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H.A. Kramers Between Tradition and Revolution

  • Book
  • © 1987

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Authors:
  1. M. Dresden

    1. Institute for Theoretical Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, USA

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About this book

It is now a little more than 11 years since the idea of writing a personal and scientific biography of H. A. Kramers took hold of me. A few days earlier I had been lecturing, in a course on field theory, on the renormalization proce­ dures of relativistic quantum field theory. Since the students had considerable trouble understanding the physical basis of the procedure, at the end of the lecture T explained that renormalization is not an exclusive quantum or relativistic procedure. A careful treatment of classical electron theory as started by Lorentz and developed in detail by Kramers also requires re­ normalization. The students appeared quite interested and I promised them that I would explain all this in more detail in the next lecture. I could have looked up this material in Kramers' book, but I remembered that Kramers had stressed this idea in a course I had attended in Leiden in 1938-1939. I did dig up some of these old notes and, although they were considerably less transparent than my recollection seemed to indicate, they reminded me force­ fully of the thrilling days I had spent in Leiden with Kramers. Kramers' deep insight and originality were apparent even when distorted by my opaque notes. The students had never heard of these ideas of Kramers' and were totally unaware of his work in field theory.

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxiv
    Download chapter PDF

  2. A Remarkable Person in a Very Special Epoch

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. H. A. Kramers: Why a Biography?

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 3-7

    3. The Classical Synthesis: Lorentz

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 8-12

    4. The Unraveling of Classical Physics: Planck and Einstein

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 13-16

    5. Conflicts and the Basic Incompatibility

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 17-19

    6. Bohr: Success and Ambiguity in a Period of Transition

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 20-27

    7. Bohr, the Photon, and Kramers

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 28-33

    8. The Bohr Institute: Pauli and Heisenberg

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 34-40

    9. From Virtual Oscillators to Quantum Mechanics

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 41-55

    10. The Revolution in Progress

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 56-78

  3. Back Matter

    Pages 79-84
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  4. Living Through a Revolution

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 85-85
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    2. A Hesitant Start with an Unusual Twist

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 87-96

    3. The Early Copenhagen Years: From Student to Apostle

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 97-118

    4. From Apostle to Prophet: Hints of Trouble to Come

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 119-138

    5. The Multifarious Consequences of a Desperation Revolution

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 139-288

    6. The Curious Copenhagen Interlude

      • M. Dresden
      Pages 289-298

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 299-308
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  6. Waiting for a Revolution That Did Not Happen

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 309-309
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Authors and Affiliations

  • Institute for Theoretical Physics, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, USA

    M. Dresden

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