Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the 20th Century

This class explores the changing roles of physics and physicists during the 20th century. Topics range from relativity theory and quantum mechanics to high-energy physics and cosmology. We examine the development of modern physics and the role of physicists within shifting institutional, cultural, and political contexts, such as Imperial Britain, Nazi Germany, and the US during World War II, and the Cold War.

Syllabus

Lecture 1: Introduction to Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the 20th Century
Lecture 2: Faraday, Thomson, and Maxwell: Lines of Force in the Ether
Lecture 3: Worldviews, Wranglers, and the Making of Theoretical Physicists
Lecture 4: Waves in the Ether
Lecture 5: Einstein and Experiment
Lecture 6: Reception of Special Relativity
Lecture 7: A Political History of Gravity
Lecture 8: Rethinking Light
Lecture 9: Rethinking Matter
Lecture 10: Matrices and Uncertainty
Lecture 11: Waves and Probabilities
Lecture 12: Quantum Weirdness: Schrödinger’s Cat, EPR, and Bell’s Theorem
Lecture 13: Physics under Hitler
Lecture 14: Radar and the Manhattan Project
Optional Discussion: The Day After Trinity
Lecture 16: Secrecy and Security in the Nuclear Age
Optional Discussion: Containment
Lecture 18: Coldwar Classroom: Teaching Quantum Theory in Postwar American Physics
Lecture 19: Counterculture and Physics
Lecture 20: A Conservative Revolution: QED and Renormalization
Lecture 21: Teaching Feynman's Tools: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics
Lecture 22: Quarks, QCD, and the Rise of the Standard Model
Lecture 23: The Birth of Particle Cosmology
Lecture 24: The Big Bang, Cosmic Inflation, and the Latest Observations
Lecture 25: String Theory and the Multiverse