The Physicist's Conception of Nature

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XXIV

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2. Development of the Physicist’s Conception of Nature

   1. Development of the Physicist’s Conception of Nature

      • P. A. M. Dirac

      Pages 1-14

3. Space, Time, and Geometry

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

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   2. The Universe as a Whole

      • Dennis W. Sciama

      Pages 17-33

   3. A Chapter in the Astrophysicist’s View of the Universe

      • S. Chandrasekhar

      Pages 34-44

   4. Fundamental Constants and Their Development in Time

      • P. A. M. Dirac

      Pages 45-59

   5. The Expanding Earth

      • Pascual Jordan

      Pages 60-70

   6. The Nature and Structure of Spacetime

      • Jürgen Ehlers

      Pages 71-91

   7. Einstein, Hilbert, and the Theory of Gravitation

      • Jagdish Mehra

      Pages 92-178

   8. Theory of Gravitation

      • Andrzej Trautman

      Pages 179-201

   9. From Relativity to Mutability

      • John Archibald Wheeler

      Pages 202-247

4. Quantum Theory

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 249-249

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   2. The Wave-Particle Dilemma

      • Léon Rosenfeld

      Pages 251-263

   3. Development of Concepts in the History of Quantum Theory

      • Werner Heisenberg

      Pages 264-275

   4. From Matrix Mechanics and Wave Mechanics to Unified Quantum Mechanics

      • B. L. van der Waerden

      Pages 276-293

   5. Early Years of Quantum Mechanics: Some Reminiscences

      • Pascual Jordan

      Pages 294-299

   6. The Mathematical Structure of Elementary Quantum Mechanics

      • Josef M. Jauch

      Pages 300-319

   7. Relativistic Equations in Quantum Mechanics

      • Eugene P. Wigner

      Pages 320-330

   8. The Electron: Development of the First Elementary Particle Theory

      • Fritz Rohrlich

      Pages 331-369

   9. The Development of Quantum Field Theory

      • Rudolf E. Peierls

      Pages 370-379

The fundamental conceptions of twentieth-century physics have profoundly influenced almost every field of modern thought and activity. Quantum Theory, Relativity, and the modern ideas on the Structure of Matter have contributed to a deeper understand­ ing of Nature, and they will probably rank in history among the greatest intellectual achievements of all time. The purpose of our symposium was to review, in historical perspective, the current horizons of the major conceptual structures of the physics of this century. Professors Abdus Salam and Hendrik Casimir, in their remarks at the opening of the symposium, have referred to its origin and planning. Our original plan was to hold a two-week symposium on the different aspects of five principal themes: 1. Space, Time and Geometry (including the structure of the universe and the theory of gravita­ tion),2. Quantum Theory (including the development of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory), 3. Statistical Description of Nature (including the discussion of equilibrium and non-equilibrium phenomena, and the application of these ideas to the evolution of biological structure), 4. The Structure of Matter (including the discus­ sion, in a unified perspective, of atoms, molecules, nuclei, elementary particles, and the physics of condensed matter), and finally, 5. Physical Description and Epistemo­ logy (including the distinction between classical and quantum descriptions, and the epistemological and philosophical problems raised by them).

• Albert Einstein
• electrodynamics
• field theory
• geometry
• mechanics
• molecule
• particle physics
• physics
• quantum field theory
• quantum mechanics
• quantum theory
• relativity
• statistical physics
• theory of relativity
• universe

• The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA

  Jagdish Mehra

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