Dear all: The Philosophy and History of Physics Reading Group will meet this term at its usual time, Tuesdays 2.00 to 3.00 pm; in Seminar Room 1, HPS department; starting on Tuesday 30th April.
The initial meeting will take the form of a seminar by Matthew Donald entitled "Introductory Comments on Quantum Field Theory and its History" with the following abstract: The aim of this term's reading group on the history of physics is to study at least a few chapters of Silvan Schweber's book on post-war Quantum Electro-Dynamics, "QED and the Men who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga". To start the term off, I shall give a general seminar for an audience with no prior background in quantum field theory. I shall consider issues of why quantum field theory is so difficult, how we might study the history of such a difficult theory, and what we might learn from that history about physics, about physicists, and perhaps even about nature. Anyone interested is invited to attend; even if they have no intention of reading Schweber's 700 page book. Best, Jeremy B ------ Jeremy Butterfield: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Butterfield Homepage: http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/butterfield/ Trinity College, Cambridge CB2 1TQ Tel: 01223 761524 (office); 07557-668413 (mobile); NB: new mobile number. Visit the journal, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13552198 _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
