Amherst College Physics Faculty

I have been on the faculty at Amherst since 1983. Over this time we have engaged in a wide variety of research activities. Our longest running experiment has been a search for an electron electric-dipole moment. This work was originally conducted using atomic cesium. More recently we have begun to explore the possibility of using a solid, GdIG, to measure the electron edm. In another sequence of experiments, we have compared cesium and mercury magnetometers in order to test local Lorentz invariance (A Test of Local Lorentz Invariance), CPT (the Best CPT Limits) and to search for Axions. A refinement of the Local Lorentz Invariance experiment using a rotating table is currently under construction. We have also made high precision Stark Shift measurements and explored unusual mechanisms for converting atomic orientation into alignment in crossed electric and magnetic fields. We recently completed a reexamination of the classic test of Relativity first performed by Wilson and Wilson (Maxwell's Equations in a Rotating Reference Frame), which has been called into question by recent papers. To read our paper, "Investigation of PbO as a system for measuring the EDM of the electron", please click here or to read about "Detailed Spectroscopy of the a(1) State of PbO" click here. To read "Measurement of the Relativistic Potential Difference across a Rotating Magnetic Dielectric Cylinder", please click here. To read about our most recent work on GdIG, click here.

I received the 1990 APS Award for Research at an Undergraduate Institution. In 1994 I served as chair of the APS Precision Measurement and Fundamental Constants topical group. I became an American Physical Society Fellow in 1998.

I work primarily in the area of High Energy Theoretical Physics. I am also interested in classical field theory, foundations of quantum mechanics, and geometrical and algebraic structures common to several areas of theoretical physics. Between 1995 and 2001, I served as the assistant editor of the American Journal of Physics. Before taking up duties at the journal, I had worked on the question of infrared singularities in quantum field theories at finite temperatures. In the last two years, I returned to a problem in classical dynamics of characterizing in some detail the canonical transformations generated by the dynamical symmetries. This work was done in collaboration with an undergraduate. I am also returning to the problem of characterizing the space of legitimate initial conditions on particle positions and wave functions in Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics.

As an experimental physicist, quite some time ago now, I used to do research mainly on liquid Helium-3 and Helium-4: NMR relaxation times in liquid Helium 3, normal & superfluid densities of liquid Helium-4 under pressure by a modified Andronikashvili experiment. I got interested in the energy problem about 1970, wrote an introductory book for nonscience majors (Energy-An Introduction to Physics, W.H.Freeman, 1976 - now out of print). About 1985 I put out a very small book (Energy Facts & Figures, Spring Street Press), which is essentially an updated version of the voluminous appendices of my earlier book.

In 1982 I became Book Review Editor of the American Journal of Physics, a journal of which I have been an avid reader, loyal subscriber, and frequent author and referee for quite a while. And in 1988 I was chosen to be its editor, a position which turned out to absorb 100% of my professional activity for the next 13 years.

In July 2001, I retired from the editorship. (With mixed feelings - I loved doing it.) At the same time, I officially retired from the Amherst College faculty. With my "salary" now coming predominantly from TIAA-CREF, some of the physics I am doing is what I call "Physics on the Subway" (POTS, for short), though it is, so far, physics on the local bus system. Also, I am currently an officer of the Forum on the History of Physics, a branch of the American Physical Society. In addition, I have become an official guide at Historic Deerfield (for the first time in many years, I had to take and pass an exam, after dishing them out all this time), where - during tourist season - I give tours a couple of days a week in the home of Deerfield's 18th-century Tory slave-owning minister, Jonathan Ashley. In other portions of my spare time, I have been doing historical research on slavery in western Massachusetts, a subject of which I was blithely ignorant until very recently. I sometimes miss teaching and AJP, but generally I'm too busy; I'm having a lot of fun at my various new careers. For more information on "Physics on the Subway" and other current activities, go to my personal websites.

As an experimentalist, my research has been in the areas of electron-atom collisions, lasers, and atomic physics. My recent work has centered on the experimental foundations of quantum mechanics, and specifically on the use of modern quantum-optical techniques for probing the conceptual structure of quantum theory. My book "The Quantum Challenge, Modern Research on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics" (co-authored with George Greenstein) explores the puzzles of quantum mechanics using the beautiful experimental results now available to us. It is written at a level intermediate between popular and professional accounts.

In addition I have a long-standing interest in the relationship between science and the humanities which in 1993 led to the publication of my book "Catching the Light, The Entwined History of Light and Mind", now available in paperback from Oxford University Press. More recently my interest in Goethe's scientific studies has resulted in a book co-edited by me with essays written by several authors entitled, "Goethe's Way of Science, A Phenomenology of Nature", published by The State University of New York Press.