Paul Forman (born 1937) is an historian of science and is the retired curator of the Division of Medicine and Science at the National Museum of American History. Forman's primary research focus has been the

history of physics Physics is a branch of science whose primary objects of study are matter and energy. Discoveries of physics find applications throughout the natural sciences and in technology. Physics today may be divided loosely into classical physics and mode ...

, in which he has helped pioneer the application of

cultural history Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to examine popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the ...

to scientific developments. Forman is especially known for two controversial historical theses. The first (often called "the Forman thesis") regards the influence of German culture on early interpretations of

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...

; Forman argued that the culture of Weimar Germany, through its emphasis on acausality, individuality and visualizability (''Anschaulichkeit''), contributed to the acceptance and interpretation of quantum mechanics. Forman's second thesis regards the influence of military funding on the character and course of scientific research; he argued that during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

and the Cold War, the massive scale of defense-related funding prompted a shift in physics from basic to applied research, spurring considerable historical research on the effects of the

military funding of science The military funding of science has had a powerful transformative effect on the practice and products of scientific research since the early 20th century. Particularly since World War I, advanced science-based technologies have been viewed as esse ...

. Forman's recent work focuses on "characterization of the modern/postmodern transition in science, society, and culture."

Forman thesis

Forman (1971) argued the remarkable scientific achievements in quantum physics in

Weimar Germany The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is als ...

in the 1920s involved the cross-product of the hostile intellectual atmosphere whereby many scientists rejected Weimar Germany as an illegitimate state and in which there were intellectual revolts against causality, determinism and materialism. The scientists adjusted to the intellectual environment by dropping Newtonian causality from quantum mechanics, thereby opening up an entirely new and highly successful approach to physics. = Forman links the emergence of quantum mechanics, and Bohr's

Copenhagen interpretation The Copenhagen interpretation is a collection of views about the meaning of quantum mechanics, principally attributed to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It is one of the oldest of numerous proposed interpretations of quantum mechanics, as feat ...

in particular, to the postwar revolt against rationalist and causal-realist

philosophies of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ulti ...

. Many intellectuals felt those philosophies somehow contributed to the crisis of European (more specifically German) national identity. Forman concludes that: :"If the physicist were to improve his public image he had first and foremost to dispense with causality, with rigorous determinism, that most universally abhorred feature of the physical world picture. And this, of course, turned out to be precisely what was required for the solution of those problems in atomic physics which were then at the focus of the physicist’s interest." The "Forman Thesis" has generated an intense debate for and against among historians of science. In support of Forman, Max Jammer and others cite anti-rationalist movements such as

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...

, and

logical empiricism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...

as showing a post-war cultural climate that was receptive to the kinds of argument advanced by Bohr,

Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent series ...

Dirac Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) is an integrated supercomputing facility used for research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology in the United Kingdom. DiRAC makes use of multi-core processors and provides a variety o ...

and others. Just as many scholars have challenged the Forman thesis. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1988 ''"for his research on the history and cultural background of modern physics, and for his development of museum exhibits presenting physics to the public"''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forman, Paul 1937 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers Fellows of the American Physical Society Historians of science Living people