Great Experiments in Physics: Firsthand Accounts from Galileo to Einstein

Description

first heard about this work in an HSM StackExchange post about Young's double-slit experiment:

Young's original setup demonstrating interference of light was not double slit but sunbeam splitting with a single thin card. He presented a paper

Young, Thomas. “II. The Bakerian Lecture. On the Theory of Light and Colours.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , no. 92 (December 1802): 12–48. DOI: 10.1098/rstl.1802.0004.

(see here and here), and in November 1803 gave a public talk

"Experimental Demonstration of the General Law of the Interference of Light", in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , v. 94 (1804),

reprinted in Morris Shamos, ed., Great Experiments in Physics , pp. 96-101 [EPUB ref:13.12-78], Holt Reinhart and Winston, New York, 1959.

From Galileo's famous experiments in accelerated motion to Einstein's revolutionary theory of relativity, the experiments recorded here trace the evolution of modern physics from its beginnings to the mid-twentieth century. Brought together for the first time in one volume are important source readings on 25 epochal discoveries that changed man's understanding of the physical world. The accounts, written by the physicists who made them, include:

• Isaac Newton: The Laws of Motion
• Henry Cavendish: The Law of Gravitation
• Augustin Fresnel: The Diffraction of Light
• Hans Christian Oersted: Elecromagnetism
• Heinrich Hertz: Electromagnetic
• James Chadwick: The Neutron
• Niels Bohr: The Hydrogen Atom,

and 17 more.

Morris H. Shamos, Professor Emeritus of Physics at New York University, has selected and edited the first published accounts of these important experiments and has also added numerous marginal notes that amplify and clarify the original documents. Moreover, the first 19 experiments can be readily re-created by students in a first-year physics course, making the book ideal for classroom and laboratory work as well as individual reference and study.

Finally, Dr. Shamos has provided revealing biographical sketches of the scientists and illuminating references to the political and cultural milieu in which the discoveries are made. The result is a superbly readable presentation — accessible to lay readers — of the crucial theoretical and empirical breakthroughs that altered the course of modern science.