Spencer R. Weart
Spencer R. Weart (born 1942) is the former director of the Center for History of Physics of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) from 1971 until his retirement in 2009.
Life
Originally trained as a physicist, he is now a historian of science.[1] He earned his B.A. in Physics at Cornell University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1968. He then did postdoctoral studies at the Hale Observatories and California Institute of Technology, publishing papers on solar physics; from 1971 to 1974 he studied history of science in the University of California, Berkeley. While directing the AIP Center for History of Physics he taught courses at Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University.
Interviews
He conducted oral history interviews of many physical scientists, particularly astrophysicists such as Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1977)[2] and climate scientists such as Wallace Broecker (1997).[3]
Works
He has produced numerous historical articles and two children's science books and written or co-edited eleven other books,[4] including the following:
- Scientists in Power (1979). A history of the rise of nuclear science, weapons, and reactors in France. Template:ISBN[5][6]
- as editor with Gertrud Weiss Szilard: Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts (1978). Edited correspondence. Template:ISBN[7]
- Nuclear Fear: A History of Images (1989) Template:ISBN[8]
- as editor with Lillian Hoddeson, Ernest Braun & Jürgen Teichmann: Out of the Crystal Maze: Chapters from the History of Solid State Physics (1992). Template:ISBN[9]
- Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another (1998). Template:ISBN
- The Discovery of Global Warming (2003, 2008). Online extended version. Template:ISBN
- The Rise of Nuclear Fear (2012). Template:ISBN
While at AIP he also produced and edited an award-winning website with historical exhibits.
References
External links
- AIP list of Spencer Weart's publications
- History that Matters: Spencer Weart
- Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics citation
- History of Physics website with exhibits edited by Spencer Weart
- Bright Idea: The First Lasers (laser history; text by Spencer Weart)
Archival collections
Template:US-sci-historian-stub
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- ↑ Weart's list of publications
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- Pages with broken file links
- 21st-century American historians
- 21st-century American male writers
- 21st-century American physicists
- 1942 births
- Living people
- Nuclear weapons policy
- Nuclear history of the United States
- American historians of science
- Cornell University alumni
- University of Colorado Boulder alumni
- American male non-fiction writers
- Pages with script errors