Hacking the quantum revolution: 1925–1975

Prestige Asymmetry in American Physics: Aspirations, Applications, and the Purloined Letter Effect

“…Since the mid-1970s, the Division of Condensed Matter Physics and the Division of Particles and Fields have been the two largest topical divisions of the America Physical Society (APS), the flagship professional organization for American physics, with the former hovering between 1.5 and 2 times the size of the latter. 2 Conceptually, both take as their central mission the task of applying one of the foundational physical theories-quantum mechanics-to matter and energy, with high energy physics claiming the realm of elementary particles and condensed matter physics focusing on complex matter, and a significant crosspollination has persisted between them (see James and Joas 2015;Schweber 2015). The distinction between these two types of research has also been institutionalized within the APS.…”

“…Both take as their central intellectual mission the application a foundational physical theory – quantum mechanics – to matter and energy. High energy physics claims the realm of elementary particles and condensed matter physics focuses on complex matter, and a significant crosspollination has persisted between them (James and Joas 2015; Schweber 2015). The distinction between these two types of research has been institutionalized within the APS.…”

Quantum Chemistry and the Quantum Revolution

“…The style of scientific reasoning we associate with the HT quantum revolution is characterized by the hierarchization of the microscopic physical world and quantum field theory is its language (Cao and Schweber 1993;Schweber 2015). The hierarchization has the property that to a high degree of approximation each level has associated with it an ontology and a dynamics; the dynamics specifies the interactions of the entities that constitute the building blocks of that level and governs the description of the temporal evolution of systems composed of these entities.…”