Intellectual Mastery of Nature. Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, Volume 1: The Torch of Mathematics, 1800 to 1870 - Softcover

Jungnickel, Christa; McCormmach, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0226415821 ISBN 13: 9780226415826

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1990

Synopsis

Christina Jungnickel and Russell McCormmach have created in these two volumes a panoramic history of German theoretical physics. Bridging social, institutional, and intellectual history, they chronicle the work of the researchers who, from the first years of the nineteenth century, strove for an intellectual mastery of nature.

Volume 1 opens with an account of physics in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century and of German physicists' reception of foreign mathematical and experimental work. Jungnickel and McCormmach follow G. S. Ohm, Wilhelm Weber, Franz Neumann, and others as these scientists work out the new possibilities for physics, introduce student laboratories and instruction in mathematical physics, organize societies and journals, and establish and advance major theories of classical physics. Before the end of the nineteenth century, German physics and its offspring, theoretical physics, had acquired nearly their present organizational forms. The foundations of the classical picture of the physical world had been securely laid, preparing the way for the developments that are the subject of volume 2.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226415821
• ISBN 13: 9780226415826
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 378