DAVID I. KAISER is an American physicist and historian of science. He is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science at MIT, and a professor in the department of physics.
Kaiser's historical research focuses on the development of physics in the United States during the Cold War, looking at how the discipline has evolved at the intersection of politics, culture, and the changing shape of higher education. His physics research focuses on early-universe cosmology, working at the interface of particle physics and gravitation. He has also helped to design and conduct novel experiments to test the foundations of quantum theory.
He is author of the award-winning book DRAWING THEORIES APART (2005), which traces how Richard Feynman's idiosyncratic approach to quantum physics entered the mainstream. Drawing on insights from sociology and art history, the book scrutinizes what it takes for strange new tools to become "second nature."
HOW THE HIPPIES SAVED PHYSICS: SCIENCE, COUNTERCULTURE, AND THE QUANTUM REVIVAL (2011) charts the early history of Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement among a group of young physicists in Berkeley, CA, who called themselves the "Fundamental Fysiks Group." They chased the mysteries of quantum theory amid the Bay Area's blossoming counterculture and New Age movements, and their investigations began to reflect the era's many enthusiasms. The group carved out a parallel universe, outside academia, and parlayed their interest into a widespread cultural phenomenon. Kaiser charts how the group's brainstorming sessions laid crucial groundwork for today's quantum information science.
The ideas at the root of quantum theory remain stubbornly, famously bizarre: a solid world reduced to puffs of probability; particles that tunnel through walls; cats suspended in zombie-like states, neither alive nor dead; and twinned particles that share entangled fates. Kaiser's most recent work, QUANTUM LEGACIES: DISPATCHES FROM AN UNCERTAIN WORLD (2020), traces moments of discovery and debate among generations of physicists, from Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger to Stephen Hawking, as they have struggled to make sense of a messy world.
The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format as indicated:
* Drawing Theories Apart: Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams (Chicago, 2005) – PDF
* How the Hippies Saved Physics (Norton, 2011) – ePUB
* Quantum Legacies (Chicago, 2020) – ePUB
== EDITOR ==
* Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision (MIT, 2010) – PDF
* Groovy Science (Chicago, 2016) – ePUB + PDF
* Pedagogy and the Practice of Science (MIT, 2005) – PDF
