Thomas Levenson is an American academic, science writer and documentary film-maker. As of 2012 [update] , he is Professor of Science Writing and director of the graduate program in science writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has written six books: Ice Time: Climate, Science and Life on Earth; Measure for Measure: A Musical History of Science; Einstein in Berlin; [1] The Hunt for Vulcan: And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe (shortlisted for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize 2016); [2] Newton and the Counterfeiter [3] [4] [5] and Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich.
He also writes articles and reviews for newspapers and magazines.
Levenson's father was Joseph R. Levenson, a professor of history at University of California, Berkeley. [6]
He earned his bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard University.
He is married and lives in Massachusetts with his wife and son.
Gilbert Newton Lewis was an American physical chemist and a dean of the College of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley. Lewis was best known for his discovery of the covalent bond and his concept of electron pairs; his Lewis dot structures and other contributions to valence bond theory have shaped modern theories of chemical bonding. Lewis successfully contributed to chemical thermodynamics, photochemistry, and isotope separation, and is also known for his concept of acids and bases. Lewis also researched on relativity and quantum physics, and in 1926 he coined the term "photon" for the smallest unit of radiant energy.
Vulcan was a theorized planet that some pre-20th century astronomers thought existed in an orbit between Mercury and the Sun. Speculation about, and even purported observations of, intermercurial bodies or planets date back to the beginning of the 17th century. The case for their probable existence was bolstered by the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier who, by 1859, had confirmed unexplained peculiarities in Mercury's orbit and predicted they had to be the result of gravitational influences of another unknown nearby planet or series of asteroids. A French amateur astronomer's report that he had observed an object passing in front of the Sun that same year led Le Verrier to announce that the long sought after planet, which he gave the name Vulcan, had been discovered at last.
Paul Ehrenfest was an Austrian theoretical physicist, who made major contributions to the field of statistical mechanics and its relations with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition and the Ehrenfest theorem. He bonded with Albert Einstein on a visit to Prague in 1912 and became a professor in Leiden, where he frequently hosted Einstein.
Alan Paige Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He has served on the faculties of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is currently a Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Robert Merton Solow, GCIH is an American economist whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him. He is currently Emeritus Institute Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been a professor since 1949. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 1961, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1987, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014. Four of his PhD students, George Akerlof, Joseph Stiglitz, Peter Diamond and William Nordhaus later received Nobel Memorial Prizes in Economic Sciences in their own right.
Gerald James Holton is an American physicist, historian of science, and educator, whose professional interests also include philosophy of science and the fostering of careers of young men and women. He is Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Professor of the History of Science Emeritus at Harvard University. His contributions range from physical science and its history to their professional and public understanding, from studies on gender problems and ethics in science careers to those on the role of immigrants. These have been acknowledged by an unusually wide spectrum of appointments and honors, from physics to initiatives in education and other national, societal issues, to contributions for which he was selected, as the first scientist, to give the tenth annual Jefferson Lecture that the National Endowment for the Humanities describes as, “the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished achievement in the humanities”.
I. Bernard Cohen was the Victor S. Thomas Professor of the history of science at Harvard University and the author of many books on the history of science and, in particular, Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin.
Anthony Thomas Grafton is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He is also a corresponding fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Balzan Prize. From January 2011 to January 2012, he served as the President of the American Historical Association.
Physics World is the membership magazine of the Institute of Physics, one of the largest physical societies in the world. It is an international monthly magazine covering all areas of physics, pure and applied, and is aimed at physicists in research, industry, physics outreach, and education worldwide.
Sir Anthony Barnes Atkinson was a British economist, Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics, and senior research fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Daniel Kleppner, born 1932, is the Lester Wolfe Professor Emeritus of Physics at MIT and co-director of the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms. His areas of science include Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics, and his research interests include Experimental Atomic Physics, Laser Spectroscopy, and High Precision Measurements. He is the winner of the 2005 Wolf Prize in Physics, the 2007 Frederic Ives Medal, and the 2014 Benjamin Franklin Medal. Prof. Kleppner has also been awarded the National Medal of Science (2006). He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986, the French Academy of Sciences in 2004, and the American Philosophical Society in 2007. Together with Robert J. Kolenkow, he authored a popular introductory mechanics textbook for advanced students. Kleppner graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in 1953, Cambridge University with a B.A. in 1955, and Harvard University with a Ph.D. in 1959.
Max Jammer, was an Israeli physicist and philosopher of physics. He was born in Berlin, Germany. He was Rector and Acting President at Bar-Ilan University from 1967 to 1977.
The Einstein Papers Project (EPP) produces the historical edition of the writings and correspondence of Albert Einstein. The EPP collects, transcribes, translates, annotates, and publishes materials from Einstein's literary estate and a multitude of other repositories, which hold Einstein-related historical sources. The staff of the project is an international collaborative group of scholars, editors, researchers, and administrators working on the ongoing authoritative edition, The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (CPAE).
Joseph Richmond Levenson was a scholar of Chinese history and Jane K. Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
Wendell Hinkle Furry was a professor of physics at Harvard University who made contributions to theoretical and particle physics. The Furry theorem is named after him.
William Chaloner was a serial counterfeit coiner and confidence trickster, who was imprisoned in Newgate Prison several times and eventually proven guilty of high treason by Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Royal Mint. He was hanged on the gallows at Tyburn on 22 March 1699.
Gunther Alberto Uhlmann Arancibia is a mathematician whose research focuses on inverse problems and imaging, microlocal analysis, partial differential equations and invisibility.
The Falling Walls Conference is an annual science event in Berlin, Germany, that coincides with the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The scientific conference showcases the research work of international scientists from a wide range of fields.
The Million Lottery or Million Adventure was the first English state lottery and was launched by the government in 1694.
Arthur I. Miller is Emeritus Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London. He took a PhD in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1991 to 2005 he was Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at University College London (UCL). At UCL, Professor Miller helped restructure an academic unit combining history and philosophy of science, sociology of science, and science communication to create UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies, renamed in 1994. He was instrumental in developing the UK's first undergraduate single honours BSc degree in History and Philosophy of Science, at UCL, launched in 1993.