Wheeler, John.
Wheeler, John. "On the Mathematical Description of Light Nuclei by the Method of Resonating Group Structure", in Physical Review; Volume 52 No. 11, pp. 1107-1122 in the issue of pp 1079-1200. Offered in the original wrappers, a good fresh, crisp copy. VG copy. [++]"In a 1937 paper "On the Mathematical Description of Light Nuclei by the Method of Resonating Group Structure", Wheeler introduced the S-matrix (short for scattering matrix) "a unitary matrix of coefficients connecting the asymptotic behavior of an arbitrary particular solution [of the integral equations] with that of solutions of a standard form." Werner Heisenberg subsequently developed the idea of the S-matrix in the 1940s. Due to the problematic divergences present in quantum field theory at that time, Heisenberg was motivated to isolate the essential features of the theory that would not be affected by future changes as the theory developed. In doing so he was led to introduce a unitary "characteristic" S-matrix, which became an important tool in particle physics. --Wikipedia [++ ] (I just wanted to point out here that only seven years passed between the time that Wheeler graduated from high school and receiving his Ph.D., in 1933, at age 22. He published his first scientific paper in 1930, at age 19. Two years after this 1937 paper was published, Wheeler wrote a paper with Niels Bohr explaining the mechanism of nuclear fission (on the day that Germany invaded Poland). 714,3
Michael Mark Woolfson
Michael Mark Woolfson, "A Capture Theory, of the Origin of the Solar System" in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, 1964 vol 282. The Woolfson appears on pp 485-505in the full bound volume of iv, 596pp. [++] Finely and newly rebound in cloth-backed marbled boards, with new endpapers. Fine copy. The binding and boards have been antiqued by the bookbinder so that the volume doesn't have the biblio-equivalent of that "new car smell". Really, though, the binder did a fabulous job with this.[++] The abstract of the Woolfson (1927-2021) paper is actually very concise and sums up the paper quite nicelynamely that a protostar or some such came into close proximity with what would become our Sun, but was ripped apart the remnants of which became our planets and then forming into our very own solar system. So:--"Abstract: A theory of the origin of the Solar System is described which involves the capture of material from a light diffuse star which passed close to the Sun. It is shown that planetary condensations could be formed and that these would take up orbits with radii having the required range of values." [++] "[Woolfson's] position in Manchester required that [he] teach a variety of courses, and this helped stimulate his interest in other areas of physics. An astronomy textbook discussed theories on the origin of the Solar System, none of which seemed completely satisfactory, so Michael designed a model that he christened the Capture theory. It invoked a mechanism for the formation of the Solar System involving a tidal interaction between a condensed Sun and a collapsing protostar with the capture of protostar material by the Sun. The hypothesis was tested by computer modeling and found to be plausible."Biographical Memoirs of the Fellows of the Royal Society, vol 71, December 2021.
R. H. Fowler and L. Nordheim. **Fowler-Nordheim Tunneling**
R. H. Fowler and L. Nordheim. "Electron Emission in Intense Electric Fields" in "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London." Series A, Vol. 119, No. 781 (May 1, 1928), pp. 173-181 (9 pages) in the volume of 710, xxxvi, vi pp. Cited 7800 times. [++] Finely and newly rebound in cloth-backed marbled boards, with new endpapers. Fine copy.] Several small, old, library stamps here and there on the title, table of contents page, and last free endpaper. [++] "Field emission was explained by quantum tunneling of electrons in the late 1920s. This was one of the triumphs of the nascent quantum mechanics. The theory of field emission from bulk metals was proposed by Ralph H. Fowler and Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim [referencing the paper offered here.] A family of approximate equations, Fowler Nordheim equations, is named after them. Fowler Nordheim tunneling is the wave-mechanical tunneling of electrons through a rounded triangular barrier created at the surface of an electron conductor by applying a very high electric field. Individual electrons can escape by Fowler Nordheim tunneling from many materials in various different circumstances."--Wikipedia [++] "By the early 1920 s Fowler was among the very few workers at Cambridge who maintained a continuing interest in the progress of the quantum theory; he kept in touch with recent developments through correspondence and visits to Copenhagen. Those students such as Dirac who turned their attention to the quantum theory had usually been introduced to it by Fowler, and it was he who gave Dirac the galley proofs of Heisenberg s matrix article of 1925, which led to Dirac s discovery of Poisson-Bracket relations (according to private communication from T. S. Kuhn, based on information in the Archive for History of Quantum Physics). Because of his connection with Rutherford, Fowler was particularly well placed to introduce problems from the quantum theory into the discussions of the more experimentally inclined physicists who gathered at the Cavendish Laboratory and in the Kapitza Club. Much of the early work at Cambridge on this aspect of physics was therefore stimulated by him."--ScienceDirect [++] "In the late 1920s and early 1930s, British astronomer Robert d Escourt Atkinson (1898 1982) applied Gamow s tunneling to develop the first theory of stellar energy production and nucleosynthesis. Although alpha decay and nuclear fusion are the most well known applications of quantum tunneling, at about the same time, English physicist Ralph Howard Fowler (1889 1944) and German physicist Lothar Wolfgang Nordheim (1899 1985) used quantum tunneling to explain the phenomenon of field electron emission (the cold emission of electrons from metals), now called Fowler Nordheim tunneling. Fowler Nordheim tunneling is the quantum mechanical basis for the scanning tunneling microscope that is capable of viewing individual atoms (see Scanning Probe Microscopes ). Over the following decades, quantum tunneling continued to be used to explain a number of physical processes within and beyond stellar nucleosynthesis, including black hole evaporation (Stephen Hawking) and the creation of the universe (Alexander Vilenkin)."--David Wenner, "History of Physics the Wenner Collection" pg 476.
Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden
Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, "On a Diffuse Reflection of the alpha-Particles" in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, vol 82, London, 1909, published by the Royal Society; viii, 638, xxxix pp, with the Geiger Marsden on pp 495-500. [++] Finely and newly rebound in cloth-backed marbled boards, with new endpapers. Fine copy.] Several small, old, library stamps here and there on the title, table of contents page, and last free endpaper. [++] The fist experimental indication of the existence of the atomic nucleus.[++] "The Geiger Marsden experiments (also called the Rutherford gold foil experiment) were a landmark series of experiments by which scientists learned that every atom has a nucleus where all of its positive charge and most of its mass is concentrated. They deduced this after measuring how an alpha particle beam is scattered when it strikes a thin metal foil. The experiments were performed between 1908 and 1913 by Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden under the direction of Ernest Rutherford at the Physical Laboratories of the University of Manchester. In a 1909 paper [the paper offered here], On a Diffuse Reflection of the alpha-Particles, Geiger and Marsden described the experiment by which they proved that alpha particles can indeed be scattered by more than 90 degrees."--from Wikipedia [++] "The beam of alpha particles was observed to spread. Geiger investigated this scattering effect and was joined in 1909 by Ernest Marsden. Using a scintillation detector, they observed the number of particles scattered at various angles of incidence. They detected alpha particles reflected at angles sufficiently large to make inadequate a statistical interpretation based upon multiple scattering. On preliminary evidence Rutherford was led to propose in 1911 that this effect was due to single scattering from compact nuclei. He theoretically predicted the behavior of a set of scattering parameters based upon a nuclear model of the atom. Geiger and Marsden undertook a further series of experiments and verified the predicted behavior of these parameters by July 1912."--Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography online. [++] Large-angle scattering of alpha particles was first reported in [Rutherford's] laboratory [Geiger & Marsden 1909]. His correct interpretation of that scattering led to the realization that most of the mass of an atom is concentrated in a tiny core or nucleus [Rutherford 1911]; thus it is to Rutherford that we owe the nuclear atom and nuclear physics. "--LeMoyne College History of Chemistry pages
Gabor, Dennis. ++Nobel Prize Effortthe Creation of the Hologram++
Gabor, Dennis. "Microscopy by Reconstructed Wavefronts" in "Proceedings of the Royal Society," A 197, London, 1949, published by Royal Society, London, 1949, iv, 576pp in the full volume, with the Gabor occupying pp 454-487. Finely and newly rebound in cloth-backed marbled boards, with new endpapers. Very Fine copy. [++] This is Gabor's full presentation of his effort in the creation of the hologram (following a preliminary report that was published in "Nature" 15 May 1948). It was also in this volume that Gabor uses the word "hologram" for the first time (according to the OED and DSB). The OED states that the word "hologram" is first used by Gabor in this paper on p 456 (bottom): "The name hologram is not unjustified, as the photograph contains the total information required for reconstructing the object, which can be two-dimensional or three-dimensional." However "hologram" appears just before that, on the same page, in a tech illustration, so I'm assuming that that is the first appearance of the word in print in this context. [++] Gabor had been searching for the trick to get around the barrier of the theoretical limit to resolution. During the Easter holiday in 1947, he was sitting on a bench at the local tennis club when an idea suddenly came to him: Why not take an electron picture distorted by lens imperfections and correct it by optical means? A few calculations convinced him he was right. Gabor was proposing a two-stage process. In the first stage an interference pattern produced by the interaction of electrons diffracted by the object and a separate but coherent reference beam of electrons would be photographically recorded on transparent film. Gabor argued that this interference pattern, or hologram, as he later called it, would carry the complete information needed to reconstruct an image of the object, using an optical system free from the limitations of electron optics. In the second stage, the hologram would be scaled up by a factor in the ratio of the wavelength of the light used in the reconstruction to the wavelength of the electron beam. The new hologram would then be illuminated with a light wave of the same aberration as the electron wave to, in theory, reveal an exact replica of the original object, magnified by the scaling factor."--Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography, online. [++] Gabor received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1971 for this work, for his invention and development of the holographic method. "During the 19th century photographic methods were developed that resulted in two-dimensional images. In 1951 Dennis Gabor discovered a way of producing images with the illusion of depth. The method was based on interferenceinteraction between light wavesand coherencelight waves aligned in phase with one another. Light falling on an object is captured on photographic film along with a reference beam that did not fall on the object. When only the reference beam falls on the developed film, the light is bent so that a reproduction with depth is produced."--Nobel Prize website.
Dumas, Jean Baptiste André. "Mémoire sur les Combinaisons du Phosphore, et particulièrement sur celles de ce corps avec l'hydrogène" in "Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Par MM. Gay-Lussac et Arago," Paris, Crochard, 1826 (February), volume 31, 113-223, folding plate, with the Dumas on pp113-153. Original wrappers. Nice copy. VG condition. 135.00 [++] "Dumas was one of the leading chemists in France in the mid-19th century. He is best known for the Dumas method of determining atomic and molecular weights and for determining the atomic weights of thirty chemical elements. Eventually his method was superseded by other techniques, including mass spectroscopy. Dumas is also known for the Dumas method of determining the amount of nitrogen in chemical substances. This method is still widely used, especially to determine the protein content of foods, because it is relatively fast and easy to use and fully automatable."--Society of Catholic Scientists. [++]"Jean Baptiste André Dumas (1800-1884) was a French chemist, best known for his works on organic analysis and synthesis, as well as the determination of atomic weights and molecular weights by measuring vapor densities. He also developed a method for the analysis of nitrogen in compounds."-_Wikipedia "In 1826 he devised a method of measuring vapour density. He went on to discover various organic compounds, including anthracene (1832), urethane (1833), and methanol (1834), which led him in 1840 to propose the theory of types (functional groups)."--ibid. Additionally "He was a masterful teacher, serving as mentor to many important French chemists, including Auguste Laurent, Charles-Adolphe Wurtz, and Louis Pasteur"--Britannica See: Jane Woodward, "Jean Baptiste André Dumas" Journal of Chemical Education 1951 28 (12), 630.
