This month’s issue of the magazine Resonance features Hans Bethe (drawing on right by Biman Nath), who is the originator of several wonderful ideas, techniques, and entire fields of physics. I won’t try to list them here. There are several articles in there about Bethe and his contributions to physics, and there’s also a transcript of a videotape interview of him by David Mermin (yes, he of the textbook) about the foundations of modern solid state physics.
(See here for why there’s a double entendre in the title of this post.)
Resonance seems rather interesting overall. Lifting from its “about” page, you can learn what it is about:
‘Resonance’ is a journal of science education, published monthly since January 1996 by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India.
It is primarily directed to students and teachers at the undergraduate level, though some material beyond this range is also included.
Each issue contains articles on physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computer science.
The format is attractive and easy to read, with pictures, illustrations, marginal notes, boxes and space for comments provided.
The articles are of various types: individual general articles, series made up of several parts; concise article-in-boxes; classroom pieces; Nature watch pieces; research news; book reviews; and Information and Announcements useful to students and teachers.
A chosen scientist or mathematician is specially highlighted each month, with a portrait on the cover, and articles describing his or her life and work.
In some cases an article written by the scientist on a general theme is included as a Classic or a Reflections item at the end of the issue.
Some of the personalities featured so far are — Einstein, Schrodinger, Pauli, Chandrasekhar, Raman, S N Bose, von Neumann, Turing, Darwin, Mc Clintock, Haldane, Fisher, Lorenz, Mendel, Dobhzansky, Pauling, the Bernoullis, Fermat, Harish-Chandra, Ramanujam and Weil.
Seems worth browsing through the archives.
-cvj
(Found on Malkanthapuragudi.)
October 20th, 2005 at 11:09 am
Cornell has a website with some information about Bethe, and some lectures that he gave on quantum mechanics. There was a very moving Bethe memorial here about a month ago, and a conference in honour of his 100th birthday is happening here in June.
October 20th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
If it has anything to do with the Chaldni plate, Soho, musical tunes, then I will be quite pleased. Sorry for being so presumptous. I’ll have to look first of course.
October 20th, 2005 at 5:04 pm
No, it’s a physics reference.
-cvj
October 20th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
Each issue contains articles on physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computer science.
Ah, I see. Yes of course.
October 20th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
He’s the cover story for Physics Today as well!
October 20th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
Side comment: Mermin’s claim to fame I thought was the phrase “shut up and calculate”, though it is usually attributed to Feynman (and Mark Twain, no doubt).
October 20th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
I didn’t know that! I just know him from the big fat solid state textbook (Ashcroft and Mermin) from my undergraduate years. But then I was in “for’gn parts” when I did that.
-cvj
October 20th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
Yes, I was there too! but you must mean graduate school, that book is pretty advanced for undergrad.
October 21st, 2005 at 12:06 am
UK.
-cvj
October 21st, 2005 at 12:09 am
I say what?
October 21st, 2005 at 12:21 am
Sorry… I did my undergraduate degree in the UK. Imperial College, London. There, we used some of Ashcroft and Mermin in the final year. Not a huge amount of it, but some parts….. Can’t say we all were budding experts in solid state by the end of that, but it did give a feel for some things…I have vague memories of various electron gas models for certain types of metals….blah blah blah….very vauge. I recall it being a thrill that we were dpping into such an advanced book, after the more solid grounding to be got with Kittel and earlier, a book by Rosenberg (?), or maybe just Rosen? Happy days, those, I recall.
-cvj
October 21st, 2005 at 3:39 pm
While some might not think it significant concerning the title of the magazine, it did not pass my attention, that perceptions that could have arisen from cultural inclinations, contribute greatly to the title?
While the limitations on the very title would have been curcumvented to “analogies of comparatives views”, there is always physics lying at the heart of my claim? Non?
Quantum harmonic oscillators and all.
Here again theatrics of Ramanujan help to point the way. ON first glance or statement offered, it would be well to know for sure physics is the goal, but it is not to hard to realize, that philosophical base might have influenced the state of mind concerning a important feature of our reality, and the extent it has to offer in string theoretical deteminations?
Modular functions are used in the mathematical analysis of Riemann surfaces. Riemann surface theory is relevant to describing the behavior of strings as they move through space-time. When strings move they maintain a kind of symmetry called “conformal invariance”
Conformal invariance (also called “scale invariance”) is related to the fact that points on the surface of a string’s world sheet need not be evaluated in a particular order. As long as all points on the surface are taken into account in any consistent way, the physics should not change. Equations of how strings must behave when moving involve the Ramanujan function.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_10_dimensions%3F
Of course I am still learning, and a new article today was raised on my blog about the August edition, on Brownian motion.
Good magazine to fuel the fires of learning.
October 21st, 2005 at 3:49 pm
Plato. I admit that don’t understand the connection of this to Bethe, or the magazine, etc…..But most of all, I also am confused as to why you’re placing large extracts from Wikipedia here. Expecially wrong ones (conformal invariance and scale invariance are two separate things…. etc etc etc).
cheers,
-cvj
October 21st, 2005 at 5:58 pm
“Expecially wrong ones (conformal invariance and scale invariance are two separate things”
well certainly Wiki needs updating then Clifford. Lubos is quite helpful here in that respect.
I guess I didn’t tie together the idea of cultural influences and how mathematics might have moved Ramanujan’ mind to consider the context of modular forms, and I admit, I am trying to get a handle on that.
I was thinking “Resonance” and the exposition on “powers of ten”, while there was a cultural influence in this regard? a Underlying basis to Phase transitons, from the early universe to now.
Resonance
Looking at Ramanujan deeper, in this respect, to his culture and strings as a basis for that determination?
October 21st, 2005 at 6:01 pm
ache! not on Hans Bethe directly. sorry. The Magazine title.
January 11th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
[...] Check out Abi’s(of Nanopolitan) post in memory of Richard Smalley, the Nobel Laureate who discovered fullerenes. Abi is also upset about the falling quality of the editorials in Current Science, India’s premier Science Journal. Given Current Science’s pre-eminent position amongst Indian Journals, this is a serious issue. And Resonance, the pedagogical cousin of Current Science made a curious appearance at CosmicVariance. In the comments section, a reader expresses doubts about the contribution of cultural inclinations to the title of the magazine. I couldn’t get at what he is trying to point out.. u can try! [...]