Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet Theoretical Physics in the Thirties
by Gennady Gorelik and Victor Frenkel
Birkhaeuser, Basel-Boston, 1994.

   

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1. Childhood and Youth. Road to Science

Chapter 2. In Leningrad University (1926-1930)

2.1 Entering the University
2.2. The Jazz-Band
2.3. The Abbot and His Astronomer Friends
2.4. The First Works in Astrophysics, Geophysics and Popular Science
2.5. At the Shenroks on Vasiliev Island Chapter 3. At the Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute 3.1. Theoretical Physics in St. Petersburg and Petrograd
3.2. The Physicotechnical Institute and Its Seminars
3.3 "Quantizing Free Electrons in a Magnetic Field"
3.4 "A New Crisis in the Theory of Quanta"
3.5 Science and Society
3.6. Quantum Mechanics in the Early Thirties
3.7. Cosmology in the Early Thirties
3.8. Ether and the Theory of Relativity
3.9. Styles and Generations
3.10. The Physics of Semiconductors and Nuclear Physics Chapter 4. Hard Times for the Laws of Conservation and for Theoreticians 4.1. Three Attempts to Topple the Law of Conservation of Energy
4.2. The Hypothesis of Non-conservation and the Arguments of Its Supporters 4.2.1. Waiting for a Relativistic Theory of Quanta
4.2.2. The Neutrino Alternative
4.2.3. Non-conservation of Energy, General Relativity, Cosmology and Astrophysics 4.3. Non-Physical Arguments Applied to Physics
4.4. A Duel in Sorena
4.5. The Death of a Non-conservation Hypothesis Chapter 5. cGh-Physics in Bronstein's Life 5.1. An Unsuitable Thesis
5.2. The Roots of Bronstein's Interest in cGh'-Physics 5.2.1.Quantum Gravity before Bronstein
5.2.2. "The Relationship Between the Physical Theories and Their Relation to the Cosmological Problem"
5.2.3. At the Sources of Quantum Relativistic Astrophysics 5.3. The Quantum Theory of the Weak Gravitational Field
5.4 "The Fundamental Distinction between Quantum Electrodynamics and the Quantum Theory of Gravitational Field". 5.4.1. The Problem of ch' Measurability
5.4.2. cGh' Measurability and General Relativity Quantum Limits
5.4.3. The Planck Scales in cGh'-physics
5.4.4.Reception of the Quantum-Gravitational Limits 5.5 Physics and Cosmology 5.5.1. Cosmology in the Thirties
5.5.2. Bronstein's Attitude to Cosmology
5.5.3. Red shift, the Relativity Principle and Polarization of Vacuum Chapter 6. Creative Personality 6.1. Perceiving the World
6.2. Vocation of a Teacher
6.3. Science and Literature
6.4. Personality Afterword

AFTERWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. HALF A CENTURY LATER

1. From the KGB-NKVD Archives
2. The Last Days in the Cell
3. Subnuclear Physics, Matvei Bronstein and Ettore Majorana
  Bibliography

Appendix 1. Extract from M.P.Bronstein's paper "Quantentheorie schwacher Gravitationsfelder", 1936
Appendix 2. M.P.Bronstein's note "Ьber den Spontanen Zerfall der Photonen", 1936
Appendix 3. M.P.Bronstein "Inventors of Radiotelegraph" (First chapters of the book)