Stephen Brush

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Stephen G. Brush (born February 12, 1935 ) is an American physicist and historian of science.

Life

Brush studied physics and chemistry at Harvard University ( Bachelor 1955) and Oxford University , where he received his doctorate in 1958 . He has been Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park since 1968 , currently as Distinguished Professor for the History of Science.

Since the 1960s, Brush has been one of the leading historians of science in the field of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, but also, for example, geophysics (history of the planetesimal theory of the formation of planets, the discovery of the earth's core through seismic waves, the theories of the origin of the moon , Theories of the Age of the Earth). His work on the history of thermodynamics began in 1957/58 in a series of articles in Annals of Science ( Development of the kinetic theory of gases ), when he referred to forgotten forerunners of kinetic theory such as John Herapath and John James Waterston (who was in one of the Royal Society rejected work in 1845 formulating the Equal Distribution Theorem). In 1964 he published the lectures of Ludwig Boltzmann on gas theory in English translation and he also published several reprint volumes with classical works from statistical mechanics .

In the 2000s, he was particularly concerned with interdisciplinary studies on the question of why scientific theories such as the theory of relativity or Mendeleev's Periodic System of the Elements prevailed.

Brush himself worked in statistical mechanics and plasma physics in the 1950s and 1960s, including at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory . He is a proponent of using the history of physics in the teaching of schools and was involved in developing a project at Harvard.

For his book The Kind of Motion We Call Heat from 1976 he received the Pfizer Award for best book on the history of science.

In 2009 he received the Abraham Pais Prize for the History of Science from the American Physical Society , of which he became a Fellow in 1977. In 1981 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . He is the founder and co-editor of the APS History of Physics newsletter. He was President of the History of Science Society and is a member of the Academie Internationale d´Histoire des Sciences in Paris.

Fonts

On the history of statistical mechanics:

  • Kinetic theory. Introduction and original texts. Akademie Verlag, WTB, Berlin 1970, Volume 1, Die Natur der Gase und der Wärme (excerpts from works by Robert Boyle , Isaac Newton , Daniel Bernoulli , George Gregory , Robert Mayer , James Prescott Joule , James Clerk Maxwell , Rudolf Clausius , Hermann von Helmholtz with commentary by Brush), Volume 2, Irreversible Processes (excerpts from works by Maxwell, Lord Kelvin , Boltzmann, Henri Poincaré , Ernst Zermelo ), English original:
  • Kinetic Theory. Oxford, Pergamon Press, Volume 1 (The nature of gases and of heat), 1965, Volume 2 (Irreversible Processes), 1966, Volume 3, The Chapman-Enskog Theory of the transport equation of moderately dense gases (work by David Enskog , Sydney Chapman , David Hilbert ), 1972
  • The Kind of Motion We Call Heat - A History of the Kinetic Theory of Gases in the 19th Century. North Holland 1976, 2 volumes
  • Statistical Physics and the Atomic Theory of Matter from Boyle and Newton to Landau and Onsager. Princeton University Press, 1983
  • The Kinetic Theory of Gases - An Anthology of Classical Papers with Commentary. Imperial College Press 2003
  • History of the Lenz-Ising Model. In: Reviews of Modern Physics , Volume 39, 1967, p. 883
  • Editor with Elizabeth Garber, CWF Everitt: Maxwell on Molecules and Gases. MIT Press 1986 (from Maxwell's scientific correspondence)
  • Editor with Garber, Everitt: Maxwell on Heat and Statistical Mechanics, on Avoiding All "Personal Inquiries" of Molecules. Lehigh University Press 1995

On the history of geophysics:

  • Theories of Origins of the Solar System 1956–1985. In: Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 62, 1990, pp. 42-112
  • A History of Modern Planetary Physics. 3 volumes, Cambridge University Physics 1995
  • Discovery of the Earth's Core. In: American Journal of Physics , Volume 48, 1980, p. 705
  • with Helmut Landsberg : History of Geophysics and Meteorology - an annotated bibliography. New York, Garland 1985
  • with CS Gillmor: Geophysics. In: Brown, Pais, Pippard (editors): Twentieth Century Physics. IOP 1995

On the history of science:

  • with Gerald Holton : Introduction to Concepts and Theories in the Physical Sciences. 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley 1973 (New edition of Holton's book from 1952), Princeton University Press 1985, 3rd edition as: Physics. the human adventure, from Copernicus to Einstein and beyond. Rutgers University Press 2001, ISBN 0-8135-2908-5
  • The History of Modern Science. A Guide to the Second Scientific Revolution 1800-1950. Iowa State University Press 1988
  • The temperature of the story. Scientific and cultural phases in the 19th century. Vieweg 1987 (English original The temperature of history. New York, Franklin 1978)
  • Editor: Maxwell on Saturns Rings. Maxwell's Unpublished Manuscripts and Letters on the Stability of Saturn's Rings. MIT Press 1983
  • with Lanfranco Belloni: The History of Modern Physics. An Annotated Bibliography. New York, Garland 1983
  • Editor: History of Physics. Selected reprints. American Association of Physics Teachers, College Park 1988

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ continued into the 1970s
  2. ↑ In 1972 he published Herapath's collected works
personal data
SURNAME Brush, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brush, Stephen G.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian of science
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1935