Oxford University’s St. Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics (HAPP) recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. In its decade of existence, the HAPP Centre has organized lectures, seminars, and one-day conferences; hosted visiting fellows; and awarded an annual essay prize for undergraduate and master’s students. AIP supported and participated in some of the HAPP Centre’s early activities, as highlighted in our semiannual Newsletter in 2018.

To commemorate its anniversary, the HAPP Centre published an open-access volume with the UK’s Institute of Physics documenting the scholarly work it has hosted.

Described by HAPP Centre Director Jo Ashbourne:

“The HAPP Tenth Anniversary Commemorative Volume celebrates a decade of the St. Cross Centre for the History and Philosophy of Physics’s activities since its foundation in 2014. The HAPP Centre was established to provide a forum in which the philosophy and methodologies that inform how current research in physics is undertaken would be included alongside the history of the discipline in an accessible way that could engage the general public as well as scientists, historians, and philosophers.

The volume is structured around four key overarching themes which encompass the HAPP papers in it: Physicists across History, Space and Astronomy, Philosophical Perspectives, and Concepts in Physics. The thematic papers derive from talks given at the HAPP termly one-day conferences and from standalone lectures and seminars, as well as from the discussion panels which took place online during the pandemic period—one paper in particular in The Nature of Quantum Reality section recounts how a very special book collaboration arose from that HAPP conference.”

Contributors to the volume include historians, philosophers, science writers, and physicists. Here is a sampling of their contributions.

Physicists across History

The volume’s first theme examines the human dimension of physics through several distinct subsections:

• Medieval Physics in Oxford
• Physics Feuds throughout History
• Voltaire and the Newtonian Revolution
• The Émigrés in Oxford Physics
• Polymaths across the Eras
• Physics and the Great War
• On the Role of Brilliant Blunders in Physics

Rather than treating physics as an abstract progression of theories, this theme emphasizes how individual physicists’ perspectives, contexts, and conflicts shaped the discipline’s development. For example, the subsection “Physics Feuds throughout History” explores major scientific disputes from Democritus and Aristotle on atomic theory to the Big Bang versus Steady State debate in cosmology between Gamow, Hoyle, and Ryle. In “The Émigrés in Oxford Physics,” authors examine how refugee physicists like Einstein, Schrödinger, Peierls, and Dalitz contributed to Oxford’s physics renaissance, and “Polymaths Across the Eras” covers figures from Al-Birūnī to Richard Feynman.

Space and Astronomy

The volume’s second theme examines humanity’s evolving understanding of the universe through several focused sections:

• Astronomy across the Medieval World
• A History of the Moon
• A History of the Sun, Our Closest Star
• Physics and the Dark Side
• Space Travel across the Decades and Beyond
• Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
• The Martian: Science Fiction and Science Fact

This theme encompasses both the observational advances that expanded our view of the universe and the theoretical frameworks that helped to interpret these discoveries. The papers address major transitions in astronomical thinking, from geocentric to heliocentric models, the discovery of galaxies beyond the Milky Way, and modern cosmological theories, with particular attention to the philosophical implications of each shift and how they challenged existing views.

The “Searching for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” section includes Martin Rees’s paper “Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence across a century” alongside contributions from SETI pioneers Jill Tarter, Simon Steel, Andrew Siemion, and researchers working on SETI at China’s FAST telescope. Together their papers trace how SETI evolved from science fiction and speculation to serious scientific endeavor.

The “History of the Moon” covers topics from lunar mythology to the Apollo program and future exploration plans, while “A History of the Sun” examines our understanding of solar processes from ancient worship to modern space missions.

The theme also explores medieval astronomical traditions across cultures in “Astronomy across the Medieval World,” covering European, Chinese, Islamic, and Mesoamerican approaches to skywatching. “Physics and the Dark Side” addresses both literal celestial shadows and modern dark matter/dark energy research, while “Space Travel across the Decades and Beyond” examines NASA, Soviet/Russian, and Chinese space programs.

Philosophical Perspectives

The volume’s third theme addresses key questions about the nature of physical reality through several specialized subsections:

• The Nature of Time
• From Space to Spacetime
• The Nature of Light
• Paradigm Shifts across the Ages
• The Nature of Quantum Reality
• The Philosophy of Cosmology
• Wittgenstein and Physics
• Scientific Thinking across the Centuries

The papers in this theme address some of the most challenging conceptual issues in modern physics and explore several key areas where physics intersects with profound philosophical questions.

Under “The Nature of Quantum Reality,” papers explore topics like superposition, Schrödinger’s cat, quantum entanglement, and the many-worlds interpretation. “The Nature of Time” includes papers asking fundamental questions like “What is a clock?” and “Was there time before the Big Bang?” The section “Paradigm Shifts across the Ages” examines major conceptual transitions from Aristotle to quantum theory, including Thomas Kuhn’s influential framework for understanding scientific revolutions.

Concepts in Physics

The volume’s final theme examines the conceptual foundations that underpin physical theories through several interconnected subsections:

• Order and Chaos
• A History of the Small
• Physics Controversies Past and Present
• Symmetries in Physics
• The Rise of Big Science in Physics
• Physics and the Science of Living Things
• The Greatest Physics Discovery of the 20th Century

Papers in this theme do not take fundamental concepts like energy, momentum, or field as given; instead, they explore how these ideas developed historically, recognizing that physics operates through carefully defined concepts whose meanings have evolved significantly over time.

“The Rise of Big Science in Physics” examines how physics transformed from individual research to large-scale collaborations like the Manhattan Project, CERN, and mega-astronomy projects. “Physics Controversies Past and Present” covers disputes from Copernican cosmology to cold fusion claims, while “Physics and the Science of Living Things” explores the intersection of physics with medicine and biology throughout history.

A notable contribution comes from the section “The Greatest Physics Discovery of the 20th Century,” which includes four papers of the same title from Steven Weinberg, William Phillips, Anthony Leggett, and John Mather. These Nobel laureates offer different perspectives on which discovery most significantly transformed physics in the past century.

“Order and Chaos” traces concepts from ancient Greco-Roman philosophy through modern chaos theory and entropy; “A History of the Small” follows the evolution from atomic theory to microscopy to nanoscience; and “Symmetries in Physics” explores how symmetry principles became central to modern physics.

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As the HAPP Center moves through its eleventh year, we would also like to spotlight the launch of a similar venture on this side of the Atlantic, the Boston Network for History and Philosophy of Physics, based at Boston University’s Center for Philosophy and History of Science and supported by Tufts University, Harvard University, MIT, Northeastern University, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and Boston College. Its colloquium series kicks off on September 18 with a talk by Harvard historian Peter Galison and continues on October 16 with a talk by MIT historian David Kaiser.

Rebecca Charbonneau
American Institute of Physics
rcharbonneau@aip.org

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