From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles

In celebration of the centenary of our discovery of cosmic rays, this volume recounts the incredible story of astroparticle physics, a field full of excitement and surprise. Expert commentators from a range of disciplines explore its roots and development.

The scope of the book is to give an overview of the history of astroparticle physics, starting with the discovery of cosmic rays (Victor Hess, 1912) and its background (X-ray, radioactivity).
The book focusses on the ways in which physics changes in the course of this history. The following changes run parallel, overlap, and/or interact:

• Discovery of effects like X-rays, radioactivity, cosmic rays, new particles but also progress through non-discoveries (monopoles) etc.
• The change of the description of nature in physics, as consequence of new theoretical questions at the beginning of the 20th century, giving rise to quantum physics, relativity, etc.

• The change of experimental methods, cooperations, disciplinary divisions.
  With regard to the latter change, a main topic of the book is to make the specific multi-diciplinary features of astroparticle physics clear.

  Provides a unique historical introduction to astroparticle physics to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the cosmic ray discovery Covers the roots and development of the exciting field of astroparticle physics Written by a multidiciplinary group of experts in the field Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

  Autorentext
  Brigitte Falkenburg studierte Physik an der Universität Erlangen, der Technischen Universität Berlin und der Universität Heidelberg, und Philosophie an den Universitäten Bielefeld und Heidelberg. Sie promovierte 1985 zum Dr. phil mit einer Arbeit aus der Naturphilosophie und 1986 zum Dr.rer.nat. auf dem Gebiet der Hochenergiephysik. Seit 1997 ist sie Professorin für Philosophie der Wissenschaft und Technik an der Technischen Universität Dortmund. Sie ist Mitglied in der Académie Internationale de la Philosophie des Sciences , Brüssel, und der European Academy of Science . Zudem ist sie Sprecherin des Arbeitskreises Philosophie der Physik der DPG. Für ihre Arbeit zur Philosophie der Wissenschaft wurde sie mehrfach mit Preisen ausgezeichnet und hat zahlreiche Bücher und Schriften zur Philosophie der Physik, Natur- und Technikphilosophie veröffentlicht.

  Klappentext

The book is a historical introduction to astroparticle physics. Its scope is to give an overview of this complex field of research, starting with the discovery of cosmic rays (Victor Hess, 1912) until the current experiments with particle telescopes.

The book focuses on the ways in which physics changes in the course of this history. The following changes run parallel, overlap, and/or

interact:

• Discovery of effects like X-rays, radioactivity, cosmic rays, new

  particles, the Cosmic Microwave Background and its anisotropies, but also progress through non-discoveries (monopoles) etc.

• The change of the description of nature in physics, as consequence of

  the scientific revolutions at the beginning of the 20th century, giving rise to quantum physics, relativity, etc.

• The shifts from particle physics to cosmology and to particle physics

  with cosmic accelerators.

• The change of experimental methods, cooperations, and disciplinary divisions.

With regard to the latter change, a main topic of the book is to make the specific multi-disciplinary features of astroparticle physics clear to undergraduate and graduate students, historians of physics, and philosophers of science.

Inhalt
1 Introduction.-.- 2 From the discovery of radioactivity to first accelerator experiments.- 3 Development of Cosmology:From a Static Universe to Accelerated Expansion.- 4 Evolution of Astrophysics5.1 Introduction and General Overview.- 5 Development of Ultra High-Energy Cosmic Ray Research.- 6 Very-High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy.- 7 Search for the neutrino mass and low energy neutrino astronomy.- 8 From Particle Physics to Astroparticle Physics: Proton Decay and the Rise of Non-Accelerator Physics.- 10 From Waves to Particle Tracks and Quantum Probabilities.- A Timetable.- B Nobel prizes.- C Textbooks.- C.1 Textbooks 19872012.- C.2 Textbooks 19621986.- C.3 Textbooks 19371961.- C.4 Textbooks 19121936.- D Books in History of Physics