Max Jammer

Max Jammer ( Moshe Jammer, born April 13, 1915 in Berlin, † December 18, 2010 in Jerusalem ) was a German-born Israeli physicist, science historian and philosopher.

Life and work

Jammer After leaving school in 1932 physics, mathematics and philosophy at the University of Vienna and from 1935 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he received his diploma in 1936 and his doctorate in 1942 with a physical experimental work. During World War II he was in the British Army and then was a lecturer in the History of Science and Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew University. In 1952 he became a lecturer at Harvard University ( at that time he also had close contact with Albert Einstein at Princeton ) and later at the University of Oklahoma and Boston University. In 1959 he became professor of physics and chairman of the physics faculty at the newly founded Bar -Ilan University in Israel, where he was rector in 1962 and 1967-1968 President of the University. He was also co-founder of the Institute of Philosophy of Science at Tel Aviv University. He has been a visiting professor at the ETH Zurich, the University of Göttingen, Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris, Catholic University of America in Washington, DC

Since his first book "Concepts of Space" ( Concepts of Space) 1954 Jammer is for fundamental studies of the important concepts of physics ( space, energy and force, mass, foundations of quantum mechanics, simultaneity ) under both physical as well as under historical and philosophical known aspects. He wrote about each highly regarded monographs, appreciated by both philosophers and historians of science. To this end, he held talks with many important pioneers of modern physics ( such as David Bohm, Paul Dirac, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, Louis de Broglie and Pascual Jordan ).

In 2007 he received the Abraham Pais Prize for Physics historian. He also received the Israel Prize in 1984 and 2003, the Israeli EMET Prize. For his book "Einstein and Religion ", he received a book prize of the Templeton Foundation. He received the prize for monographs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Writings

  • The problem of space - The development of theories of space, University Press, Darmstadt, 2nd expanded edition 1980, English original: Concepts of Space: The History of Theories of Space in Physics. Cambridge ( Mass. ): Harvard University Press, 1954; New York: Harper, 1960; 2nd edition, Harvard U.P., 1969; 3rd edition New York: Dover, 1993, ISBN 0-486-27119-6. . ( Foreword by Albert Einstein)
  • The concept of mass in physics, University Press, Darmstadt 1964 English Original: Concepts of Mass in Classical and Modern Physics. Cambridge ( Mass. ): Harvard UP, 1961 New York: Harper, 1964 New York: Dover, 1997, ISBN 0-486-29998-8.
  • The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics. New York: McGraw -Hill, 1966; 2nd ed: New York: American Institute of Physics, 1989, ISBN 0-88318-617-9.
  • The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics: The Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics in Historical Perspective. New York: Wiley- Interscience, 1974, ISBN 0-471-43958-4.
  • Einstein and Religion: Physics and Theology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999 ISBN 0 - 691-10297 -X.
  • Concepts of Simultaneity: From Antiquity to Einstein and Beyond. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006 ISBN 0-8018-8422-5.
  • Energy, in Donald Borchert (ed.): Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol 3, Thomson Gale, 2nd edition 2005
Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics
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