Physics as a Calling

In this book, Kathryn M. Olesko reconstructs in fine detail the evolution, across the nineteenth century, of Franz Neumann's physics seminar at Königsberg University in East Prussia. Established during a period of in tense educational reform and intellectual debate in the sciences, the seminar turned out academic physicists as well as secondary school teachers. As the first official science seminar to incorporate mathematical considerations, Neumann's institute pioneered the integration of two quantitative traditions in physics—the mathematical and the exact experimental.

Kathryn M. Olesko is Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University.