Gerald Holton

Gerald Holton is Mallinckrodt Research Professor of Physics and Research Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics at Harvard as a student of P. W. Bridgman. His chief interests are in the history and philosophy of science, in the physics of matter at high pressure, and in the study of career paths of young scientists.

Among his recent books are Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought (Harvard University Press, 2nd ed., 1988); Science and Anti-Science (Harvard University Press, 1993); Einstein, History, and Other Passions (Harvard University Press, 2000); The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens (Harvard University Press, 1998); The Scientific Imagination (Harvard University Press, 1998); three books with Gerhard Sonnert: Gender Differences in Science Careers: Project Access Study (Rutgers University Press, 1995), Who Succeeds in Science? The Gender Dimension (Rutgers University Press, 1995), and Ivory Bridges: Connecting Science and Society (MIT Press, 2002); Physics, the Human Adventure: From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond (with S. G. Brush, Rutgers University Press, 2001); and Understanding Physics (with D. Cassidy and F. J. Rutherford, Springer-New York, 2002).

Professor Holton is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Life Honorary Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, and Fellow of several Learned Societies in Europe. Founding editor of the quarterly journal Daedalus,and founder of Science, Society, & Human Values, he is also on the editorial committee of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (Princeton University Press). Among the honors he has received are the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, the Gemant Award of the American Institute of Physics, election to the Presidency of the History of Science Society, and the selection by the National Endowment for the Humanities as the Jefferson Lecturer.