Climbing the Mountain The Scientific Biography of Julian Schwinger

by Mehra, Jagdish; Milton, Kimball

• ISBN13: 9780198506584
• ISBN10: 0198506589
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-08-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is the first biography ever written on the distinguished physicist Julian Schwinger. Schwinger was one of the most important and influential scientists of the twentieth century. The list of his contributions is staggering, from his early work leading to the Schwinger action principle, Euclidean quantum field theory, and the genesis of the standard model, to later valuable work on magnetic charge and the Casimir effect. He also shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics with Richard Feynman. However, even among physicists, understanding and recognition of his work remains limited. This book by Mehra and Milton, both of whom were personally acquainted with Schwinger, presents a unique portrait that sheds light on both his personality and his work through discussion of his lasting influence on science. Anyone who wishes to gain a deeper understanding of one of the great physicists of this century needs to read this book.

Author Biography

Jagdish Mehra has been University Distinguished Professor of Sciences and Humanities at the University of Houston, Texas, and also served as UNESCO-Sir Julian Huxley Distinguished Professor of Physics and The History of Science, at Trieste and Paris.

Table of Contents

A New York City childhood	1	(21)
Growing up	1	(6)
Going to College	7	(6)
Paper Number Zero	13	(2)
First publications	15	(4)
Conclusion	19	(3)
Julian Schwinger at Columbia University	22	(32)
Transfer to Columbia	22	(7)
Spin resonance	29	(4)
`Because I, not my distinguished colleague, wrote it'	33	(4)
Exploring the properties of neutrons	37	(2)
On his own: a winter in Wisconsin	39	(4)
The final year in graduate school	43	(11)
Schwinger goes to Berkeley	54	(36)
Arrival in Berkeley	54	(9)
Mesotrons	63	(2)
Collaboration with William Rarita	65	(9)
Transition to field theory	74	(4)
The good days are over	78	(8)
Departure for Purdue University	86	(4)
During the Second World War	90	(44)
A job at Purdue University	90	(5)
The war and the dilemma as to how to contribute to the cause	95	(9)
Waveguides	104	(14)
The magic tools	118	(8)
Toward the peace	126	(8)
Winding up at the Radiation Lab, going to Harvard, and marriage	134	(43)
Enter Clarice Carrol, the future Mrs. Julian Schwinger	134	(3)
Synchrotron radiation	137	(10)
Choosing Harvard	147	(7)
Professor of physics at Harvard University	154	(8)
Return to nuclear physics	162	(9)
Marriage	171	(6)
The development of quantum electrodynamics until 1947: the historical background of Julian Schwinger's work on QED	177	(31)
Introduction	177	(1)
P. A. M. Dirac's theory of radiation	178	(4)
Relativistic quantum mechanics	182	(4)
Heisenberg, Pauli, Fermi, and Dirac's relativistic theory	186	(6)
The infinities in quantum electrodynamics	192	(4)
The earlier attempts to overcome the infinities in quantum electrodynamics	196	(4)
The earlier experimental evidence for the deviations from Dirac's theory of the electron	200	(1)
The post-war development and the Shelter Island Conference	200	(8)
Quantum electrodynamics and Julian Schwinger's path to fame	208	(43)
Julian Schwinger and the Shelter Island Conference	208	(3)
Hans Bethe's calculation of the Lamb shift	211	(4)
`I can do that for you!'	215	(3)
A note on Richard Feynman	218	(2)
Julian Schwinger and the aftermath of the Shelter Island Conference	220	(4)
The APS meeting in New York	224	(3)
The Pocono Conference	227	(7)
The summer and fall of 1948	234	(17)
Schwinger, Tomonaga, Feynman, and Dyson: the triumph of renormalization	251	(47)
Schwinger's method of canonical transformations	251	(5)
Schwinger's covariant approach	256	(11)
Tomonaga's covariant formulation of quantum field theory	267	(7)
Feynman's theory of positrons, and the space-time approach to quantum electrodynamics	274	(13)
Dyson and the equivalence of the radiation theories of Schwinger, Tomonaga, and Feynman	287	(7)
Feynman and Schwinger---cross-fertilization	294	(4)
Green's functions and the dynamical action principle	298	(39)
The Greening of quantum field theory	298	(6)
The first trip to Europe	304	(3)
Gauge invariance and vacuum polarization	307	(8)
The quantum action principle	315	(13)
Electrodynamic displacements of energy levels	328	(1)
Quantum field theory and condensed matter physics	329	(8)
The world according to Stern and Gerlach	337	(34)
The quantum theory of measurement	340	(15)
Angular momentum	355	(5)
Potential problems and quantum oscillators	360	(6)
`Is spin coherence like Humpty Dumpty?'	366	(5)
Custodian of quantum field theory	371	(40)
Phenomenological field theory	373	(7)
An excursion into dispersion relations	380	(1)
Spin, statistics, and the TCP theorem	381	(4)
Euclidean field theory	385	(4)
Schwinger terms	389	(5)
Gauge invariance and mass	394	(5)
Quantum gravity	399	(4)
Magnetic charge	403	(8)
Electroweak unification and foreshadowing of the standard model	411	(34)
A brief history of weak interactions	411	(4)
`The dynamical theory of K mesons'	415	(3)
`A theory of fundamental interactions'	418	(10)
Glashow's thesis (V -- A and all that)	428	(5)
Non-Abelian gauge theory	433	(2)
Glashow, Weinberg, Salam, and 't Hooft	435	(3)
The standard model and its successes	438	(4)
Conclusions	442	(3)
The Nobel Prize and the last years at Harvard	445	(36)
The Nobel Prize and its aftermath	445	(4)
The Nobel lecture and the new perspectives	449	(2)
Source theory	451	(22)
Weinberg and effective Lagrangians	473	(8)
Move to UCLA and continuing concerns	481	(47)
Reception of source theory at Harvard and UCLA	481	(8)
Strong-field electrodynamics revisited	489	(4)
The November revolution: the discovery of J/ψ	493	(3)
Renormalization group without renormalization group	496	(4)
Deep inelastic scattering and Schwinger's reaction to partons and quarks	500	(7)
Source theory and general relativity	507	(7)
Magnetic charge and dyons	514	(5)
Supersymmetry; the master and his disciples	519	(9)
Taking the road less traveled	528	(39)
Introduction	528	(1)
The Casimir effect	528	(10)
The Thomas-Fermi atom	538	(10)
Cold fusion	548	(6)
The Casimir effect and sonoluminescence	554	(7)
Conclusions	561	(6)
The diversions of a gentle genius	567	(60)
Confessions of a nature worshipper	567	(4)
`I will be a composer by the time I'm 30!'	571	(2)
Tennis, skiing, and swimming	573	(1)
A reader, a listener, and a cat lover	574	(2)
Traveling in style	576	(7)
A gourmet and his vineyard	583	(7)
The teacher and his disciples	590	(15)
Tributes to Tomonaga and Feynman	605	(10)
Celebration of his life	615	(12)
Appendices	627	(18)
A Julian Schwinger---list of publications	627	(12)
B Ph. D. Students of Julian Schwinger	639	(6)
Index of names	645	(10)
Index of subjects	655