Oral history interview with Rudolf Ernst Peierls, 1981 May 13 and July.

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Oral history interview with Rudolf Ernst Peierls, 1981 May 13 and July.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/79980606

Solid state physics in its early days in Arnold Sommerfeld's and Werner Heisenberg's groups, where Peierls was a student in the late 1920s. Sommerfeld's group compared to Heisenberg's group; interaction between experimentalists and theoreticans in Germany, in England and in the U.S.; Peierls' thesis work on heat conductivity in non-metallic crystals (suggested by Wolfgang Pauli), done in Zurich in 1920 and defended at Universität Leipzig; the application of the Heilter-London approach in other works (especially Felix Bloch, Arnold Sommerfeld); attempt to state the first use of names and concepts: energy bands, theory of solid bodies; the periods of optimism in the history of physics; the "accidental" change of fields because of Nazism (Hans Bethe). Significant papers on absorption spectra, diamagnetism, phase changes and statistical foundations, published in the 1930s: reasons for selecting these topics; inspirational contributions in the work; responses; associated circumstances and events. Lev Landau and his work also discussed at length.

Session one transcript, 22 pp., session two preliminary transcript.

American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library

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SNAC Resource ID: 8238337

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Universität Leipzig.

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Bethe, Hans A. (Hans Albrecht), 1906-2005

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Physicist. From the description of Hans Albrecht Bethe oral histories, 1966-1981. (Cornell University Library). WorldCat record id: 63935483 Alsatian-born American physicist, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize for physics. From the description of Typed letter signed : Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, to Samuel Goudsmit, 1936 June 6. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 270953107 Unpublished document written as chapter 13 of the Smyth Report. Letters about it ...

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Peierls Rudolf E. (Rudolf Ernst), 1907-1995

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Theoretical physics (quantum theory of solids of electro-magnetic fields and of the solid nucleus; World War II work on atomic energy). Affiliations include: 1925, Berlin University as student of physics; 1926 transferred to University of Munich, Department of Theoretical Physics (A. Sommerfeld); 1928 transferred to Leipzig University, Department of Theoretical Physics (W. Heisenberg); and in 1929 to the Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (W. Pauli). 1929, Ph.D., Leipzig. Fall 1929 to Fall ...

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