the midwife of qed
OPPENHEIMER, Robert.
The Problems of the Interaction of Elementary Particles. Transcriptions of lectures by Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. Given at the California Institute of Technology.
Pasadena, CA, January, 1950.
Though best known for leading the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer made important contributions to both particle physics and quantum electrodynamics. He predicted the existence of the positron and served as 'midwife' to the Tomonaga-Schwinger-Feynman construction of quantum electrodynamics, the first theory to reconcile Einstein's special relativity with quantum mechanics. The present talks were presented at the moment of QED's formalisation and the physics community's collective turn towards particle physics as the new frontier (Monk, Inside the Center: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, p. 540).
As Oppenheimer explains in the first lecture, this course is relatively introductory and non-mathematical, in part because it will be followed immediately by a more technical series by Feynman, the important Quantum Electrodynamics and Meson Theories talks given in February and March the same year. Though both series were made available as mimeographs, Oppenheimer's is somewhat scarcer institutionally and within the trade than Feynman's.
86-page wire-stitched mimeographed text, rectos only, three punched holes, contemporary ownership signature on the title, faintly toned along the edges, final leaf detached, housed in a blue cloth folding case, very good condition.
Stock code 117245
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The Problems of the Interaction of Elementary Particles.
MANN, W.B.
The Cyclotron.
1940
First edition of the first conventionally published book on the Berkeleye cyclotron, by Wilfrid B. Mann, a student of Ernest O. Lawrence.
£1,250.00
[SANDAGE, Allan] HARRISON, Stephen.
Emanational Physics.
1988.
The second edition of Emanational Physics, a rare and unusual self-published text by Stephen Harrison proposing to correct the field of physics by reframing it metaphysically.
£1,250.00
OPPENHEIMER, Robert; SERBER, Robert; SNYDER, Hartland.
'The Production of Soft Secondaries by Mesotrons'
January 15, 1940.
First edition of production of Soft Secondaries by Mesotrons by Robert Oppenheimer, a significant early work in particle physics and the path to the discovery of the pion and muon.
£500.00
