#PhysicsHistory
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drnereide.bsky.social
Long before spacetime curvature became mainstream #physics, a visionary 19th-century mathematician and his promoter were already chasing the same wild intuition — and one of them even sailed into a shipwreck trying to catch it in the act.

⚛️ 🧪 #GeneralRelativity #HistSci #PhysicsHistory

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johncarlosbaez.bsky.social John C. Baez @johncarlosbaez.bsky.social · Jan 11
In 1869, long before Einstein, the famous mathematician Sylvester announced that Clifford - the Clifford algebra guy - was studying whether space is curved!

Clifford's mission to study this was almost thwarted by a shipwreck. But that didn't stop him!

johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2026/01/10/s...
Sylvester and Clifford on Curved Space
Einstein realized that gravity is due to the curvature of spacetime, but let’s go back earlier: On the 18th of August 1869, the eminent mathematician Sylvester gave a speech arguing that geom…
johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com
January 13, 2026 at 9:27 AM
zlatko-minev.bsky.social
Quantum mechanics turns 100, and it all started with a 23-year-old Heisenberg on a hay fever retreat! What inspires you most about this extraordinary revolution in physics?

#Quantum100 #PhysicsHistory
How quantum mechanics emerged in a few revolutionary months 100 years ago
It began with concerns about the orbits used to explain the motion of electrons in atoms — but quantum theory ended up upending reality itself.
www.nature.com
January 12, 2025 at 1:36 PM
apsphysics.aps.org
#OTD in 1948, the now-famous “alpha-beta-gamma” paper explained how conditions after the #BigBang could explain the origin of hydrogen and helium.

Learn more about the paper, and how it got its tongue-in-cheek name: aps.org/apsnews/2008...

#PhysicsHistory
An ultraviolet image from NASA GALEX space telescope, showing two companion galaxies surrounded by purple swirls of cool hydrogen gas.
April 1, 2025 at 7:48 PM
apsphysics.aps.org
150 years ago this month, Edward Bouchet made history as the first Black man to earn a doctorate in #physics in the United States, specializing in #ExperimentalPhysics at Yale.

Learn more about his life and legacy: https://go.aps.org/3Q4rOCG

#PhysicsHistory
Black and white portrait of Edward Bouchet circa 1912. Bouchet is wearing a dark, three-piece suit. A portrait photograph of Edward Bouchet. He is wearing a suit and sitting down, looking off to the right of the camera. The photo is cropped to an oval shape and on a cream colored background with a hand-written caption at the bottom reading “Edward H. Bouchet, New Haven.”
June 19, 2026 at 12:00 PM
cinquewnews.bsky.social
BOMB
Oppenheimer: Science, Power and Moral Conflict
cinquewnews.blogspot.com/2026/04/oppe... #Oppenheimer #ScienceAndPower #MoralConflict #AtomicAge #ColdWarEra #LosAlamos #NuclearHistory #ScientificResponsibility #WarAndEthics #PhysicsHistory
Oppenheimer: Science, Power and Moral Conflict
A gripping biography of Oppenheimer explores science, ethics, and the legacy of the atomic bomb in a world still shaped by his choices.
cinquewnews.blogspot.com
April 4, 2026 at 10:00 AM
history.aip.org
Physics is just boring math? 📚 Our shelves suggest otherwise.
From music and meteorology to art, religion, design, science fiction, and the history of ideas, the history of physics reaches far beyond equations.
#HistoryOfScience #PhysicsHistory #LibraryLife #Archives #ScienceBooks #NBLA
June 26, 2026 at 8:16 PM
feynmanbro7.bsky.social
🧵 The story of the discovery of the electron by J.J. Thomson in 1897. 🧪 #Physics #PhysicsHistory #History
December 21, 2024 at 4:25 PM
michaeledward.bsky.social
In May of 1618, astronomer Johannes Kepler laid out a music of the spheres in his 1619 treatise, Harmonices Mundi, suggesting that the planets of the solar system produced tones as they orbited the sun. Discover more in #PhysicsHistory: go.aps.org/2WL4Tzm.
May 28, 2024 at 9:09 PM
history.aip.org
Check out our blog to see even more photos of the amazing women in Olivia Campbell's recent book "Sisters in Science: How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History." https://bit.ly/4rzo0uM
#WomeninSTEM #PhysicsHistory #Archives
Hedwig Kohn (back row, on left) possibly with family or on a school trip enjoying a sunny day at the beach with cliffs in the background. 1911 A historical black-and-white photo of a group of people, including Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and Hertha Sponer on the far right, standing in front of Göttingen Institute. Some are dressed in suits, while others are in more casual attire, and they display a range of expressions and poses. Group photo of the physicists featuring Niels Bohr at a “Bonzenfreie Kolloquium” (which translates to “Colloquium Without Bigwigs”) organized for him by Lise Meitner in Dahlem near Berlin, Germany. Left to right: Otto Stern, Wilhelm Lenz, James Franck, Rudolph Ladenburg, Paul Knipping, Niels Bohr, Ernst Wagner, Otto von Baeyer, Otto Hahn, George de Hevesy, Lise Meitner (only woman), Wilhelm Westphal, Hans Geiger, Gustav Hertz and Peter Pringsheim.
December 8, 2025 at 6:11 PM
brightfieldpress.bsky.social
Who are the people behind the laws of nature? Discover their ambition, doubt, and curiosity in “Listening to the Silence” — a short read by Jeff Iverson. Read here: wix.to/zsn3SE3 #Physics #Science #HistoryOfScience #ArchitectsOfTheInvisible #PhysicsHistory
Listening to the Silence: The Human Story Behind the Laws of Nature
Physics is a long conversation with the invisible—the human attempt to understand forces we cannot touch and structures we cannot see. This volume presents the history of people who sensed patterns be...
wix.to
February 21, 2026 at 1:32 AM
tabmcleod.bsky.social
Not your father's #physics anymore.

#Science #physicsHistory

www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore
The fundamental nature of living things challenges assumptions that physicists have held for centuries.
www.theatlantic.com
December 16, 2025 at 12:14 AM
erwin-ott.web.app
5/10: In physics, the paper traces paradigm shifts from Newtonian mechanics to quantum theory, highlighting their discursive nature. These shifts reflect power struggles over defining physical reality, not just empirical progress. #PhysicsHistory #ParadigmShift
July 28, 2025 at 8:40 AM
brightfieldpress.bsky.social
From Newton’s clockwork to symmetry and statistics — The Symphony of Patterns spotlights Maxwell, Noether, Meitner and the thinkers who reframed modern reality. Short read: wix.to/gUnWF7M #SciComm #Physics #HistoryOfScience #ArchitectsOfTheInvisible #PhysicsHistory
The Symphony of Patterns: Order, Entropy, and the Architects of Modern Reality
The third volume of Architects of the Invisible explores the profound shift from the certainties of Newtonian mechanics to the statistical and symmetrical beauty of the modern age. By documenting the ...
wix.to
February 21, 2026 at 4:57 AM
brightfieldpress.bsky.social
New essay: The Giants of Certainty and the Architects of the Unknown — a concise exploration of the people and moments that reshaped science. Read it here: wix.to/rQrPD6I #SciComm #HistoryOfScience #Physics #ArchitectsOfTheInvisible #PhysicsHistory #QuantumRevolution
The Giants of Certainty and the Architects of the Unknown
The transition from the visible world to the invisible laws that govern it was not a single leap, but a series of hard-won insights by individuals who refused to stop asking 'why.' From Heisenberg’s u...
wix.to
February 21, 2026 at 3:24 AM
apsphysics.aps.org
In June 1980, Vera Rubin and Kent Ford showed stars in 21 spiral galaxies weren’t slowing down as expected — key evidence for #DarkMatter. Today, the @vrubinobs.bsky.social continues that work, mapping the universe’s hidden structure: https://go.aps.org/3CUASai

#PhysicsHistory
Vera Rubin, wearing a black shirt and black-framed glasses, is smiling while adjusting equipment using Kitt Peak National Observatory's 36-inch telescope with Kent Ford's image tube spectrograph attached. A long-exposure night photograph of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. On the right, the large, cylindrical observatory dome appears blurred, capturing its rotation during operation. The left side of the image features a brilliant, starry night sky dominated by the glowing band of the Milky Way galaxy and the distinct, cloudy smudge of the Large Magellanic Cloud. In the far background, dark, rolling mountain ridges sit beneath a faint atmospheric glow on the horizon. Credit to NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/W. O'Mullane. Black and white photograph of astronomer Vera Rubin seated at a desk, looking through a large measuring engine microscope used to analyze astronomical plates. Credit to AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, Rubin Collection.
June 8, 2026 at 1:12 PM
feynmanbro7.bsky.social
OTD, Albert Einstein published his groundbreaking paper on the Quantum Theory of Light. This paper introduced the concept that light could be described as discrete packets of energy called quanta or photons, which he later won the Nobel Prize for🧪
#Physics #PhysicsHistory #Einstein #NobelPrize
December 23, 2024 at 10:16 PM
apsphysics.aps.org
This month in #PhysicsHistory: Using Japan's Super-Kamiokande detector, scientists found neutrinos have mass, overturning a longstanding assumption about these “ghost particles.”

Read more in #APSNews: https://go.aps.org/4qDbBpD
A group of researchers in a control room celebrate, clapping and raising their arms, as the Super-Kamiokande detector resumes data collection. A credit to Kamioka Observatory, ICRR (Institute for Cosmic Ray Research), The University of Tokyo is written in white in the bottom left corner.
August 30, 2026 at 12:35 PM
brightfieldpress.bsky.social
How did lasers, transistors and atomic physics steer us toward the cosmic dawn? Read “The Final Frontier” — a 3-minute piece on the scientists who rewrote reality. wix.to/2htmvfJ #science #cosmology #history
#ArchitectsOfTheInvisible #PhysicsHistory #QuantumMechanics
The Final Frontier: From the Cold War to the Cosmic Dawn
The final volume of Architects of the Invisible marks the era where humanity moved from observing nature to manipulating its most fundamental building blocks. From the laser to the transistor, and fro...
wix.to
February 21, 2026 at 3:02 PM
cronologia.bsky.social
For a long time, the Higgs boson's mass looked out of reach. Maurizio Biasini helped change that. Born in 1967, he's a physicist and researcher at the University of Perugia, and he co-authored studies that measured the Higgs mass. #physicshistory #MaurizioBiasini #HiggsBoson #CERN #particlephysics
Historical image of researcher
September 17, 2026 at 9:23 AM
freegardener.bsky.social
Quantum mechanics has two faces—Heisenberg’s matrices and Schrödinger’s waves—but John von Neumann revealed they’re one: quantum states #QuantumMechanics #HilbertSpace #PhysicsHistory #ScienceFacts

https://freegardner.wordpress.com/2026/08/27/quantum-states-live-in-hilbert-space/
Quantum states live in Hilbert space
Quantum states live in Hilbert space
freegardner.wordpress.com
August 26, 2026 at 10:40 PM
cronologia.bsky.social
Communist Czechoslovakia kept its scientists on a tight ideological leash. According to the records, Miloš Lokajícek worked as a physicist and university teacher through all those years. #ColdWar #PhysicsHistory #Communism
Historical image of physics
August 20, 2026 at 9:43 AM
history.aip.org
Carl A. Rouse would have been 100 years old #OTD 🎂

📷 Lorraine Moxley-Rouse and Carl Rouse in at home in Del Mar, California. AIP ESVA.

📷 Carl Rouse at his home office, seated in front of the PC he uses to access the San Diego Supercomputer Center. AIP ESVA

#PhysicsHistory #STEMLegacy
Informal portrait of Carl Rouse and his wife, Lorraine, sitting outside their Del Mar home. Portrait of Carl Rouse at the computer in his home office, which connects to the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
July 14, 2026 at 9:44 PM
thedailyhistorian.bsky.social
The most influential ideas can emerge from brief and simple arguments. How many breakthroughs begin with a single question that pushes past what feels familiar?

Follow the page for more history!

#AlbertEinstein #AnnalenDerPhysik #HistoryOfScience #Relativity #PhysicsHistory #ScientificMilestones
The popular connection between Einstein, the equation E = mc2, and the atomic bomb was prominently indicated on the cover of Time magazine in July 1946.
November 21, 2025 at 8:16 PM
scottimmordino.bsky.social
#OnThisDay in 1912, Alfred Wegener said all seven continents were once a single landmass.

He theorized that Pangaea slowly drifted apart over millions of years. His theory of continental drift confirmed by plate tectonics in the 1960s.
www.aps.org/archives/pub...

#PhysicsHistory
This Month in Physics History
APS Archives
www.aps.org
January 8, 2025 at 1:54 AM
jonathantaylor.bsky.social
Hot physics take: Max Planck did more to advance physics than Albert Einstein.

#physics #hottake #science #quantumphysics #physicshistory #physicsdevelopment
January 27, 2025 at 1:47 PM