Related papers: Physicists and the 1945 Decision to Drop the Bomb
At the 1927 Solvay conference, three different theories of quantum mechanics were presented; however, the physicists present failed to reach a consensus. Today, many fundamental questions about quantum physics remain unanswered. One of the…
For over 40 years, physicists have considered possible uses for neutrino detectors in nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and fissile materials security. Neutrinos are an attractive fission signature because they readily pass through…
This is a copy of the 2007 report prepared by the DOE/NSF Nuclear Science Advisory Committee in response to the charge from DOE and NSF to "conduct a study of the opportunities and priorities for U.S. nuclear physics research and recommend…
The experimental revolution in ultracold atomic gas physics over the past decades have brought tremendous amounts of new insight to the world of degenerate quantum systems. Here we compare and constrast the developments of cold atomic gases…
Nuclear fission energy is considered to be somewhere between the holy grail, required to solve all energy worries of the human industrialized civilization, and a fast path directly to hell. Discussions about future energy sources and the…
Nuclear forces and the nuclear many-body problem have been some of Gerry Brown's main topics in his so productive life as a theoretical physicist. In this talk, I outline how Gerry's work laid the foundations of the modern theory of nuclear…
The procedure used to "do physics" in the macroscopic world is familiar: You take an object, start it off with a particular position and velocity, subject it to known forces (say gravity or friction, or both), and follow its trajectory. You…
In 1907, Einstein suggested an experiment with flying atoms for corroborating time dilation. In that paper, the flying atom was conceived as a flying clock: the reference to the Doppler effect was only indirect (the experiments by Stark to…
The Super-bomb issue contained two problems: feasibility of physical engineering and political need to get H-bomb ASAP. And there were two radically different assessments of these problems by outstanding physicists Hans Bethe and Edward…
The fundamental knowledge on neutrinos acquired in the recent years open the possibility of applied neutrino physics. Among it the automatic and non intrusive monitoring of nuclear reactor by its antineutrino signal could be very valuable…
Today the applications of nuclear physics span a very broad range of topics and fields. This review discusses a number of aspects of these applications, including selected topics and concepts in nuclear reactor physics, nuclear fusion,…
In recent years, the italian theoretical Nuclear Physics community has played a leading role in the development of a unified approach, allowing for a consistent and fully quantitative description of the nuclear response to electromagnetic…
Physics of radioactive nuclear beams is one of the main frontiers of nuclear science today. Experimentally, thanks to technological developments, we are on the verge of invading the territory of extreme N/Z ratios in an unprecedented way.…
Fusion energy is often regarded as a long-term solution to the world's energy needs. However, even after solving the critical research challenges, engineering and materials science will still impose significant constraints on the…
The Bohr and von Neumann views on the measurement process in quantum mechanics have been interpreted for a long time in somewhat controversial terms, often leading to misconceptions. On the basis of some textual analysis, I would like to…
Even if Einstein brought major contributions as a founder of quantum mechanics, he remained deeply unsatisfied with the bases of this structure he knew to be so efficient for physics. His critics are often known through his numerous…
Discussion of the nuclear force, lead by a round table consisting of T. Cohen, E. Epelbaum, R. Machleidt, and F. Gross (chair). After an invited talk by Machleidt, published elsewhere in these proceedings, brief remarks are made by…
Nuclear reactors have served as the antineutrino source for many fundamental physics experiments. The techniques developed by these experiments make it possible to use these very weakly interacting particles for a practical purpose. The…
This essay gives a short, informal account of the development of digital logic from the Pleistocene to the Manhattan Project, the introduction of reversible circuits, and Richard Feynman's allied proposal for quantum computing. We argue…
From an astronomical and relativistic point of view, the Great War began with the August, 1914 capture and imprisonment of the members of a German eclipse expedition that had gone to the Crimea to look, at the request of Einstein, for…