Physics In Oxford 1839 1939

This book shows that physics in pre-war Oxford has a colourful and dynamic history. Its examination of physics teaching and research in the university's constituent colleges reveals a unique world that helped to make Oxford physics in the 20th century, a force to rival that of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge.

Physics in Oxford, 1839-1939 offers a challenging new interpretation of pre-war physics at the University of Oxford, which was far more dynamic than most historians and physicists have been prepared to believe. It explains, on the one hand, how attempts to develop the University's Clarendon Laboratory by Robert Clifton, Professor of Experimental Philosophy from 1865 to 1915, were thwarted by academic politics and funding problems, and latterly by Clifton's idiosyncratic concern with precision instrumentation. Conversely, by examining in detail the work of college fellows and their laboratories, the book reconstructs the decentralized environment that allowed physics to enter on a period of conspicuous vigour in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially at the characteristically Oxonian intersections between physics, physical chemistry, mechanics, and mathematics. Whereas histories of Cambridge physics have tended to focus on the self-sustaining culture of the Cavendish Laboratory, it was Oxford's college-trained physicists who enabled the discipline to flourish in due course in university as well as college facilities, notably under the newly appointed professors, J. S. E. Townsend from 1900 and F. A. Lindemann from 1919. This broader perspective allows us to understand better the vitality with which physicists in Oxford responded to the demands of wartime research on radar and techniques relevant to atomic weapons and laid the foundations for the dramatic post-war expansion in teaching and research that has endowed Oxford with one of the largest and most dynamic schools of physics in the world.

The textbooks written by Adolphe Ganot played a major role in shaping the way physics was taught in schools. Simon's Franco-British case study looks at the role of two of Ganot's books. The study is novel for its international comparison of 19th-century physics and for its emphasis on the communication of science rather than on the science itself.

British University Observatories fills a gap in the historiography of British astronomy by offering the histories of observatories identified as a group by their shared characteristics. The first full histories of the Oxford and Cambridge observatories are here central to an explanatory history of each of the six that undertook research before World War II - Oxford, Dunsink, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow and London. Each struggled to evolve in the middle ground between the royal observatories and those of the 'Grand Amateurs' in the nineteenth century. Fundamental issues are how and why astronomy came into the universities, how research was reconciled with teaching, lack of endowment, and response to the challenge of astrophysics. One organizing theme is the central importance of the individual professor-directors in determining the fortunes of these observatories, the community of assistants, and their role in institutional politics sometimes of the murkiest kind, patronage networks and discipline shaping coteries. The use of many primary sources illustrates personal motivations and experience. This book will intrigue anyone interested in the history of astronomy, of telescopes, of scientific institutions, and of the history of universities. The history of each individual observatory can easily be followed from foundation to 1939, or compared to experience elsewhere across the period. Astronomy is competitive and international, and the British experience is contextualised by comparison for the first time to those in Germany, France, Italy and the USA.

'Clary's account makes for fascinating reading, not least because of its clear style and copious citation of primary sources and original scientific articles. The author provides a compelling narrative of … Schrödinger's departure in 1933 from a highly eminent position at the University of Berlin to a precarious, untenured position at Magdalen College … with political and scientific considerations deftly woven together.' [Read Full Review]ScienceErwin Schrödinger was one of the greatest scientists of all time but it is not widely known that he was a Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford in the 1930s. This book is an authoritative account of Schrödinger's time in Oxford by Sir David Clary, an expert on quantum chemistry and a former President of Magdalen College, who describes Schrödinger's remarkable life and scientific contributions in a language that can be understood by all. Through access to many unpublished manuscripts, the author reveals in unprecedented detail the events leading up to Schrödinger's sudden departure from Berlin in 1933, his arrival in Oxford and award of the Nobel Prize, his dramatic escape from the Nazis in Austria to return to Oxford, and his urgent flight from Belgium to Dublin at the start of the Second World War.The book presents many acute observations from Schrödinger's wife Anny and his daughter Ruth, who was born in Oxford and became an acquaintance of the author in the last years of her life. It also includes a remarkable letter sent to Schrödinger in Oxford from Adolf Hitler, thanking him for his services to the state as a professor in Berlin. Schrödinger's intense interactions with other great scientists who were also refugees during this period, including Albert Einstein and Max Born, are examined in the context of the chaotic political atmosphere of the time. Fascinating anecdotes of how this flamboyant Austrian scientist interacted with the President and Fellows of a highly traditional Oxford College in the 1930s are a novel feature of the book.A gripping and intimate narrative of one of the most colourful scientists in history, Schrödinger in Oxford explains how his revolutionary breakthrough in quantum mechanics has become such a central feature in 21st century science.

How does scientific knowledge circulate? Does scientific communication shape the making of science? Is the making of science a national endeavour or does it have an international or transnational dimension? Are teaching and research equally relevant in this endeavour? How can history of science react to the challenges posed by the changing practices of science in historical context? Beyond Borders is a book generated at the heart of these fundamental questions. In the last decades, the history of science has attained a high degree of disciplinary maturity and sophistication. However, perception of disciplinary crisis is apparent behind calls for the search of new “big pictures” and their implementation in teaching and communicating the history of science to wider audiences. Temporal and narrative fragmentation are seen as major drawbacks hindering the development of the discipline. In addition, national, linguistic and methodological division is increasingly afflicting its practice. Like other areas in the humanities, and in contrast to the sciences, the history of science has nowadays a pronounced local character which clearly constrains its intellectual output. Challenging this state of affairs is a major aim of this book, which argues for a resolute call for intellectual and methodological pluralism and internationalism. Through a broad diversity of subjects, periods, and geographies, covering from studies of sixteenth-century astrological texts to contextual analysis of twentieth-century X-ray spectroscopy, this collection of papers and historiographical essays offers a fresh overview of the field and its major questions. Beyond Borders revisits five major topics in history of science, namely the early modern map of knowledge, pedagogy and science, science popularization, science and the nation and the geography of scientific centres and peripheries. Engaging with a broad diversity of historiographical and methodological approaches in an international perspective, Beyond Borders is a rich and plural manifesto contributing to the reflective appraisal of history of science as a discipline.

This fresh and readable account gives a complete history of the University of Oxford, from its beginnings in the 11th century to the present day - charting Oxford's improbable rise from provincial backwater to modern meritocratic and secular university with an ever-growing commitment to new research.

Established in the early seventeenth century following a bequest to the university by Sir William Sedley, Oxford's Sedleian Professorship of Natural Philosophy is one of the university's oldest professorships. In common with other such positions established around this time, such as the Savilian Professorships of Geometry and Astronomy, for example, its purpose was to provide centrally organised lectures on a specific subject. While the Professorship is now a high-profile research post in applied mathematics, it has previously been held by physicians, an astronomer, and several people in the eighteenth century whose credentials in natural philosophy are much less clear. This edited volume traces the varied history of the chair through the first four centuries of its existence, combining specialised contributions from historians of medicine, of science, of mathematics, and of universities, together with personal reminiscences of some of the more recent holders of the post.