Papers by Jeroen van Dongen
PART 1 Secrecy and Science 1 Scientists, Secrecy, and Scientific Intelligence: The Challenges of ... more PART 1 Secrecy and Science 1 Scientists, Secrecy, and Scientific Intelligence: The Challenges of International Science in Cold War America Ronald E. Doel 2 A 'Need-To-Know-More' Criterion? Science and Information Security at NATO during the Cold War Simone Turchetti 3 A Transnational Approach to US Nuclear Weapons Relationships with Britain and France in the 60s and 70s John Krige PART 2 Dutch Perspectives 4 Putting a Lid on the Gas Centrifuge: Classification of the Dutch Ultracentrifuge Project, 1960-1961 Abel Streefland 5 Quid Pro Quo: Dutch Defense Research during the Early Cold War Jeroen van Dongen and Friso Hoeneveld 6 Chemical Warfare Research in the Netherlands Herman Roozenbeek 7 The Fulbright Program in the Netherlands: An Example of Science Diplomacy Giles Scott-Smith PART 3 'Cold War' Science? 8 The Absence of the East: International Influences on Science Policy in Western Europe during the Cold War David Baneke 9 Colonial Crossings: Social Science, Social Knowledge, and American Power from the Nineteenth Century to the Cold War Jessica Wang PART 4 Scientific Hubris 10 Cold War Atmospheric Sciences in the United States: From Modeling to Control Kristine C. Harper 11 Small State versus Superpower: Science and Geopolitics in Greenland in the Early Cold War Matthias Heymann, Henry Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt Nielsen and Henrik Knudsen 12 The Ford Foundation and the Measurement of Values Paul Erickson
Nature Astronomy, 2017
In the version of this Review Article originally published George Ellis was mistakenly named as J... more In the version of this Review Article originally published George Ellis was mistakenly named as John Ellis. This has been corrected in all versions of the Review Article.
arXiv (Cornell University), Jul 26, 2023
In 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a technical article that argued against the possibility that a star... more In 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a technical article that argued against the possibility that a star can be contracted to a single point: particles making up the star would end up rotating at velocities that were too high. In the same year, Robert Oppenheimer, together with his student Hartland Snyder, drew an apparently exactly opposite conclusion: that when a sufficiently heavy star runs out of nuclear fuel, it will collapse into an infinitely dense point, closed off from the rest of the universe. Both Oppenheimer and Einstein would soon be preoccupied by choices of an altogether different nature; and, again, set out on a different course. Black holes were born in 1939. In that year, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his student Hartland Snyder published their article On continued gravitational contraction. It began by observing that after a star burns through its nuclear fusion energies, the pressure of its radiation will no longer be able to counter the pull of its gravitational field. Oppenheimer and Snyder found that for a heavy star only one option remains: it can only contract. And that contraction will not halt until the star is reduced to a mere infinitesimal point. The theory of relativity, they argued, ensures that, eventually, the star "tends to close itself off from any communication with a distant observer; only its gravitational field persists." 1 Ideas that anticipated Oppenheimer and Snyder's insight were already circulating before 1939. The most important equation they used had been written down in 1916 by Karl Schwarzschild, a German astronomer who had been closely following the development of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Schwarzschild had determined how the gravitational field around a star should look in the new theory. To make his calculations easier, he had modeled the star as an infinitely small point. He hit upon a strange circumstance: at a small distance just outside this central mass, the gravitational field appeared to be infinitely large. Yet, for a mass that was comparable to the sun's, this distance was nearly zero. Furthermore, an infinity in the field could be expected as a mathematical artefact of such a naïve point source model, and Schwarzschild seemed not particularly concerned about it (Schwarzschild 1916a, 1916b). In any case, the small distance is now usually referred to as a star's 'Schwarzschild radius'. Many authors studied Schwarzschild's stellar model. 2 It offered the possibility to describe precisely the trajectories of planets and comets, or, for example, to determine how much the light emitted by a faraway object would be deflected when it grazes the surface of the sun. That calculation was instrumental for the British eclipse expeditions of 1919, which confirmed the
Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, Dec 20, 2016
Personae and the Practice of Science chaokang tai and jeroen van dongen Anton Pannekoek (1873-196... more Personae and the Practice of Science chaokang tai and jeroen van dongen Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) was both an innovative astronomer and an influential Marxist. In this article we will investigate both his Milky Way research and Marxist philosophy, with special focus on his ideal scholarly persona and the epistemic virtues he advocated in his research. This focus allows us to place Pannekoek in the larger development of scientific methodology during the nineteenth and early twentieth century and, most importantly, offers insight into how Pannekoek's scientific and socialist research were related. Anton Pannekoek en zijn epistemische deugden in astronomie en socialisme. Personae in de praktijk Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) was zowel innovatief astronoom als invloedrijk marxist. Dit artikel bespreekt zijn onderzoek naar de structuur van de Melkweg en zijn marxistische filosofie, waarbij we in het bijzonder onze aandacht richten op Pannekoeks epistemische deugden en de daarmee geassocieerde ideale persona. Dit perspectief stelt ons in staat om Pannekoek in de bredere ontwikkeling van de wetenschappelijke methodologie in de negentiende en vroege twintigste eeuw te plaatsen. Voorts biedt het ons inzicht in hoe Pannekoeks sterrenkundige en socialistische onderzoek gerelateerd waren. scholarly personae: repertoires and performances of academic identity
Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2019
Astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek was a remarkable figure. As an astronomer, he pioneered qu... more Astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek was a remarkable figure. As an astronomer, he pioneered quantitative astrophysics and founded the renowned Astronomical Institute in Amsterdam that now carries his name. Before World War I, however, he was employed as a Marxist theorist by the Social Democratic Party of Germany, making him one of the leading intellectuals of international socialism. Because of his significant contributions to such diverse subjects as astronomy and socialism, Pannekoek's life and work uniquely capture the fascinating connections between conceptions of nature, society, and their representations in the early decades of the twentieth century. This book aims to study these connections through the prism of Pannekoek's biography. In doing so, it sets out to explain Pannekoek's particular epistemic, aesthetic, and political choices, while placing them in the broader context of the early twentieth century. Pannekoek tried to keep connections between his political and academic life hidden from view. He had pragmatic reasons to do so. His academic career had suffered from his controversial political reputation on more than one occasion, most dramatically in 1919 when his appointment to deputy director of the Leiden Observatory was obstructed by the Dutch government. 1 From the mid-1910s onwards, he kept his socialist efforts at a distance from his career in astronomy, and even ended up writing two separate autobiographies: one focusing on his career in the labour movement, while the other discussed his astronomical research. 2 Remarkably, this separation has been carried over into scholarship on his life and work. This either discusses Pannekoek's role in the labour
Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Aug 9, 2019
Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Natuurkunde, Mar 1, 2021
Galaxies
This white paper outlines the plans of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group of the Next G... more This white paper outlines the plans of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.
Nature Astronomy, 2017
Author Contributions J.d.S. has conducted the historical research, conducted the interviews, and ... more Author Contributions J.d.S. has conducted the historical research, conducted the interviews, and prepared the manuscript. G.B. and J.v.D. defined the project, supervised the research, gave technical and conceptual advice, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.
Anton Pannekoek, 2019
Astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek was a remarkable figure. As an astronomer, he pioneered qu... more Astronomer and Marxist Anton Pannekoek was a remarkable figure. As an astronomer, he pioneered quantitative astrophysics and founded the renowned Astronomical Institute in Amsterdam that now carries his name. Before World War I, however, he was employed as a Marxist theorist by the Social Democratic Party of Germany, making him one of the leading intellectuals of international socialism. Because of his significant contributions to such diverse subjects as astronomy and socialism, Pannekoek's life and work uniquely capture the fascinating connections between conceptions of nature, society, and their representations in the early decades of the twentieth century. This book aims to study these connections through the prism of Pannekoek's biography. In doing so, it sets out to explain Pannekoek's particular epistemic, aesthetic, and political choices, while placing them in the broader context of the early twentieth century. Pannekoek tried to keep connections between his political and academic life hidden from view. He had pragmatic reasons to do so. His academic career had suffered from his controversial political reputation on more than one occasion, most dramatically in 1919 when his appointment to deputy director of the Leiden Observatory was obstructed by the Dutch government. 1 From the mid-1910s onwards, he kept his socialist efforts at a distance from his career in astronomy, and even ended up writing two separate autobiographies: one focusing on his career in the labour movement, while the other discussed his astronomical research. 2 Remarkably, this separation has been carried over into scholarship on his life and work. This either discusses Pannekoek's role in the labour
This article reviews the early academic and public reception of Albert Einstein's theory of r... more This article reviews the early academic and public reception of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity in the Netherlands, particularly after Arthur Eddington's eclipse experiments of 1919. Initially, not much attention was given to relativity, as it did not seem an improvement over Hendrik A. Lorentz' work. This changed after the arrival in Leiden of Paul Ehrenfest. Soon relativity was much studied and lead to controversy among a number of conservative intellectuals, as elsewhere in Europe. The tone of Dutch critics was much more mild, however. This can be understood when one considers Dutch neutrality during World War I. Einstein's political positions were generally positively perceived in Holland, which Dutch academics put to use in their efforts at international reconciliation abroad, and the presentation of theoretical physics at home.
Filename The reception of relativity in the Netherlands
Holographic' relations between theories have become an important theme in quantum gravity researc... more Holographic' relations between theories have become an important theme in quantum gravity research. These relations entail that a theory without gravity is equivalent to a gravitational theory with an extra spatial dimension. The idea of holography was first proposed in 1993 by Gerard 't Hooft on the basis of his studies of evaporating black holes. Soon afterwards the holographic 'AdS/CFT' duality was introduced, which since has been intensively studied in the string theory community and beyond. Recently, Erik Verlinde has proposed that even Newton's law of gravitation can be related holographically to the 'thermodynamics of information' on screens. We discuss these scenarios, with special attention to the status of the holographic relation in them and to the question of whether they make gravity and spacetime emergent. We conclude that only Verlinde's scheme straightfowardly instantiates emergence. However, assuming a non-standard interpretation of AdS/CFT may create room for the emergence of spacetime and gravity there as well.
Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 2017
Epistemic virtues offer a promising angle for studying interaction between fields of research con... more Epistemic virtues offer a promising angle for studying interaction between fields of research conventionally classified under the “sciences” and the “humanities.” Given that virtues like objectivity, honesty, and accuracy are not confined to specific disciplines, they allow for comparative historical research between scientific fields as well as for histories of transfer, borrowing, and adaptation between disciplines. Such research, however, requires ample attention to what scientists in specific settings understood epistemic virtues to mean. Although the adjective refers to their role in facilitating the pursuit of epistemic aims (knowledge and understanding of reality), epistemic virtues are often imbued with moral, social, religious, and/or political meaning. If virtues specify the character traits marking a “scientific self,” then scientific selfhood is never exclusively defined in epistemic terms.
BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 2016
Personae and the Practice of Science chaokang tai and jeroen van dongen Anton Pannekoek (1873-196... more Personae and the Practice of Science chaokang tai and jeroen van dongen Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) was both an innovative astronomer and an influential Marxist. In this article we will investigate both his Milky Way research and Marxist philosophy, with special focus on his ideal scholarly persona and the epistemic virtues he advocated in his research. This focus allows us to place Pannekoek in the larger development of scientific methodology during the nineteenth and early twentieth century and, most importantly, offers insight into how Pannekoek's scientific and socialist research were related. Anton Pannekoek en zijn epistemische deugden in astronomie en socialisme. Personae in de praktijk Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) was zowel innovatief astronoom als invloedrijk marxist. Dit artikel bespreekt zijn onderzoek naar de structuur van de Melkweg en zijn marxistische filosofie, waarbij we in het bijzonder onze aandacht richten op Pannekoeks epistemische deugden en de daarmee geassocieerde ideale persona. Dit perspectief stelt ons in staat om Pannekoek in de bredere ontwikkeling van de wetenschappelijke methodologie in de negentiende en vroege twintigste eeuw te plaatsen. Voorts biedt het ons inzicht in hoe Pannekoeks sterrenkundige en socialistische onderzoek gerelateerd waren. scholarly personae: repertoires and performances of academic identity
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Papers by Jeroen van Dongen