It’s tempting to picture a bunch of long-haired ruffians turning the particle accelerators on themselves in David Kaiser’s new book, even if the eponymous “hippies” were just a group of scientists slightly apart from mainstream physics. Still, Kaiser argues convincingly for their role as provocateurs in How The Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, And The Quantum Revival.
According to Kaiser, physics was headed over a postwar cliff of dreary practicality before a loose conglomerate of theoretical physicists dragged it back. The combination of Department Of Defense-led technological advances and Cold War paranoia drove enrollments in college physics programs up in the 1950s and ’60s, but many professors found it easier with such large class loads to focus on solution-driven curricula—producing even more physicists oriented toward mechanics and away from theories, even as popular interest in the subject waned. Enter a number of adjunct professors and grad students, most based in the Bay Area, who picked up where Einstein left off by forming discussion circles like the Fundamental Fysiks and the Physics/Consciousness Research Group. Championing Irish quantum-theory pioneer John Bell, they sought funding to expand on his work after hours in groundbreaking scientific papers and pop-culture works like The Tao Of Physics.
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