History Of Physics Newsletter

Historyof Physics N E W S L E T T E R A F O R U M O F T H E A M E R I C A N P HY S I C A L S O C I E TY • V O L U M E I X N O . 6 • S P R I N G 2 0 0 6 Report From The Chair Does Physics History Matter? by Robert H. Romer, Amherst College, Forum Chair Perhaps the title got your attention, so let me promptly explain what I mean. Is it important that serious history of physics be included in the professional education of physicists? I think that for many of us who belong to and support the APS history forum, even — or perhaps especially — for those like me who are not professional historians of physics, it is almost an article of faith that the answer to my question is an unqualified “yes.” I said as much myself several years ago, in my election statement when I was a candidate for the forum position I now occupy. But I wonder whether this is really true. My own formal education included many of the usual tidbits of history (“Newton was born in the year that Galileo died.” “Einstein was – or was not – influenced by the Michelson-Morley experiment.”). But would I have been a better physicist if I had had a course or two in the history of physics? Did Feynman’s time at MIT and Princeton expose him in a serious way to the fascinating history of our subject? Was he familiar with the “Bohr model”, with the trials and tribulations of the “Old Quantum Theory,” and if so, did it help (or perhaps hinder) him on the way to his formulation of QED? Now there is a very large group of people, those who will not become professional scientists, who definitely should be exposed to enough of the history of science — preferably in their high school or introductory college courses — so that they will understand that neither physics nor any other science is a finished product, that there are numerous false starts, dead-ends, and mis- leading experimental results. It might just help them t