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David Kaiser (physicist)

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David Kaiser
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materDartmouth College (A.B. 1993)
Harvard University (Ph.D 1997, 2000)
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
History of science
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Websitehttp://web.mit.edu/dikaiser/www/

David I. Kaiser is an American physicist and historian of science. He is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a full professor in MIT's department of physics. He also served as an inaugural associate dean for MIT's cross-disciplinary program in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.[1]

Kaiser is the author or editor of several books on the history of science, including Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (2005), How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (2011),[2] and Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World (2020).[3] He received the Apker Award[4] from the American Physical Society in 1993 and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010. His historical scholarship has been honored with the Pfizer Award (2007)[5] and the Davis Prize (2013)[6] from the History of Science Society. In March 2012 he was awarded the MacVicar fellowship, a prestigious MIT undergraduate teaching award.[7] In 2012, he also received the Frank E. Perkins Award from MIT for excellence in mentoring graduate students.[8]

Education

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Kaiser completed his AB in physics at Dartmouth College in 1993. He completed two PhDs from Harvard University. The first was in physics in 1997 for a thesis entitled "Post-Inflation Reheating in an Expanding Universe," the second in the history of science in 2000 for a thesis on "Making Theory: Producing Physics and Physicists in Postwar America."[1]

Research

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Kaiser's physics research mostly focuses on early-universe cosmology, including topics such as cosmic inflation,[9][10] post-inflation reheating,[11][12][13] and primordial black holes.[14][15][16] He has also helped to design and conduct novel experimental tests of quantum theory, including the "Cosmic Bell" experiments[17][18][19] that Kaiser worked on with Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger,[20] and which were featured in the PBS Nova documentary film Einstein's Quantum Riddle (2019).[21]

Kaiser's historical research focuses on intersections among modern natural sciences, geopolitics, and the history of higher education during the Cold War. His MIT course on "Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the Twentieth Century" is available via MIT OpenCourseWare.

In addition to his scholarly writing, Kaiser's work has appeared in The New York Times,[22][23][24][25] the New Yorker magazine,[26][27][28] and in several PBS Nova television programs.[29] He also serves as Chair of the Editorial Board of the MIT Press and as Editor of the MIT Case Studies Series on Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.

Books

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  • (2005). Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics. University of Chicago Press.
  • (2005). (ed.) Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. MIT Press.
  • (2010). (ed.) Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision. MIT Press.
  • (2011). How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. W. W. Norton, ISBN 0393076369.
  • with Sally Gregory Kohlstedt: (2013). (eds.) Science and the American Century. University of Chicago Press.
  • with W. Patrick McCray: (2016). (eds.) Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture. University of Chicago Press.
  • (2020). Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World. University of Chicago Press.
  • with Aaron S. Wright and Diana Coleman: (2022). (eds.) Theoretical Physics in Your Face: Selected Correspondence of Sidney Coleman. World Scientific.
  • (2022). (ed.) 'Well, Doc, You're In': Freeman Dyson's Journey through the Universe. MIT Press.
  • (forth coming). American Physics and the Cold War. University of Chicago Press.

References

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  1. ^ a b Kaiser CV, MIT, accessed January 13, 2023; "Short biography", MIT, accessed January 13, 2023.
  2. ^ Gusterson, Hugh (2011). "Physics: Quantum outsiders". Nature. 476 (7360): 278–279. Bibcode:2011Natur.476..278G. doi:10.1038/476278a..

    George Johnson, "What Physics Owes the Counterculture", The New York Times, June 17, 2011.

  3. ^ Phillip Ball, "Quantum inheritance and the ongoing quest for meaning", Physics World, 47-48, May 18, 2020.
  4. ^ American Physical Society, "LeRoy Apker Award: An Undergraduate Physics Achievement Award", accessed January 13, 2023.
  5. ^ History of Science Society, "Pfizer Award".
  6. ^ History of Science Society, "Davis Prize".
  7. ^ Jesse Kirkpatrick, "Four MacVicar Recipients", The Tech, 132(13).
  8. ^ MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, "David Kaiser receives Frank E. Perkins Award" (2012).
  9. ^ Guth, Alan H.; Kaiser, David I. (2005). "Inflationary Cosmology: Exploring the Universe from the Smallest to the Largest Scales". Science. 307 (5711): 884–890. arXiv:astro-ph/0502328. Bibcode:2005Sci...307..884G. doi:10.1126/science.1107483. PMID 15705842.
  10. ^ Guth, Alan H.; Kaiser, David I.; Nomura, Yasunori (2014). "Inflationary paradigm after Planck 2013". Physics Letters B. 733: 112–119. arXiv:1312.7619. Bibcode:2014PhLB..733..112G. doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2014.03.020.
  11. ^ Amin, Mustafa A.; Hertzberg, Mark P.; Kaiser, David I.; Karouby, Johanna (2015). "Nonperturbative dynamics of reheating after inflation: A review". International Journal of Modern Physics D. 24 (1). arXiv:1410.3808. Bibcode:2015IJMPD..2430003A. doi:10.1142/S0218271815300037.
  12. ^ Nguyen, Rachel; Van De Vis, Jorinde; Sfakianakis, Evangelos I.; Giblin, John T.; Kaiser, David I. (2019). "Nonlinear Dynamics of Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings". Physical Review Letters. 123 (17): 171301. arXiv:1905.12562. Bibcode:2019PhRvL.123q1301N. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.171301. PMID 31702236.
  13. ^ Allahverdi, Rouzbeh; Amin, Mustafa A.; Berlin, Asher; Bernal, Nicholas; Byrnes, Christian T.; Delos, M. Sten; Erickcek, Adrienne L.; Escudero, Miguel; Figueroa, Daniel G.; Freese, Katherine; Harada, Tomohiro; Hooper, Dan; Kaiser, David I.; Karwal, Tanvi; Kohri, Kazunori; Krnjaci, Gordan; Lewicki, Marek; Lozanov, Kaloian D.; Poulin, Vivian; Sinha, Kuver; Smith, Tristan L.; Takahashi, Tomo; Tenkanen, Tommi; Unwin, James; Vaskonen, Ville; Watson, Scott (2021). "The First Three Seconds: A Review of Possible Expansion Histories of the Early Universe". The Open Journal of Astrophysics. 4 (1): 1. arXiv:2006.16182. Bibcode:2021OJAp....4E...1A. doi:10.21105/astro.2006.16182.
  14. ^ Geller, Sarah R.; Qin, Wenzer; McDonough, Evan; Kaiser, David I. (2022). "Primordial black holes from multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings". Physical Review D. 106 (6): 063535. arXiv:2205.04471. Bibcode:2022PhRvD.106f3535G. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.106.063535.
  15. ^ Qin, Wenzer; Geller, Sarah R.; Balaji, Shyam; McDonough, Evan; Kaiser, David I. (2023). "Planck constraints and gravitational wave forecasts for primordial black hole dark matter seeded by multifield inflation". Physical Review D. 108 (4): 043508. arXiv:2303.02168. Bibcode:2023PhRvD.108d3508Q. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.108.043508.
  16. ^ David Kaiser, "Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter Candidates", Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University, December 12, 2022.
  17. ^ Handsteiner, Johannes; Friedman, Andrew S.; Rauch, Dominik; Gallicchio, Jason; Liu, Bo; Hosp, Hannes; Kofler, Johannes; Bricher, David; Fink, Matthias; Leung, Calvin; Mark, Anthony; Nguyen, Hien T.; Sanders, Isabella; Steinlechner, Fabian; Ursin, Rupert; Wengerowsky, Sören; Guth, Alan H.; Kaiser, David I.; Scheidl, Thomas; Zeilinger, Anton (2017). "Cosmic Bell Test: Measurement Settings from Milky Way Stars". Physical Review Letters. 118 (6): 060401. arXiv:1611.06985. Bibcode:2017PhRvL.118f0401H. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.060401. PMID 28234500.
  18. ^ Rauch, Dominik; Handsteiner, Johannes; Hochrainer, Armin; Gallicchio, Jason; Friedman, Andrew S.; Leung, Calvin; Liu, Bo; Bulla, Lukas; Ecker, Sebastian; Steinlechner, Fabian; Ursin, Rupert; Hu, Beili; Leon, David; Benn, Chris; Ghedina, Adriano; Cecconi, Massimo; Guth, Alan H.; Kaiser, David I.; Scheidl, Thomas; Zeilinger, Anton (2018). "Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars". Physical Review Letters. 121 (8): 080403. arXiv:1808.05966. Bibcode:2018PhRvL.121h0403R. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403. PMID 30192604.
  19. ^ David Kaiser, "Quantum Theory by Starlight", New Yorker, February 7, 2017.
  20. ^ David Kaiser, "They probed quantum entanglement while everyone shrugged", Nautilus, October 5, 2022.
  21. ^ NOVA PBS (January 9, 2019). "Einstein's Quantum Riddle". YouTube. WGBH Educational Foundation.
  22. ^ David Kaiser, "I Didn't Write That", New York Times, November 3, 2012.
  23. ^ David Kaiser, "Is Quantum Entanglement Real?", New York Times, November 14, 2014.
  24. ^ David Kaiser, "How Politics Shaped General Relativity", New York Times, November 6, 2015.
  25. ^ David Kaiser, "Learning from Gravitational Waves", New York Times, October 3, 2017.
  26. ^ David Kaiser, "A Physicist's Farewell to Stephen Hawking", New Yorker, March 15, 2018.
  27. ^ David Kaiser, "Free Will, Video Games, and the Most Profound Quantum Mystery", New Yorker, May 9, 2018.
  28. ^ David Kaiser, "Freeman Dyson's Letters Offer Another Glimpse of Genius", New Yorker, March 5, 2020.
  29. ^ David Kaiser, "Public Broadcasting Appearances".

Further reading

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