Important physicists who were medical doctors

Physics did not become a separate profession (as opposed to natural philosophy) until probably the 18th, if not 19th, century.  For much of the early history of physics, its practioners and researchers often had formal training in other learned professions.  One such profession is that of medicine.

With only minimal research, I tried to jot down the names of important physicists who had substantial training in medicine.  Not all of them actually practiced medicine, despite their education, but several did.  Here is what I came up with, in approximate chronological order:

• Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
• Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576)
• William Gilbert (1544-1603)
• Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782)
• Thomas Young (1773-1829)
• Julius Robert von Mayer (1814-1878)
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894)

Can you think of others who belong on this list?

 

Addendum, March 25, 2023.  Jennifer Coopersmith's book, Energy, the Subtle Concept (revised edition, Oxford University Press, 2015, Appendix III) makes clear the following individuals, contributors to thermodynamics, should be added to the above list:

• Hermann Boerhaave (1688-1738)
• Joseph Black (1728-1799)
• Pierre Louis Dulong (1785-1838)
  

Addendum, October 22, 2023.  I recently learned that Galileo Galilei attended medical school, but dropped out.  In fact, he did not complete a college degree at all.  However, Stillman Drake speculates that the definition of cause Galileo gives in his treatise On Floating Bodies is a take on an aphorism taught to medical students of the time.  See Drake's Cause, Experiment, and Science (University of Chicago Press, 1981) for details.

Physicists honored on US currency and coinage

Last year, I blogged about physicists, astronomers, mathematicians, and aerospace scientists and inventors honored on US postage stamps.  Today I'd like to tackle the even rarer phenomenon of physicists depicted on US currency and coinage.

Not surprisingly the list is very short.  Obviously, again Benjamin Franklin heads the list, as depicted on the $100 bill.  He is now joined by Dr. Sally Ride on a new American Women Quarter, issued this year.

If we expand our focus, as we did for the postage stamps, to include aerospace inventors, the Wright Brothers are depicted on the North Carolina  state quarter (2001), and their Flyer is also depicted on the Ohio state quarter (2002).  

Aside from these, I know of no other scientists, mathematicians, or engineers depicted on US currency and coinage, unless you count the polymath Thomas Jefferson.  Are there any that I missed?

Norton Critical Editions in natural science

Continuing a slight diversion that began with my November 2021 post on the Cambridge Companions series, let's consider independent publisher W. W. Norton's series of Critical Editions.   The Norton Critical Editions are annotated editions of classic works, mostly of literature, along with editorial apparatus including context and commentary.  Until recently I owned only one NCE, of Machiavelli's The Prince, and was not aware that any books in the series covered natural science.  I recently became aware that there are at least three NCEs on natural science:  two on biology, and one on physics and mathematics.  One is an NCE of James Watson's The Double Helix, edited by Gunther Stent (1980), and the other two are anthologies of selected writings of Isaac Newton (ed. by I. B. Cohen and R. S. Westfall, 1995) and Charles Darwin (ed. by P. Appleman, 1970; 3d edition, 2001).  If that is a complete list of NCEs in natural science, then it has been over 20 years since the last one was revised, while no others have been issued.

These books seem to be intended for use in humanities courses.  The volume on Newton, which I recently acquired, does have some technical material, but is not dominated by it.  And perhaps this explains why there are no other NCEs for physicists.  Too bad!

The 2022 Nobel Laureates in Science

The first week of October has been an exciting one, as usual, with the announcements of the Nobel Prizes, especially those in science.  DTLR readers know that I have a particular interest in connections between Nobel Laureates and fluid mechanics research, even though the prizes have rarely been awarded for work in classical hydrodynamics.  This year is no different, but at least two of the science laureates have familial connections to hydrodynamicists!

One of this year's physics laureates, John F. Clauser, stated in an oral history interview conducted 20 years ago with Joan Bromberg, that his father was a grad student of Theodore Von Karman's, and later became chair of the aeronautics department at Johns Hopkins.  Clauser states that "But all along the way, he always was trying to understand physics, and there were very strong similarities between the mathematics of fluid flow and the mathematics of quantum mechanics, and he didn't understand quantum mechanics. And he kind of pre-programmed me as the guy who might help try to solve the problem that he couldn't solve."  This appears in the very first paragraph of the transcript!  Further down in the transcript, Clauser returns to fluid mechanics, revealing that he himself is quite knowledgeable about it, discussing solitons, compressible flow, the subsonic-supersonic transition, and shock waves.

One of this year's chemistry laurates, Carolyn Bertozzi, has an older sister Andrea, who is a distinguished math professor at UCLA and works in fluid mechanics.  Andrea Bertozzi is co-author (with her doctoral advisor, Andrew Majda) of Vorticity and Incompressible Flow (Cambridge University Press, 2002). Incidentally, their father was an MIT physics professor.

Congratulations to all the 2022 Nobel Laureates in physiology/medicine, physics, and chemistry!

 

Electron fluidics

Last month in Nature there was a paper claiming to have observed vortex motion in an electron fluid.  The abstract describes the observations (imaged using a SQUID, or superconducting quantum interference device) as "surface-induced para-hydrodynamics, which mimics many aspects of conventional hydrodynamics including vortices".  Earlier this week the finding was described in a Physics World article by Isabelle Dume, to whom I owe the hat/tip.

More on Nobel laureates and fluid dynamics research

Continuing on the theme of Nobel laureates and fluid dynamics research, I recently stumbled upon a cosmology paper by Steven Weinberg (Physics, 1979) published in 1971, dealing with relativistic fluid dynamics.  The paper begins with a rederviation of the fundamental equations of special relativistic fluid dynamics, then moves on to discuss radiative transport coefficients, and generalizes the equations to general relativity.  Of course he goes on to deal with some astrophysical matters.  Weinberg cites this paper in the last book he published before he died, his textbook on modern physics (2021).  This book has an entire section on transport phenomena (Sec. 2.5), part of the chapter on thermodynamics and kinetic theory.

Speaking of textbooks, Kip Thorne (Physics, 2017) and Roger Blandford published a monumental course, Modern Classical Physics, the year Thorne won the Nobel Prize.  Part V of the book is dedicated to fluid dynamics, and it consists of seven chapters:

• Foundations of Fluid Dynamics
• Vorticity
• Turbulence
• Waves
• Compressible and Supersonic Flow
• Convection
• Magnetohydrodynamics
  

They, too, give space to the special relativistic formulation of fluid mechanics, in addition to the usual Newtonian formulation.  It is notable that Part IV of the book is on elasticity, so they truly cover continuum mechanics writ large.  Perhaps the late Jerry Gollub would be pleased.

References

 

K. Thorne and R. Blandford, 2017:  Modern Classical Physics:  Optics, Fluids, Plasmas, Elasticity, Reltativity, and Statistical Physics.  Princeton University Press.

 

S. Weinberg, 1971:  Entropy generation and the survival of proto-galaxies in an expanding universe.  Astrophysical Journal, 168:  175-194.

S. Weinberg, 2021:  Foundations of Modern Physics.  Cambridge University Press.

Nobel laureates and fluid dynamics research revisited

Eight years ago I blogged about Nobel laureates and fluid dynamics research, and last year I commented on a letter in Physics Today complaining that the Nobel Prizes neglect fluid dynamics research.  Today I just stumbled about another Nobel laureate who evidently did some research in fluid dynamics, namely Frank Wilczek (Physics, 2004).  Evidently back in the 1980s he published research with Alfred Shapere on the physics of swimming, published in the field's top journal, the Journal of Fluid Mechanics.  I've included citations below.  

Readers, if you know of other examples besides those I've written about here on DTLR, I'd love to know about them.

References

A. Shapere and F. Wilczek, 1989:  Geometry of self-propulsion at low Reynolds number.  Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 198:  557-585.

A. Shapere and F. Wilczek, 1989:  Efficiencies of self-propulsion at low Reynolds number.  Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 198:  587-599.

Big game hunting in bacteriology: Thiomargarita magnifica

When this blog started in 2013, my third post was about giant viruses.  In an issue of Science last month, we read about the discovery of giant bacteria, large enough to be seen with the naked eye.  Thanks to reporter Elizabeth Pennisi for an excellent overview of the discovery.

Careers: academy or industry?

This month's issue of Physics World includes an article by Joanna Zajac, "Industry or Academia:  How to Choose Your Own Path".  Every word rings true to me.  I strongly encourage readers contemplating a science career (or career change) to read her commentary.

The Oxford Handbook of Newton

Happy New Year.  In my November post on scientists and the Cambridge Companions, I made a passing reference to the Oxford Handbooks series.  As far as I knew then, there is no Oxford Handbook dedicated to a physicist.  I have discovered just this evening, however, that an Oxford Handbook of Newton is in development; individual chapters are being posted online as they are finalized.

I would also like to call attention to an unnamed philosophy series from Cambridge University Press, whose volumes are titled Interpreting _____:  Critical Essays.  Two physicists (Newton and Mach) and one mathematician (Godel) have volumes devoted to them in that series.  There are also volumes on other philosophers including specialists in the philosophy of science, including Kuhn and Feyerabend.