Crafting the Quantum: Arnold Sommerfeld and the Practice of Theory, 1890-1926

摘要

In Seth Suman's account, Sommerfeld in the 1920s abandoned theoretical explanations altogether, seeking rules for understanding and organizing atomic spectra from the direct study of empirical regularities in spectroscopic data. Sommerfeld also did detailed work on wave mechanics, and his theory of electrons in metals proved valuable in the study of thermoelectricity and metallic conduction. Seth Suman in Crafting the Quantum has captured the intellectual excitement that prevailed in European intellectual circles in the early decades of the twentieth century, and he has done so with admirable prose. -