
  • Machine derived contents note: Table of contents for QED and the men who made it : Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga / Silvan S. Schweber.
  • Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog
  • Information from electronic data provided by the publisher. May be incomplete or contain other coding.
  • Preface xi
  • Acknowledgments xvi
  • Introduction xxi
  • 1. The Birth of Quantum Field Theory 1
  • 1.1 Introduction 1
  • 1.2 Pascual Jordan 5
  • 1.3 P.A.M. Dirac and the Birth of Quantum Electrodynamics 11
  • 1.4 Jordan and the Quantization of Matter Waves 33
  • 1.5 Heisenberg and Pauli: The Quantum Theory of Wave Fields 39
  • 1.6 Hole Theory 56
  • 1.7 Postscript: Dirac and Scientific Creativity 70
  • 1.8 Fermi and the Regaining of Anschaulischkeit 72
  • 2. The 1930s 76
  • 2.1 Introduction 76
  • 2.2 QED during the 1930s 76
  • 2.3 The Warsaw Conference of 1939 93
  • 2.4 The Washington Conference of 1941 104
  • 2.5 The Divergences 108
  • 3. The War and Its Aftermath 130
  • 3.1 Introduction 130
  • 3.2 The Community in 1941 132
  • 3.3 The MIT Radiation Laboratory 136
  • 3.4 Training a New Generation of Physicists: Norman Kroll 141
  • 3.5 The Universities: 1945-1947 144
  • 3.6 The Conferences 146
  • 3.7 Physics in 1946 152
  • 4. Three Conferences: Shelter Island, Pocono, and Oldstone 156
  • 4.1 Introduction 156
  • 4.2 The Genesis of the Conferences 157
  • 4.3 The Scientific Content of the Conference 179
  • 4.4 The Later Developments 194
  • 4.5 Conclusion 205
  • 5. The Lamb Shift and the Magnetic Moment of the Electron 206
  • 5.1 Introduction 206
  • 5.2 The Experimental Situation during the 1930s 208
  • 5.3 Willis Lamb 212
  • 5.4 The Anomalous Magnetic Moment of the Electron 219
  • 5.5 The Magnetic Resonance Experiments 223
  • 5.6 Bethe's Calculation 228
  • 5.7 Relativistic Lamb Shift Calculations: 1947-1948 232
  • 5.8 The French and Weisskopf Calculation 237
  • 5.9 Radiative Correction to Scattering 245
  • 6. Tomonaga and the Rebuilding of Japanese Physics 248
  • 6.1 Introduction 248
  • 6.2 Theoretical Physics in Japan 249
  • 6.3 Tomonaga 252
  • 6.4 The War Years 260
  • 6.5 The Postwar Years 265
  • 7. Julian Schwinger and the Formalization of Quantum Field Theory 273
  • 7.1 Introduction 273
  • 7.2 The Young Schwinger 275
  • 7.3 The War Years 293
  • 7.4 Shelter Island and Its Aftermath 303
  • 7.5 The APS Meeting and the Pocono Conference 318
  • 7.6 The Michigan Summer School 335
  • 7.7 The Charles L. Mayer Nature of Light Award 340
  • 7.8 Wentzel's and Pauli's Criticism 345
  • 7.9 The Quantum Action Principle 352
  • 7.10 Philosophical Outlook 355
  • 7.11 Epilogue 367
  • 8. Richard Feynman and the Visualization of Space-Time Processes 373
  • 8.1 Background 373
  • 8.2 Undergraduate Days: MIT 374
  • 8.3 Graduate Days: Princeton 380
  • 8.4 Ph.D. Dissertation 389
  • 8.5 The War Years 397
  • 8.6 Research, 1946 405
  • 8.7 Shelter Island and Its Aftermath 411
  • 8.8 The Genesis of the Theory 414
  • 8.9 Renormalization 434
  • 8.10 The Pocono Conference: March 30-April 1, 1948 436
  • 8.11 Vacuum Polarization 445
  • 8.12 Evaluating Integrals 452
  • 8.13 The January 1949 American Physical Society Meeting 454
  • 8.14 Retrospective 457
  • 8.15 Style, Visualization, and All That 462
  • 8.16 A Postscript: Schwinger and Feynman 467
  • 9. Freeman Dyson and the Structure of Quantum Field Theory 474
  • 9.1 Family Background 474
  • 9.2 Early Education: Twyford and Winchester 476
  • 9.3 Cambridge, 1941-1943 482
  • 9.4 Bomber Command 488
  • 9.5 Imperial College and Cambridge University 490
  • 9.6 Cornell University 493
  • 9.7 The Michigan Symposium, Summer 1948 502
  • 9.8 Princeton: The Institute for Advanced Study 505
  • 9.9 The "Radiation Theories" Paper 508
  • 9.10 The Institute for Advanced Study: Oppenheimer 518
  • 9.11 The S-Matrix in QED 527
  • 9.12 The S-Matrix Paper: Retrospective 544
  • 9.13 The S-Matrix Paper: Aftermath 549
  • 9.14 Oldstone 552
  • 9.15 Return to Europe 554
  • 9.16 Heisenberg Operators 556
  • 9.17 Divergence of Perturbative Series 564
  • 9.18 Closure 566
  • 9.19 Philosophy 567
  • 9.20 Style 569
  • 9.21 Epilogue 571
  • 9.22 A Postscript: Tomonaga, Schwinger, Feynman, and Dyson 572
  • 10. QED in Switzerland 576
  • 10.1 Field Theory in Switzerland: Stueckelberg 576
  • 10.2 Quantum Field Theory in Zurich: Pauli's Seminar, 1947-1950 582
  • Epilogue: Some Reflections on Renormalization Theory 595
  • Notes and Abbreviations 606
  • Bibliography 672
  • Index 725
  • Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: Quantum electrodynamics History, Physicists Biography.

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