I present a guide to some of the locations and figures associated with the history of physics in Philadelphia, from colonial times to the present, including a walking tour and additional excursions. Highlights include sites related to Benjamin Franklin, discussions of the lives and work of important physicists at the University of Pennsylvania, a sketch of the early history of the Bartol Research Foundation, and a description of some of the laboratories and observatories in the Philadelphia area.
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Paul Halpern is Professor of Physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. He currently is a member of the Executive Committee of the Forum on the History of Physics of the American Physical Society.
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Halpern, P. Philadelphia: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Physics. Phys. perspect. 11, 209–227 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-008-0386-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-008-0386-2
Keywords:
- James Logan
- Benjamin Franklin
- Peter Collinson
- David Rittenhouse
- George Frederic Barker
- Thomas Alva Edison
- Nikola Tesla
- Arthur Goodspeed
- Gaylord Harnwell
- Robert Hofstadter
- Henry Primakoff
- J. Robert Schrieffer
- Raymond Davis, Jr.
- Joseph Taylor
- John H. Mather
- Leonard Schiff
- William Francis Gray Swann
- Martin Pomerantz
- Sandra Moore Faber
- Emmy Noether
- Philadelphia
- American Philosophical Society
- Franklin Institute
- Chemical Heritage Foundation
- University of Pennsylvania
- Drexel University
- Temple University
- Bartol Research Foundation
- Swarthmore College
- Bryn Mawr College
- Haverford College