Analogies in Physics and Life

Analogies play a fundamental role in science. To understand how and why, at a given moment, a certain analogy was used, one has to know the specific, historical circumstances under which the new idea was developed. This historical background is never presented in scientific articles and quite rarely in books. For the general reader, the undergraduate or graduate student who learns the subject for the first time, but also for the practitioner who looks for inspiration or who wants to...
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Analogies play a fundamental role in science. To understand how and why, at a given moment, a certain analogy was used, one has to know the specific, historical circumstances under which the new idea was developed. This historical background is never presented in scientific articles and quite rarely in books. For the general reader, the undergraduate or graduate student who learns the subject for the first time, but also for the practitioner who looks for inspiration or who wants to understand what his colleague working in another field does, these historical circumstances can be fascinating and useful.

This book discusses a series of analogy effects in subatomic physics, the prediction and theory of which the author has contributed to in the last 50 years. These phenomena are presented at a level accessible to the non-specialist, without formulae but with emphasis on the personal and historical background: memoirs of meetings, discussions and correspondence with collaborators and colleagues. As such, besides its scientific aspects, the book constitutes an absorbing witness account of a holocaust survivor who subsequently illegally crossed the Iron Curtain to escape communist persecution.Contents: "The Wandering Years (1930-1945): "ChildhoodPolitics -- Premonition of WarWar -- The GhettoHigh School and UniversityThe Isomeric Shift on Spectral LinesPersona Non GrataChallenging Conventional Wisdom in Particle PhysicsNazi-Communist AnalogyCERNStatistical Concepts in High-Energy Physics, Phase TransitionsBonnUSALondon, Imperial College"Settling Years (1974-present): "Professor at the Philipps University of MarburgHot Spots in "Elementary" Particles and in NucleiRewriting HistoryFrom Superfluids to Fluids, The Hydrodynamical Analogy Applied to Multiparticle Production in Strong InteractionsEinstein Criticized in a Marburg ColloquiumFrom Hot Spots to Solitons -- On Revient Toujours au Vieil AmourCaught Up Again by the PastQuantum Optical Analogies and Methods in Strong Interactions High-Energy PhysicsBose-Einstein CorrelationsOrder and ChaosTraveling to the EastMoving to ParisFrance Versus Germany, Personal ImpressionsQuark-Gluon Plasma, Another Old LoveEvidence for Quark-Gluon Plasma from Particle PhysicsEvidence for Quark-Gluon Plasma from Heavy Ion ReactionsA Literary Intermezzo: The Mini-Atom ProjectReflections
Readership: Physicists, undergraduate and graduate students, historians of science, high school students, and general readers interested in the history of the 20th century.