astronomy

Silvan S. Schweber

Silvan S. Schweber is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Silvan S. Schweber rather than just read about it. In short: Silvan Samuel Schweber (10 April 1928 – 14 May 2017) was a French-born American theoretical physicist and historian of science. He was known for his work on relativistic quantum field theory and its history, and he was the recipient of the 2011 Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics.

Key takeaways

Silvan S. Schweber belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Silvan S. Schweber to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Silvan S. Schweber from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Silvan Samuel Schweber (10 April 1928 – 14 May 2017) was a French-born American theoretical physicist and historian of science. He was known for his work on relativistic quantum field theory and its history, and he was the recipient of the 2011 Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics.

Early life and education Schweber was born 10 April 1928, in Strasbourg, France, to an orthodox Jewish family. During the Second World War the family fled first within France and then via Spain, Portugal and Cuba to the United States where they settled in New York in 1942. In 1944 Schweber began to study chemistry at the City College of New York and in 1947 moved to the University of Pennsylvania as a physics major, where he studied with Walter Elsasser and Herbert Jehle. After obtaining his master's degree in 1949, he went to Princeton University, where he studied with David Bohm and Eugene Wigner. In 1952 he received his doctorate under Arthur Wightman. After that, he was a postdoctoral fellow with Hans Bethe at Cornell University and in 1954 at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh.

Career From 1955 he was a professor at the newly founded Brandeis University. He wrote a book on relativistic quantum field theory published in 1961, available in reprint by Dover Publications. From 1981 Schweber was a Faculty Associate in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. He was also a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011 he was awarded the Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics.

Death Schweber died on 14 May 2017 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Selected publications QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga (Princeton University Press, 1994) In the Shadow of the Bomb: Oppenheimer, Bethe, and the Moral Responsibility of the Scientist (Princeton University Press, 2007) Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius (2009) Nuclear Forces: The Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe (2012)

References

External links Faculty website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Silvan S. Schweber

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Silvan S. Schweber claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Silvan S. Schweber before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Silvan S. Schweber ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Silvan S. Schweber

In research: Silvan S. Schweber appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Silvan S. Schweber in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Silvan S. Schweber is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1928 births, 2017 deaths, American historians of science, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Silvan S. Schweber outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Silvan S. Schweber in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Silvan S. Schweber means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Silvan S. Schweber out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Silvan S. Schweber in simple terms?

Why does Silvan S. Schweber matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Silvan S. Schweber?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Silvan S. Schweber.