History of phisics

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Online resources for the history of physics & allied fields
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Exhibits and info
Visit our Exhibit Hall
History of Physics - General before 1900 since 1900
Individual physicists
History of Astronomy/Space Science/Geophysics
History of Institutions
Other resources
General Physics - General History
General History of Science links, info
History of Science Community
Archival Resources
New links - (updated 10/07)
The voice of Lord Kelvin (British Library)
Hanford Reactors Site history
Highlights from Niels Bohr’s career
Harvard University Physics Department history
Albert Einstein Archives Online
Enrico Fermi and the Manhattan Project

History of physics
General
PSIgate has a large list of annotated history links and searchable timelines
Net Advance of Physics also has links, especially to online articles, but many dead links.
"This week in physics history" (scroll down to find list)
"This month in physics history" (scroll down to Departments)
From the Greeks to Einstein, by Michael Fowler: Galileo, Newton, and more
History of Cosmology from Antiquity to Einstein and beyond by Jose Wudka
History of Mathematics Archives includes Topics in history of mathematical physics – with articles on time, light, gravitation and other relativity topics – and biographies of many physicists from Aristotle to Feynman
Large physics timeline
Timeline of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics including a brief history of string theory
Classic Papers ("chemistry" including atomic physics, thermodynamics, radioactivity)
Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism
Timeline of atomic structure discoveries
History of Crystallography
History of Optics Timeline and History of Optics Highlights
Length: from Measurement Standard to Fundamental Constant Evolution of time measurement History of time and frequency measurements at the Bureau of Standards/NIST
Before 1900
A History of physics (ancient to 19th century) from the Catholic Encyclopedia
Torricelli’s Discovery of the Vacuum
Vacuum Technology
Light: Particle or Wave? – Newton and Huygens
Herschel's Discovery of Infrared Light, a classroom reconstruction
19th Century Physics from VictorianWeb
"Nineteenth Century Ether Theory" by Michel Janssen (PDF file)
A History of Kinetic Theory
A Concise history of thermodynamics from Wheeler's 1951 biography of Gibbs
Timeline historical sketches of classical Electromagnetic Theory and Statistical Mechanics & Thermodynamics by Jeff Biggus
Early electric, magnetic and related medical instruments at the Bakken Museum
Old physics instruments in the Naples Physics Museum
Physics instruments (mostly 19th century) in the schools & University of Sassari, Sardinia
See also this page's list of physicist biographies (Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, etc.)
Since 1900
A Century of Physics Timeline 1900-2000 by the American Physical Society (note: opens in a new window!) and video talks at the Centennial meeting plus 20th Century Discoveries in Physics (a short summary for the meeting)
20th Century Physics told through Nobel Prizes and a Timeline of Nobel Prize Winners
History of Mathematics Archives includes texts on the history of Special Relativity, General Relativity, and the Beginning of the Quantum Age
Physics Web includes articles on Quantum Theory and the Nobel Prize and more.
Contributions of Women to 20th-century physics
Physics in 1900 streaming audio/video lecture, A. Wroblewski
The Origins of Quantum Theory by C. Carson (14-page PDF)
Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond
The Princeton Mathematics Community in the 1930s: oral history with Bardeen, Bargmann, Wigner
Quantum Physics, a personal perspective: lectures by Hans Bethe (audio/video)
Louis de Broglie's 1923 Wave Mechanics
See also this page's list of physicist biographies
Radiation & nuclear
The X-Ray Century
Radioactivity: Historical Figures
Nuclear Medicine and more in the National Atomic Museum (National Museum of Nuclear Science and History)
Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues (Manhattan Project & after) has many annotated references
Nuclear Files and Atomic Archive have documents, timeline, etc. Trinity nuclear weapons history. Internet and the Bomb from NDRC. See also Los Alamos Lab History, Pugwash History, The Race for the Superbomb and Manhattan Project links.
Radiation and Radiation Protection (links only)
Our exhibit on the Discovery of Fission
Accelerators & particles
History of particle accelerators (S. Kullander)
History of Accelerators told through Nobel Prizes
The Van de Graaf generator
Harvard University Cyclotrons, Rutgers University Cyclotron photo tour and the RIKEN cyclotron; Physics at Brookhaven National Lab
The Development of Particle Physics by V. Kudryavtsev (PowerPoint presentations)
A Fundamental Particle Timeline and a Brief History of String Theory
History of Neutrinos and A Neutrino Timeline
The Fall of Parity (1956 experiment)
Useful devices
The Transistor -- our most-visited exhibit
The Transistor Museum
Virtual Museum of Computing
Laser History and Laser at Bell Labs
Short History of Fiber Optics
Bell's Path to the Telephone
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Spectacles and other Vision Aids--the first widespread application of physics was in optics
History of the Quartz Watch; and the atomic clock (by P. Forman)
Mass Spectrometry
History of Superconductors
Physics Success Stories from AIP -- how taxpayers supported advances in energy and the environment, medical imaging, transportation, telecommunications, lasers, new materials, the Global Positioning System, etc.
History of the Internet -- mainly the work of physicists!
Contributions of Physics to the Information Age (I.P. Bindloss)
History of Silicon Valley.
More electrical technology links from IEEE.
People
Many short biographies of physicists are in the History of Mathematics Archives
Nobel Prize Laureates and (for multimedia users) the Nobel Channel
National Academies' Biographical Memoirs (enter “biographical memoirs” and a scientist’s name)
Contributions of Women to 20th-century physics is a big store of information. See also Distinguished Women in Physics and women in astronomy below.
Physiciens d'hier (in French)
17th and 18th century math/physics biographies
Short profiles: Famous scientists related to electricity, Electromagnetic Personalities, an Anecdotal History of Optics, and a Thumbnail History of Electronics by L. Taylor
Physicists on the Money, honored on banknotes
Alphabetical list of physicists
These are not listed because they're the most important people, but because the Websites are especially good or interesting. To locate archival collections, interviews, etc. for an individual, consult our International Catalog of Sources for History of Physics and Allied Sciences.
André-Marie Ampère
Archimedes
John Bahcall, an interview
John Bell
Niels Bohr's Nobel biography, career highlights, another short biography; the Bohr Archives including Bohr-Heisenberg letters
Robert Boyle
Edward Condon and Cold War Politics by Jessica Wang
Marie Curie; Marie Curie and US Radium Standards
Robert Dicke and relativity by J. Zirker
P.A.M. Dirac
Albert Einstein and our Einstein links
Michael Faraday
Enrico Fermi links
Richard Feynman and Feynman Links
Feynman talks: Plenty of Room at the Bottom, Robb Memorial Lectures (video)
Franklin Tercentenary 1706-2006; Ben Franklin, scientist; Franklin and Electrostatics; Franklin's Kite; Franklin and Lightning Rods
Galileo's Battle by PBS-Nova and the Trial of Galileo; Galileo, Copernicus & Mathematical Physics; the Galileo Project and a manuscript; Article on the Tower of Pisa Legend; Galileo and Renaissance Art
William Rowan Hamilton
Stephen Hawking's Page and Hawking Page by N. Donaldson
Werner Heisenberg
Robert Hooke, Natural Philosopher (BBC) and RobertHooke.org (Westminster School)
Joseph Henry
Christiaan Huygens
Kelvin (William Thomson) and his voice.
Igor Kurchatov
Karl Lark-Horovitz
E.O. Lawrence and the cyclotron; Lawrence and his laboratory; Who Was Ernest O. Lawrence?
Joseph Loschmidt
James Clerk Maxwell; his youth; BBC radio production on Maxwell (streaming audio)
Albert A. Michelson
Isaac Newton Links, the Newton Project including manuscripts; a Newton Chymistry and optics notebook
Emmy Noether by N. Byers
J. Robert Oppenheimer, and documents on the Oppenheimer security hearings
Frank Oppenheimer and his Exploratorium
Wolfgang Pauli
Linus Pauling, his research notebooks and work on the nature of the chemical bond
Max Planck
I. I. Rabi (J. Rigden)
Osborne Reynolds (as in the number)
Ernest Rutherford
Andrei Sakharov
Erwin Schrodinger
Julian Schwinger by K. Milton
Glenn Seaborg
Arnold Sommerfeld archive (in German)
Leo Szilard page
Eugene Wigner
History of astronomy/space science/geophysics/
PSIgate has astronomy links and timelines
History of Astronomy Page (University of Bonn, Germany), with many links to observatories, biographies, etc.
Ancient Astronomical Cosmology worldwide
Greek and Arab Astronomy (Vatican books)
From Stargazers to Starships (astronomy, rocketry) by David Stern
Greeks to Kepler "The Starry Messenger" from Cambridge
History of Cosmology from Antiquity to Einstein and beyond by Jose Wudka
The Development of Astronomy, Copernicus to Newton, with explanations (Univ. of Tenn.)
A History of Astronomical Spectroscopy
The 1920 Shapley-Curtis Debate over the size of the universe
Histories of X-ray Astronomy (lists satellites) and of Infrared Astronomy
X-ray Astronomy at Goddard 1965-1990
History of High-Energy Astrophysics
History of gravity wave detection efforts
Our exhibit on A Pulsar Discovery
Planets, space science, geophysics
PSIgate has earth sciences links and timelines
The Face of the Moon, Galileo to Apollo, in pictures
Geomagnetism from Gilbert to space physics
The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery (text of book by W. Sheehan)
The 18th Century Transit of Venus; the 1882 Venus Transit observed in S. Africa
A History of Comet Studies
The NASA History page including Sputnik and the Early Space Age; online books, etc.
History of Space Exploration from Univ. of Hawaii
Chronology of discoveries of solar system objects
Exploration of the Magnetosphere
History of Radiation Geophysics
Raymond Davis's Solar Neutrino Experiments with historical press releases and video
NOAA's atmospheric and ocean sciences links
Plate Tectonics and Wegener, Continental Drift by J. Tuzo Wilson, and related historical images
The First International Polar Year (1881-1884)
The Discovery of Global Warming
People
(To locate archival collections, interviews, etc. for an individual, consult our International Catalog of Sources for History of Physics and Allied Sciences. )
Bruce Medalists (notable astronomers)
Distinguished Women in Astronomy, Women in Astronomy by U. Toronto, History of Women in Astronomy by S. Stephens (Astronomical Society of the Pacific)
Notable Geophysicists (American Geophysical Union honors)
NOAA's biographies: Coast & Geodetic Survey
Brahe: "The Noble Dane: Images of Tycho Brahe"
Edwin Hubble by A. Sandage
J.C. Kapteyn
Maria Mitchell
Alfred Wegener
Histories of institutions
Mainly physics
The Acoustical Society of America
The American Institute of Physics
American Association of Physics Teachers
Physics in Australia to1945
Physics in Italy (ASF)
Acoustical Society of America
Argonne National Lab
AVS society history
Bell Labs/Lucent
The Cavendish Lab, Cambridge
Caltech History (J. Goodstein)
Case Western Reserve Physics Dept. history
CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
Physics at Cornell
Hanford reactor site
Harvard Physics Department and Harvard University Cyclotrons
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory stories
Breaking Through: A Century of Physics at Berkeley
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Physics at Michigan Tech
Niels Bohr Institute (Copenhagen)
Nuclear physics at Notre Dame
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
History of Physics at Oxford
Physics at Wesleyan U.
History of Physics at Purdue
RAND corporation
Stanford Univ. Physics dept.
U.S. Science Policy and Early Cold War (W. Golden)
Weights and Measures, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology
More electrical/electronic corporations from IEEE
Astronomy/space science/geophysics
National Academy of Sciences
American Astronomical Society
National Aeronautics & Space Administration (and its labs)
Astronomy in Hawaii
U. Michigan Astronomy Dept. and Observatories
National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)
Paris Observatory
Royal Observatory, Greenwich
Uppsala Astronomical Observatory
Mt. Wilson Observatory
Yerkes Observatory
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
NOAA - oceans and weather
History of the National Weather Service
Picture sources
AIP's Emilio Segrè Visual Archives has the largest selection
Portraits of Physicists from Univ. of Frankfurt
Images of physicists on postage stamps
Gallery of Physicists from the University of Rio de Janeiro
Images of Physicists from University of California-Santa Barbara
The Scientific Instrument Commission's Online Register of Scientific Instruments
Caltech Archives PhotoNet
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Photos
NOAA photo archives (weather, oceans)
Nuclear Astrophysics Photo Archives
Old Astronomy Pictures ("DAHAP")
Royal Society of Chemistry (search for view image in free text)
General physics - General history
Got a physics question? Try Scientific American's "Ask the Experts" or ask a physics professor ("Dear Lou")
PsiGate has many annotated links in physics, astronomy, earth sciences, etc.
PhysLink calls itself the "ultimate physics resource"
The Physics Links page of the American Physical Society
Physics 2000 from the University of Colorado - learn using interactive animations
General History Links from the University of Kansas
History of Science Museum links (scientific instruments)
History of Physics Links and Other Physics Links by Net Advance of Physics - MIT
General history of science links, information
Virtual Center for Science, Technology, and Medicine (ECHO) has MANY LINKS in all areas
Science Studies Resources (Univ. of Missouri - Kansas City)
History of Science Guide from the History of Science Society
History of science community
Grants, meetings, and announcements
History of Science Society's Guide to people and programs
Join discussion on the H-Net Listserv for History of Science, Medicine, and Technology
Charles Babbage Institute - Center for the History of Information Processing (U. Minnesota)
Bakken Library for electricity and magnetism in life science and medicine
The Chemical Heritage Foundation, including the Othmer Library and Beckman Center for history of chemistry
IEEE History Center and its Newsletter
NASA History Office (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
Societies & committees
The History of Science Society is a rich resource for scholars. Membership Directory
The British Society for the History of Science
The American Physical Society's Forum on the History of Physics and its Newsletter
Institute of Physics (UK) History of Physics Group
The American Astronomical Society's Historical Astronomy Division and the International Astronomical Union's Commission 41: History of Astronomy
The American Geophysical Union's History of Geophysics Committee
German Commission on History of Geophysics
International Commission on History of Meteorology —
The Society for Social Studies of Science and its newsletter Technoscience
SHOT - Society for the History of Technology and its Newsletter
The IEEE's Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT)
ICOHTEC: International Committee for the History of Technology
The IUHPS Scientific Instrument Commission
Philosophy of Science Association
Archival resources
Our International Catalog of Sources for History of Physics and Allied Sciences
Our Physics History Finding Aids
The Online Archive of California
NACA/NASA Records at NARA
Oaister Open Archive harvester
U. Idaho's Repositories of Primary Sources lists thousands of Websites
Internet archival resources (from Tulane) lists major links that link onward to countless resources for archives and history
UNESCO's world archives portal
The Society of American Archivists
US National Archives & Records Administration
The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
Sources for History of Quantum Physics(Inventory of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics)
Inventory of Sources for History of Twentieth-Century Physics
Guide to Sources for Air & Space History (NASM)
Archives in the DC-MD-VA area near us
The British National Cataloguing Unit for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists and the Public Record Office
CASE List of European Scientific Archives
Archives of individual scientific institutions
American Philosophical Society Library
CalTech Archives and oral histories
Cambridge University Library Mss.
CERN Archives
CNRS Archives (in French)
Deutsches Museum Archives, Munich
The Einstein Papers Project (CalTech)
Albert Einstein Archives (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Einstein Archives Online
ETH Zurich (in German)
Lick Observatory Mary Lea Shane Archives
The Lincei Academy (Italian letter database)
Fermilab Archives
IEEE History Center interviews (many physicists)
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council Archives
National Air and Space Museum -- Space History
NASA records overview and details.
Niels Bohr Archive
Rockefeller Archive Center
Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives
Smithsonian Institution
University of California, San Diego, Mandeville Library
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Reports on materials in selected archives
From our Newsletter:
Agilent Technologies
American Philosophical Society Library
American Meteorogical Society Library and Archives
The AT&T Archives and History Center
The Bakken Library and Museum (Electricity and Biomedicine)
Bristol University
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge
Columbia University Archives
CSIRO
German Physical Society Archive
History of Science Archive at the Museum of Astronomy, Rio de Janeiro
Imperial College, London
Los Alamos National Laboratory
The Max Planck Society
MIT Institute Archives
National Academy of Sciences
National Center for Atmospheric Research
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Radium Institute, Paris
Smithsonian Institution Archives and oral history interviews
Strasbourg University
University of Albany, SUNY
University of Minnesota Library
University of Oklahoma Libraries
University of Chicago Library
US Presidential Libraries: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Harry S. Truman Library,Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, John F. Kennedy Library, Lyndon B. Johnson Library,Richard Nixon Library, Jimmy Carter Library, Ronald Reagan Library
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