Article ID: CBB000930036

Mystik and Technik: Arnold Sommerfeld and Early-Weimar Quantum Theory (2008)

unapi

Seth, Suman (Author)


Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Volume: 31
Pages: 331--352


Publication Date: 2008
Edition Details: Part of a symposium on “Revisiting the Forman Thesis”
Language: English

Mystik and Technik: Arnold Sommerfeld and Early-Weimar Quantum Theory. In his now-classic 1971 paper on physics and Weimar culture, Paul Forman cited the case of Munich's professor of theoretical physics, Arnold Sommerfeld, as a telling example of a respected physicist's linguistic adaptation to an antagonistic cultural milieu. Hardly known for his flights of fancy, Sommerfeld began to speak - in the period after the end of the First World War - of number-mysteries and their place in quantum spectroscopy. For Forman, this was evidence of the readiness of even a Sommerfeld to flirt with the very anti-scientific tendencies he deplored. Without denying the prevalence of talk of mysticism in popular discourse during the Weimar period, this paper suggests that one should see Sommerfeld's use of the term Mystik not as mere pandering to a hostile public, but as an integral part of the practice of his theoretical physics, what he termed the craft of the quantum (die Technik der Quanten). This paper, then, examines, first, the productive place of Mystik within Technik in early-Weimar quantum-theoretical research and, second, what Sommerfeld saw as the (lesser) alternative to his own Technik, Niels Bohr's gifted intermingling of the classical and quantum worlds through his principle of correspondence.

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Article Trischler, Helmuth; Carson, Cathryn; Kojevnikov, Alexei (2008) Beyond Weimar Culture -- Die Bedeutung der Forman-These für eine Wissenschaftsgeschichte in kulturhistorischer Perspektive. Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (p. 305). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000930036/

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Authors & Contributors
Seth, Suman
Eckert, Michael
Badino, Massimiliano
Banerjee, Somaditya
Carson, Cathryn L.
Duncan, Anthony
Journals
Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte
Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences
American Journal of Physics
European Physical Journal H
Historia Scientiarum: International Journal of the History of Science Society of Japan
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Publishers
Imperial College Press
MIT Press
Oxford University Press
Routledge
Springer
W. W. Norton & Co.
Concepts
Quantum mechanics
Physics
Science and culture
Science and society
Atomic, nuclear, and particle physics
History of science, as a discipline
People
Sommerfeld, Arnold Johannes Wilhelm
Forman, Paul
Bohr, Niels Henrik David
Pauli, Wolfgang Ernst
Bergson, Henri Louis
Bose, Satyendranath
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
Places
Germany
Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
Munich (Germany)
India
California (U.S.)
Japan
Institutions
Kyōto Daigaku (Kyoto University)
University of Tokyo
University of California, Berkeley
Munich. Universität
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