David Kaiser
Encyclopedia
David Kaiser is an American physicist and historian of science. He is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and department head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
's program in Science, Technology, and Society. He is also a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics.
He is the author or editor of several books on the history of science, including Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (2005), and How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (2011). He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society
, in 2010.
Kaiser completed his AB in physics at Dartmouth College
(1993), and obtained two PhDs from Harvard University
, one in physics (1997) and one in the history of science (2000).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
's program in Science, Technology, and Society. He is also a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics.
He is the author or editor of several books on the history of science, including Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (2005), and How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (2011). He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society
American Physical Society
The American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
, in 2010.
Kaiser completed his AB in physics at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
(1993), and obtained two PhDs from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, one in physics (1997) and one in the history of science (2000).
Works
- (ed.)
- (ed.) Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision. MIT Press, 2010. ISBN 9780262113236
- American Physics and the Cold War Bubble. University of Chicago Press, forthcoming.
- "Short Cuts", The London Review of Books, Vol. 33 No. 16 · 25 August 2011
Reviews
- Wisnioski, Matthew. "Let's Be Fysiksists Again", Science, vol 332, issue 6037, 24 June 2011.
- Johnson, George. "What Physics Owes the Counterculture", The New York Times, June 17, 2011.
Further reading
- "How the Hippies Saved Physics (Excerpt)", Scientific American, June 27, 2011.
- Gusterson, Hugh. "Physics: Quantum outsiders", Nature, 476, 278–279, August 18, 2011.
- Kaiser, David. "Lecture: How the Hippies Saved Physics", WGBH PBS, April 28, 2010.