Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics: Part B of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

Edited by:
  • Jeremy Butterfield,
  • Peter Gallison &
  • Michael Redhead
Pergamon. 4/yr. NFl523 pp.,$300

The history and philosophy of science were once largely the domain of former physicists. These were almost exclusively men who, before or after a career as research physicists, decided they could put their very considerable knowledge to other ends. Over the years, however, the profession gradually changed. More conventional historiography began to be heard, women entered the field, sciences other than physics began to be considered, and viewpoints such as social constructivism began to raise their (now much-maligned) heads. But, as all physicists know, the pendulum swings both ways. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (SHPMP) is a triumphant return to the good old days.

In these pages there is no squishy biology, no feminist revisionism, no (well, almost no) social construction. This is hard-core internal history and philosophy of modern physics (essentially twentieth-century, although the prospectus allows modern to mean anything after the mid-nineteenth century). Relativity and quantum mechanics reign supreme.

Of course, the broad outlines of those histories are well known, but there are always new details and considerations to bring to light. Equations are a plus, or at least not a minus. It's heavy-going, and don't bother even to try reading it if you haven't taken your graduate courses in physics. But if you have a taste for this sort of thing, and if you've felt a little dispossessed since, say, the 1950s, you may just have found a new home.

In the Alice in Wonderland world of scholarly publishing, SHPMP does fill a void. Not for the readers, who are more or less irrelevant, but for authors, who need an outlet for this kind of material. The idea is that scholars get paid and promoted by their employers, the universities, provided that they can find someone to publish their material, so the universities can buy back for their libraries the scholarly output they paid for in the first place. Why all this works is a mystery, but it does, and SHPMP will fit right in.

The articles have a uniformity of style that indicates careful editing. The scholarly machinery is exquisite, with footnotes (in small type) often occupying more space than the text (in larger type). The content returns physics solidly to centre-stage, and deals with ideas and equations, not flesh and blood. Articles of up to 10,000 words — or even more in special circumstances — are accepted. If that's what you've been looking for, look no further. This is a journal that says: at the end of the twentieth century, physics still matters.