After the Quantum Revolution: Nuclei, Atoms, and Molecules 1926–1930

Abstract

Exactly when nuclear physics came into existence is still a matter of debate among historians. We do not intend here to digress into any detailed discussion of this point. Evidently there is more than one approach to this question, depending on the frame of reference chosen. The ultimate answer will be different for (a) those actually involved in the field’s formation with a first-hand, although highly selective view on the progression of events, as documented, for instance, in archival resources, (b) former participants reflecting on the past with all their personal knowledge about the past, concerning generative and barren ideas, obvious possibilities and hidden traps, promising routes to progress and deserted side-tracks, (c) historians of science enjoying the comfort of hindsight, but mostly lacking a participant’s information about the subjective, personal dimensions of science, or (d) philosophers of science judging, without theoretical foundation, but with the privilege of the speculative mind to create idealized models, about the eternal rationality or irrationality of a specific sequence of scientific development. The determination of the ‘birth date’ of nuclear science being largely a matter of convention for the reasons of interpretative ambiguity just stated, there are, however, some outstanding points in its growth, which can be used at least to tentatively pinpoint stages of development.