Physics In History

@physinhistory.bsky.social

Photos from the history of physics, and modern days. Cover and profile picture from 1927 Solvay Conference

"We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to enquire. We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption." J. R. Oppenheimer

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Theoretical physicists live in a classical world, looking out into a quantum-mechanical world. The latter we describe only subjectively, in terms of procedures and results in our classical domain. - John Stewart Bell

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Theoretical physicists live in a classical world, looking out into a quantum-mechanical world. The latter we describe only subjectively, in terms of procedures and results in our classical domain. - John Stewart Bell

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The fundamental laws necessary for the mathematical treatment of a large part of physics and the whole of chemistry are thus completely known, and the difficulty lies only in the fact that application of these laws leads to equations that are too complex to be solved. - Paul Dirac

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The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries. - Freeman Dyson

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Gammasphere was an array of 110 detectors used for many discoveries in nuclear physics in the early 2000s. It is featured in movie The Hulk (2003) by Ang Lee, where it shoots gamma rays generating the titular green monster, that proceeds to smash the ball. The array costed 20M$, the Movie 137M$.

Hulk smashing Gammasphere.

Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959. (cr. Wikipedia)

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Lise Meitner was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry 49 times (19 times for Chemistry and 30 times for Physics), but never won. 📷 Meitner at the Vienna International airport photographed in 1953. Courtesy of Austrian National Library.

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