Practicing the Correspondence Principle in the Old Quantum Theory

Martin Jähnert is a historian of science focused on conceptual developments in 19th- and 20th-century physics. As a fellow at the Berlin Center for the History of Knowledge he is currently working on the history of photometry as practiced at lighthouses in the 19th century. He was part of the project History and Foundation of Quantum Physics at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science where he worked on the conceptual development of the old quantum theory, in particular of the correspondence principle and the interpretational debate on quantum mechanics in the 1920s. Jähnert studied History and Physics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and completed his Ph.D. thesis Practicing the Correspondence Principle in the Old Quantum Theory at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and the Technische Universität Berlin. Currently he is a post-doc at the Berlin Center for the History Knowledge with the project “Photometry at the Lighthouse”.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. The Correspondence Principle in Copenhagen 1913–1923: Origin, Formulation and Consolidation.- 3. The Correspondence Principle in the Quantum Network 1918–1926.- 4. Using the Magic Wand: Sommerfeld, Multiplet Intensities and the Correspondence Principle.- 5. Fertilizer on a Sandy Acreage: Franck, Hund and the Ramsauer Effect.- 6. That I Cannot Conceive of After the Results of Your Dissertation: Fritz Reiche and the F-sum Rule.- 7. Copenhagen Reactions: The Intensity Problem in Copenhagen, 1924–1925.- 8. Conclusion.- A. Applications of the Correspondence Principle 1918–1928.- Archives.- Bibliography.

“His writing is also clear, to be sure … . No doubt this novel interpretation will be carefully scrutinized by experts in the near future, as it clearly involves an interesting new twist on how quantum mechanics arose, in particular a new view of the immediate events that led up to Heisenberg’s breakthrough.” (David Rowe, NTM, Vol. 29 (3), September, 2021)“This book provides an original contribution to the study of the history of quantum mechanics. … The monograph is carefully written and logically organised, it further provides valuable insights based on a rich historical documentation.” (Bassano Vacchini, zbMATH 1428.81004, 2020)