Relativity (Physics)

Interview with Lee Smolin, Founding and Senior Faculty Member at the Perimeter Institute with faculty appointments at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo. Smolin narrates the origins of the Perimeter Institute and he describes his unorthodox views on what exactly cosmology is. He describes loop quantum gravity and the notion of a “theory of everything” and why he has much love for string theory despite perceptions of the opposite. Smolin explains the utility and trappings of the Standard Model and he searches for deeper meaning in the origins and societal impact of the pandemic. He recounts his childhood in Cincinnati and his early appreciation for physics and the circumstances that led to his undergraduate education at Hampshire. Smolin explains his attraction in working with Sidney Coleman at Harvard, and why he saw a grand plan in his desire to learn quantum field theory. He describes meeting Abhay Ashtekar and his postdoctoral work at UC Santa Barbara and then at the Institute for Advanced Study. Smolin describes his formative relationship with Chandrasekhar at Chicago, his first faculty appointment at Yale, and his tenure at Syracuse where he found a strong group in relativity and quantum gravity. He explains his reasons for transferring to Penn State and his involvement in loop quantum gravity achieving a mature state amid a rapidly expanding “relativity community” throughout academic physics. He describes his time at Imperial College, where he developed a quantum gravity center with Chris Isham and he historicizes the technical developments that connected his theoretical work with observation. Smolin describes his book "The Life of the Cosmos" and his foray into thinking about biology and why he identifies as a self-conscious Leibnizian who tries to connect cosmology with the concept of a god and the centrality of astrobiology to these issues. At the end of the interview, Smolin explains why he continually returns to quantum gravity, and he conveys his interest in keeping philosophy at the forefront of his research agenda.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Leonard Susskind, Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University.  Susskind recounts his childhood in the Bronx, and describes his good fortune of being the product of public education in New York from elementary school through CCNY for college. He discusses his discovery that he had a talent for physics, and the difficulties he faced convincing his father that that he would pursue this path and not join in the family plumbing business. Susskind explains the formative advice given to him by professor Harold Rothbart, and the influence of Jesse Douglas and Harry Soodak on his intellectual development as a theorist. He recounts his experience in graduate school at Cornell, where he worked under the direction of Hans Bethe calculating the ground state of infinite nuclear matter. He describes his studies under Richard Feynman and how he admired Feynman’s ability to cut through problems.  Susskind discusses his teaching career at the Belfer Graduate School of Science at Yeshiva University, and he provides an intellectual history for the origins of string theory starting with Geoffrey Chew and the S-matrix of hadronic collisions, culminated in the Veneziano amplitude by Gabriele Veneziano, and he describes his contributions from there, for which he is popularly knows as one of the “fathers” of string theory.  He describes joining the faculty at Stanford, he discusses the advances made by Stephen Hawking, and he asserts that our understanding of the origins of the universe remain at the primitive stage. Susskind explains why he is devoted to explaining physics concepts to broad-based audiences, and he explains what he sees as the most critical threats posed by the Trump administration.  In part II, the interview returns to Susskind’s early years, and he recounts his father’s support for civil rights, and how this influenced his own politics in the 1960s. He describes his goals in his debate with Lee Smolin and engages in some of the spiritual and metaphysical implications that can arise from studying the universe.  At the end of the interview, Susskind reviews, over the course of his career, the ways string theory has, and has not, contributed to efforts to unify all theories of physics, and he affirms that he more closely aligns with Einstein’s approach not to tolerate a clash of physics principles, over that of Niels Bohr.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews N. David Mermin, Horace White Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University. Mermin recounts his childhood in New Haven and his undergraduate work at Harvard, where he worked with Andrew Gleason and did his senior thesis on the Jordan Curve Theorem. Mermin describes his thesis work with on superconductivity with Paul Martin and the turn of luck that led to his fellowship at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. He explains why his most formative physics education occurred during his time in Birmingham and describes many of his most important collaborations as a professor at Cornell. Mermin explains his delight in pursuing obscure areas of research in physics and why he is interested in the relationship between problems in quantum foundations and the nature of scientific knowledge. In the last portion of the interview, Mermin shares his view on the various categories that comprise scientific breakthrough. 

In this interview, Charles Misner discusses his career in physics. Topics discussed include: John Wheeler; relativity; Arthur Wightman; Arnold Ross; Robert H. Dicke; Carl H. Brans; microwave background radiation.

Interview covers Charles Misner's family background and childhood interest in science; influential chemistry teacher in high school; education at Notre Dame and mentorship with Arnold Ross; early interest in mathematics; encouragement of parents to go into science or to become a priest; graduate education at Princeton; work with John Wheeler on relativity and topology; introduction to cosmology by Jim Peebles in 1965; attitude toward the steady state model; Wheeler's preference for a closed universe; history of the flatness problem (the "Dicke paradox"); initial attitude toward the flatness problem; motivation for looking for mechanisms to isotropize the universe; the mixmaster model; history of the horizon problem; Misner's attempt to change the goals of cosmology from describing the universe to explaining it; Russian work on mixmaster type models; reaction of the community to the mixmaster model; change in Misner's view of the flatness problem after the inflationary universe model; attitude toward missing matter; problem of reconciling theory and observations with a flat universe; Misner's attitude toward the inflationary universe model; attitude of the community toward the inflationary universe model; attitude toward recent observations of large-scale structure; nature of the inhomogeneity of the universe; importance of Freeman Dyson's discussion of the fate of an open universe over very long time scales; role of visual pictures in science; relationship of theory and observation in cosmology; outstanding problems in cosmology; inflation, particle physics, quantum cosmology; ideal design of the universe; philosophy, science, and religion; necessity of the laws of physics; question of whether the universe has a point.

Comments on parents and teachers; schooling in Rochester; studies at University of Rochester and at Princeton University with comments on faculty and fellow students; thesis collaboration with John Marshall; Victor Weisskopf, M.I.T. and the Radiation Laboratory during war, microwave techniques applied to atomic physics. Return to Princeton after war, Angular Momentum of Radiation; 1957 and the start of cosmology and relativity publications; Eötvös experiment and Mach's principle; discussions of own and others' experimental work; big science; George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, Robert Herman; paper with P. James Peebles Nostrums and Conundrums; National Academy of Sciences; funding in science.

Youth and family life in Turkish Armenia prior to turn of century; time at Yale Sheffield Scientific School and early research interests; World War I work for U.S. Signal Corp; teaching experience and associates at Sheffield School; his book on mechanics; experience at Cavendish Laboratory, 1914; impressions of Joseph J. Thomson, reaction to Niels Bohr's atomic theory. Trinity College in Hartford, state of physics department; his preoccupation with wartime plight of Armenians. Comments on philosophy of science, reaction at Yale University to the theory of relativity, hazards of x-rays, concepts of centrifugal force, indeterminacy and complementarity. Also prominently mentioned is Leigh Page.

In this interview, Geoffrey Burbidge discusses the history of physics over the course of his career.  Topics discussed include: Astronomical Society of the Pacific; E. Margaret Burbridge; American Astronomical Society; Hale Observatory; Lick Observatory; radio astronomy; Naval Research Laboratory; x-ray astronomy; Bruno Rossi; optical astronomy; Kitt Peak National Observatory; air and light pollution; Allan Sandage; Harvard University; Princeton University; Lord Kelvin; S. Chandrasekhar; Henry Norris Russell; Paul Merrill; Leo Goldberg; Edwin Hubble; Royal Society; Milton Humason; theory of relativity; Fred Hoyle; big bang cosmology; steady state cosmology; Joe Weber; John Wheeler; Willy Fowler.

Interview focusses on early life in Vienna, family and religion; atmosphere in Vienna in early 1930s; growth of interest in mathematical physics; anti-Semitism in Vienna; influence of history teacher and rejection of religion; influence of reading Eddington and Jeans in the mid-1930s; further study in England and contact with Eddington; Trinity College, 1937-1940; study with Besicovitch; collapse of plebiscite and family in Vienna; internment during World WarII; graduate study with Harold Jeffreys; naval radar, 1942; associates during war and circle at Cambridge; development of radar research team with Gold and Hoyle; developing astronomical interests, 1943; early research on accretion and evolution; cosmology; general relativity; contact with Dyson, Lighthill and W.H. McCrae; work in theoretical stellar structure; the problem of red giants; Hoyle's theory of stellar evolution; Hoyle-Lyttleton red giant models; growing interests in cosmology and discussion of Tolman and Hubble; the Steady State Cosmology; reactions to Steady State theory; gravitational theory and relativity circa 1955.