** Apologies for Cross Postings **
Commission on the History of Modern Physics: Announcement and Call for
Papers
CHMP Symposium at the 23rd International Congress on the History of
Science and Technology (Budapest, Hungary, 28 July - 2 August 2009)
Title: Physics and Cold War
Description:
The symposium focuses on physics during the cold war and asks for
differences and similarities in practices and theories, scientific
collaborations and communication during that period in and between
Eastern and Western blocks. As well as the role of non-aligned countries
and the so-called third world countries is to be analyzed.
Already before World War II a development became apparent where science,
military, industry and the state formed a complex in which a strong
interaction and interdependency of the individual parts led to
strategies, definition of aims and actions which changed the structure
of science fundamentally. The arms race in East and West is well known
as well as its equivalent in particle physics and the building of
accelerators with more and more energy as an expression of the race for
the highest energy. But, can the engagement of physicists and
technicians in this race be explained by a political conviction or did
the physicists just make use of the situation for their research without
taking care of the particular regime? This leads to another question:
How did the ideological confrontation affect the practices of physics?
Can we go one step further and ascertain that the ideological
confrontation led to a positivistic and utilitarian attitude of the
physicists making themselves ideologically invariant by focusing only on
the measurable and applicable?
Nevertheless the political confrontation affected the physicists in
several ways especially by political repression and prosecution when the
individual offended the political norms of the regime on both sides of
the iron curtain. Secrecy boomed and limited publications as well as the
participation of international conferences. Therefore we should ask for
the role of the Non-aligned countries and Europe as neutral territory.
Nominations:
Should you wish to nominate a speaker for the symposium, or if you are
working on a topic that might be appropriate for a presentation in the
symposium, please contact the secretary of the commission
[log in to unmask] by no later than 30 November 2008 (the
final list of speakers is due to the Program Committee by 15 December).
We look forward to hearing from you.
Sessions and Speakers: We plan to invite eight speakers, divided into a
morning and an afternoon session organized around each postwar era, and
including a commentator after each session.
Organizers' names:
Christian Forstner, Jena, Germany, Secretary of the CHMP,
[log in to unmask]
Leonardo Gariboldi, Milano, Italy
Dieter Hoffmann, Berlin, Germany
Paquale Tucci, Milano, Italy
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Dr. Christian Forstner
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Institut für Geschichte der Medizin,
Naturwissenschaft und Technik
"Ernst-Haeckel-Haus"
Berggasse 7
07745 Jena
Tel.: +49-(0)3641-949510
Fax: +49-(0)3641-949502
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