David Kaiser

Program in Science, Technology & Society  
and Department of Physics
  MITlogo


Short Biography

David Kaiser is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science in MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society and Professor of Physics in MIT's Department of Physics. He also served as an inaugural associate dean for MIT's new cross-campus initiative on Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.

Kaiser completed an A.B. in physics at Dartmouth College and Ph.D.s in physics and the history of science at Harvard University. His historical research focuses on the development of physics in the United States during the Cold War, looking at how the discipline has evolved at the intersection of politics, culture, and the changing shape of higher education. His physics research focuses on early-universe cosmology, working at the interface of particle physics and gravitation. He has also helped to design and conduct novel experiments to test the foundations of quantum theory.

Kaiser is author of the award-winning book Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (University of Chicago Press, 2005), which traces how Richard Feynman's idiosyncratic approach to quantum physics entered the mainstream. His book How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (W. W. Norton, 2011) charts the early history of Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement and was named "Book of the Year" by Physics World magazine. His latest book, Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World (University of Chicago Press, 2020), was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title and honored as among the best books of the year by both Physics Today and Physics World magazines.

His edited volumes include Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (MIT Press, 2005), Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision (MIT Press, 2010), Science and the American Century, co-edited with Sally Gregory Kohlstedt (University of Chicago Press, 2013), Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture, co-edited with W. Patrick McCray (University of Chicago Press, 2016), "Well, Doc, You're In": Freeman Dyson's Journey through the Universe (MIT Press, 2022), and Theoretical Physics In Your Face: Selected Correspondence of Sidney Coleman, co-edited with Aaron Wright and Diana Coleman (World Scientific, 2022). Kaiser serves as Chair of the Editorial Board of MIT Press, and as Series Editor for the MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.

Kaiser's work has been featured in such venues as the New York Times, the New Yorker magazine, Nature, Science, and Scientific American, the Huffington Post, and the London Review of Books; and on National Public Radio, BBC Radio, and NOVA television programs. In 2010, he was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Other honors include the Pfizer Prize for best book in the field (2007) and the Davis Prize for best book aimed at a general audience (2013) from the History of Science Society; and the LeRoy Apker Award for best undergraduate physics student from the American Physical Society (1993). In 2012 Kaiser was named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT's highest honor for excellence in undergraduate teaching. That same year, he also received the Frank E. Perkins Award for excellence in mentoring graduate students. His group's recent efforts to conduct a "Cosmic Bell" test of quantum entanglement were featured in the documentary film Einstein's Quantum Riddle, which premiered on PBS television stations in 2019.


Download Kaiser's c.v.
Back to Kaiser's home page



Research Interests: History of Science

I have long been fascinated by the interplay between ideas and institutions. Becoming a physicist in 1860s Britain or 1910s Germany was not the same as in 1950s America. What effects did those differences in training regimes and research institutions have on the knowledge that was produced? More broadly, how does scientific knowledge -- that paragon of objectivity, seemingly impervious to political exigencies or cultural cues -- bear the marks of time and place?

DTAcover

Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (University of Chicago Press, 2005) traces how the American physicist Richard Feynman's idiosyncratic approach to quantum physics entered the mainstream.  Ubiquitous today throughout nearly every branch of modern physics, the diagrams did not enter physicists' toolkit overnight. Personal mentoring and extended face-to-face contact proved crucial for putting the diagrams into circulation. Once they did begin to circulate, physicists crafted a dizzying array of uses and interpretations for them, far beyond anything Feynman had imagined. Drawing on insights from sociology and art history, the book scrutinizes what it takes for strange new tools to become "second nature." (For a synopsis, see "Physics and Feynman's Diagrams.")  The book has been honored with the Pfizer Award of the History of Science Society (2007) and the Book Prize of the Forum for History of Science in America (2006).  

How the Hippies Saved Physics How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (W. W. Norton, 2011) focuses on the rocky transition of the 1970s and 1980s. Caught off-guard as physicists' postwar boom years turned to bust, a small group banded together to carve out a new role for the physicist. Holding Ph.D.s from elite programs but with no job prospects in sight, they set up shop in Berkeley, California, and called themselves the "Fundamental Fysiks Group." They chased the mysteries of quantum theory amid the Bay Area's blossoming counterculture and New Age movements, and their investigations began to reflect the era's many enthusiasms. Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement, for example, suggested possibilities for mind reading. The group carved out a parallel universe, outside academia, and parlayed their interest into a widespread cultural phenomenon. They cultivated a new set of patrons, from the CIA to self-made entrepreneurs of the California "human potential" movement; and they established alternative forums in which to puzzle through the foundations of quantum theory, including a long-running seminar series at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Their popular books became bestselling icons, including Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics (1975) and Gary Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979). Items from the group also got picked up in the nation's physics classrooms, smuggling back in some sustained attention to the foundations of quantum theory. As I trace in the book, the group's brainstorming sessions laid crucial groundwork for today's quantum information science. The book was named "Book of the Year" by Physics World magazine, and also received the Davis Prize from the History of Science Society. Watch a lecture based on the book. In 2022, John Clauser (whose research features prominently in the book) shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the study of quantum entanglement.

Quantum Legacies Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World (University of Chicago Press, 2020). The ideas at the root of quantum theory remain stubbornly, famously bizarre: a solid world reduced to puffs of probability; particles that tunnel through walls; cats suspended in zombie-like states, neither alive nor dead; and twinned particles that share entangled fates. For more than a century, physicists have grappled with these uncertainties while enmeshed within the larger uncertainties of the social and political worlds, a time pocked by the rise of fascism, cataclysmic world wars, and a new nuclear age. Quantum Legacies traces moments of discovery and debate among generations of physicists, from Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger to Stephen Hawking, as they have struggled to make sense of a messy world. The book was included among the "Best of Physics in Books, Film, and TV" by Physics World magazine, highlighted as one of five "notable books of the year" by Physics Today, and named a "Choice Outstanding Academic Title" for 2020.

Back to Kaiser's home page



Research Interests: Particle Cosmology

My physics research is in particle cosmology, working at the interface of particle physics and gravitation. In particular, most of my work has focused on inflationary cosmology: a distinct phase in the evolution of our universe, about 13.8 billion years ago, during which the size of the universe expanded exponentially quickly. (For a review, see "Inflationary Cosmology.")  Since 2011, I have been leading a research group at MIT with Alan Guth on aspects of cosmic inflation. Much like the early universe, our group has grown rapidly.

Guth-Kaiser Group 2014 Members of the "Density Perturbations Group" at MIT, August 2014.

Back row, L to R: Gerard Pascual-Lopez, Evangelos Sfakianakis, Xingang Chen, Camilo Cela Lopez, Noam Ben-Tzur, Stephen Face, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Johanna Karouby, Mark Hertzberg.

Front row, L to R: Alan Guth, Jolyon Bloomfield, Gustav Del Aguila II, Daniel Bulhosa Solorzano, Matthew DeCross, Anirudh Prabhu, Jeannette Maisano-Brown, David Kaiser.

Not pictured: Juanita Becerra, William Spitzer.

Photo by Matthew Joss.



My interest has centered on whether successful inflation might be achieved with familiar particles from the Standard Model of particle physics, such as the Higgs boson. Recent work has focused on predictions from models with several interacting fields, and whether multifield models produce new features that could be observed in the cosmic microwave background radiation, compared to single-field models. Much of this work has also concerned interactions between matter and gravity that extend beyond Einstein's general relativity, and whether such "nonminimal couplings" might account for specific observable features in the spectrum of primordial perturbations. For a brief and accessible introduction to this work, see "Elegant Wiggles: Why the Universe is Lumpy."

I have also been studying how such inflationary expansion might have come to an end in a process called "reheating," when the energy that had driven the rapid expansion was converted into particles more like the kind we see around us today. In the process, the supercooled state during inflation eventually reaches thermal equilibrium at some high temperature, setting the stage for standard big-bang cosmic evolution. Understanding reheating is therefore critical for connecting two well-tested cosmic epochs: early-universe inflation and big-bang nucleosynthesis. In many models, the energy that had driven inflation decays resonantly, far from equilibrium. The nonperturbative techniques used to study reheating can also be applied to many other kinds of interactions, such as phase transitions in condensed-matter physics and in nuclear physics. For a review of post-inflation reheating, see "Nonperturbative dynamics of reheating after inflation."

Cosmic Bell Group 2014 Members of the "Cosmic Bell" team at MIT, September 2014. L to R: Andrew Friedman, Jason Gallicchio, Anton Zeilinger, and David Kaiser.

Another topic of interest is developing a loophole-free experimental test of Bell's inequality. Albert Einstein famously dismissed quantum entanglement as "spooky actions at a distance," yet dozens of experimental tests on entangled systems since the 1970s have upheld the strange predictions of quantum mechanics. Even in these fascinating experiments, however, several "loopholes" remain, which could allow a theory much like the type Einstein preferred to mimic the predictions of quantum theory. Our protocol uses real-time observations of some of the oldest light in the cosmos -- for example, from distant quasars -- to set the detector settings in a Bell test, while the entangled pair is in flight. Together with Anton Zeilinger and his group in Vienna, we have conducted such tests using light from Milky Way stars and from very distant quasars. The results from each of these experiments are consistent with predictions from quantum theory, and place the strongest constraints to date on various alternatives to quantum theory. For a brief introduction to Bell's inequality and quantum entanglement, read this excerpt in Scientific American from my book, How the Hippies Saved Physics. For an accessible introduction to our "Cosmic Bell" experiments, see my short essays in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Nautilus magazine, or these fun videos at THUNK and Physics Girl. In 2022, Anton Zeilinger shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with John Clauser and Alain Aspect for his pioneering experiments on quantum entanglement.

A complementary line of inquiry focuses on the complex dynamics of networks, with applications to understanding the growth and development of scientific research fields: a cross between statistical mechanics and the history and sociology of science. Together with Luis Bettencourt, I have been exploring whether the critical dynamics of topological phase transitions in scientists' collaboration networks might betray signs of universality. Research areas in fields as disparate as theoretical physics and biomedicine might undergo the same basic teamwork and co-authorship mechanisms early in their histories, even though they involve vastly different numbers of researchers and published articles per year.

Back to Kaiser's home page


Publications

Books and Edited Volumes

ColemanCover
Theoretical Physics In Your Face: Selected Correspondence of Sidney Coleman, co-edited with Aaron Wright and Diana Coleman (World Scientific, 2022). Sidney Coleman (1937—2007) was a renowned theoretical physicist, who taught for more than forty years at Harvard University. He contributed critical work on quantum field theory, high-energy particle physics, and cosmology. He was also a remarkably effective teacher who introduced generations of physicists to quantum field theory, mentoring several leading members of the field. His sense of humor and wit became legendary. This selection of his previously unpublished correspondence illuminates changes in theoretical physics and in academic life over the course of Coleman's illustrious career. The volume also includes Coleman's legendary lecture "Quantum Mechanics in Your Face."
DysonCover
"Well, Doc, You're In": Freeman Dyson's Journey Through the Universe (MIT Press, 2022), ed. David Kaiser. Freeman Dyson (1923-2020)—renowned scientist, visionary, and iconoclast—helped invent modern physics. Not bound by disciplinary divisions, he went on to explore foundational topics in mathematics, astrophysics, and the origin of life. General readers were introduced to Dyson's roving mind and heterodox approach in his 1979 book Disturbing the Universe, a poignant autobiographical reflection on life and science. "Well, Doc, You're In" (the title quotes Richard Feynman's remark to Dyson at a physics conference) offers a fresh examination of Dyson's life and work, exploring his particular way of thinking about deep questions that range from the nature of matter to the ultimate fate of the universe.
QuantumLegaciesCover
Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World (University of Chicago Press, 2020). The ideas at the root of quantum theory remain stubbornly, famously bizarre: a solid world reduced to puffs of probability; particles that tunnel through walls; cats suspended in zombie-like states, neither alive nor dead; and twinned particles that share entangled fates. For more than a century, physicists have grappled with these uncertainties while enmeshed within the larger uncertainties of the social and political worlds, a time pocked by the rise of fascism, cataclysmic world wars, and a new nuclear age. Quantum Legacies traces moments of discovery and debate among generations of physicists, from Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger to Stephen Hawking, as they have struggled to make sense of a messy world.
GroovyScienceCover
Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture, co-edited with W. Patrick McCray (University of Chicago Press, 2016). Outspoken commentators in the 1960s and 1970s fretted that American youth culture -- especially "hippies" and the counterculture -- turned its back on science and technology while chasing New Age enthusiasms. The essays in Groovy Science challenge that stereotype. Many members of the American counterculture sought a new kind of "groovy science": small-scale and big-picture, sometimes with hidden links to Cold War projects but championed by charismatic figures bent on self-expression and self-exploration. Several once-radical ideas of groovy science have since been absorbed into the mainstream -- their psychedelic, technicolor roots largely forgotten.
Science and the American Century
Science and the American Century, co-edited with Sally Gregory Kohlstedt (University of Chicago Press, 2013). The twentieth century was one of astonishing change in science, especially as pursued in the United States. Against a backdrop of dramatic political and economic shifts brought by world wars, intermittent depressions, sporadic and occasionally massive increases in funding, and expanding private patronage, this scientific work fundamentally reshaped everyday life. Science and the American Century offers some of the most significant contributions to the study of the history of science, technology, and medicine during the twentieth century, all drawn from the pages of the journal Isis.
Hippies
How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (W. W. Norton, 2011; Italian translation, 2012; Chinese translation, 2014.). In the 1970s, amidst severe cutbacks on physics funding, a small group of underemployed physicists in Berkeley decided to throw off the constraints of academia and explore the wilder side of science. Dubbing themselves the "Fundamental Fysiks Group," they pursued a freewheeling, speculative approach to physics. They studied quantum theory alongside Eastern mysticism and psychic mind-reading, discussing the latest developments while lounging in hot tubs. Unlikely as it may seem, their work on Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement helped pave the way for today's advances in quantum information science. Watch a lecture based on the book.
BecomingMIT
Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision, ed. David Kaiser (MIT Press, 2010).  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology marks the 150th anniversary of its founding in 2011. This book examines a series of turning points, crucial decisions that helped define the MIT we know today. Many of these issues continue to have relevance: the moral implications of defense contracts, the optimal balance between government funding and private investment, and the right combination of basic science, engineering, and humanistic scholarship in the curriculum.
DTAcover
Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics, (University of Chicago Press, 2005). A study of how Richard Feynman's calculational aids spread from a small cluster of users to dominate several branches of modern physics.  Along the way, many groups of young physicists adapted the diagrams' pictorial form, calculational role, and interpreted meaning. The dispersion of Feynman diagrams thus illuminates larger transformations of postwar theoretical physics, from what would count as "theory" to how students would be trained to become "theorists."  (For a synopsis, see "Physics and Feynman's Diagrams.")
PPScover
Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. David Kaiser (MIT Press, 2005).  The essays collected in this volume examine how scientists' and engineers' training shapes their research and careers.  Examples are drawn from a variety of cultural and political settings during the 19th and 20th centuries (ranging from Victorian Britain to interwar Japan, Stalinist Russia, and Cold War America), and from a range of fields (from theoretical physics to electrical engineering, nuclear weapons science to quantum chemistry).
HSPScover  
Twentieth-Century Theoretical Physics in Political Contexts, ed. Alexis de Greiff and David Kaiser. Special issue of Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences (Fall 2002): 1-192.
Routledgecover
Science and Society:  The History of Modern Physical Science in the Twentieth Century (New York:  Routledge, 2001).  A 4-volume anthology edited and with introductions by Peter Galison, Michael Gordin, and David Kaiser. Volume 1 (Making Special Relativity); Volume 2 (Making General Relativity); Volume 3 (Quantum Histories); and Volume 4 (Physical Science and the Language of War).


Back to Kaiser's home page



Articles:  History of Science

2024. David Kaiser, "Preface," in Alain Aspect, Einstein and the Quantum Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, in press).
2020. Julia H. Menzel and David Kaiser, "Weimar, Cold War, and Historical Explanation: Re-reading Forman," Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 50 (2020): 31-40.
2019. David Kaiser, "Foreword," in Quantum Field Theory: Lectures of Sidney Coleman, ed. Bryan Gin-ge Chen, David Derbes, David Griffiths, Brian Hill, Richard Sohn, and Yuan-Sen Ting (Singapore: World Scientific, 2019), xvii-xxvii.
2018. David Kaiser and Dean Rickles, "The Price of Gravity: Private Patronage and the Transformation of Gravitational Physics after World War II," Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 48 (2018): 338-379.
2018. David Kaiser, "The origins of Physics Today," Physics Today 71 (May 2018): 32-38.
2017. David Kaiser, "Foreword to the 2017 edition," in Charles Misner, Kip Thorne, and John Wheeler, Gravitation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), xxlii-xxxi.
2016. David Kaiser, "Thomas Kuhn and the Psychology of Scientific Revolutions," in Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions at Fifty, ed. Lorraine Daston and Robert J. Richards (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), pp. 71-95.
2015. Steve Paulson, Adam Frank, David Kaiser, Tim Maudlin, and Priyamvada Natarajan, "Transcending matter: Physics and ultimate meaning," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (11 September 2015).
2015. David Kaiser and Benjamin Wilson, "American scientists as public citizens: 70 years of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 71 (January 2015): 13-25.
2014. Benjamin Wilson and David Kaiser, "Physics," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Scientific, Medical, and Technological History, ed. Hugh Slotten (New York: Oxford University Press).
2014. Benjamin Wilson and David Kaiser, "Calculating Times: Radar, Ballistic Missiles, and Einstein's Relativity," in Science and Technology in the Global Cold War, ed. Naomi Oreskes and John Krige (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2014), 273-316.
2014. John Durant, David Kaiser, Peter Linett, Thomas Levenson, and Ben Wiehe, "The Evolving Culture of Science Engagement: Report of Findings." Report on our 2013 workshop, held at MIT. Learn more about the initiative and read the report at www.cultureofscienceengagement.net
2013. David Kaiser, "Epilogue: Textbooks and the Emergence of a Conceptual Trajectory," in Research and Pedagogy: A History of Quantum Physics through its Textbooks, ed. Massimiliano Badino and Jaume Navarro (Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), 285-289.
2013. David Kaiser, "Déjà vu all over again? A response to Philip Mirowski," Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 2(2): 1-7.
2012. David Kaiser, "Booms, Busts, and the World of Ideas: Enrollment Pressures and the Challenge of Specialization," Osiris 27 (2012): 276-302.
2012. David Kaiser, "A Tale of Two Textbooks: Experiments in Genre," Isis 103 (March 2012): 126-138.
2011. David Kaiser, "Consciousness on the Charles" (essay review), Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 41 (2011): 265-275.
2011. David Kaiser, "Foreword," in Freeman Dyson, Advanced Quantum Mechanics, ed. David Derbes, 2nd ed. (New Jersey: World Scientific, 2011), v-xii.
2010. David Kaiser and Marc Kastner, "Francis E. Low, 1921-2007," Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the National Academy of Sciences (2010): 1-24.
2010. Invited guest editor, with Hunter Heyck, of Isis Focus section on "New Perspectives on Science and the Cold War": Isis 101 (June 2010): 362-411.
2010. David Kaiser, "Elephant on the Charles: Postwar Growing Pains," in MIT: Moments of Decision, ed. David Kaiser (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010), 103-121.
2009. David Kaiser, "Following the Forbidden Path: Conventions, Habits, and Feynman Diagrams," in Atombilder: Ikonographien des Atoms in Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jochen Hennig and Charlotte Bigg (Berlin: Wallstein Verlag, 2009), 62-69 (in German).
2009. David Kaiser, "Feynman Diagrams," in Compendium of Quantum Physics: Concepts, Experiments, History, and Philosophy, ed. Friedel Weinert, Klaus Hentschel, and Daniel Greenberger (New York: Springer, 2009), 235-239.
2008. David Kaiser, "Birth Cry of Image and Logic," Centaurus 50 (Feb 2008): 166-167.
2007.
Cyrus Mody and David Kaiser, "Scientific Training and the Creation of Scientific Knowledge:  Historical, Sociological, and Anthropological Perspectives," in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, rev. ed. (Cambridge:  MIT Press, 2007), 377-402.
2007.
David Kaiser, "Richard Feynman" and "Victor Weisskopf," in The New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007).
2007.
David Kaiser, "The Mutual Embrace:  Institutions and Epistemology," in Positioning the History of Science, ed. Kostas Gavroglu and Jürgen Renn (Dordrecht:  Springer, 2007), 99-103.
2006.
David Kaiser, "The Physics of Spin:  Sputnik Politics and American Physicists in the 1950s," Social Research 73 (Winter 2006):  1225-1252.
2006.
David Kaiser, "Whose Mass is it Anyway?  Particle Cosmology and the Objects of Theory," Social Studies of Science 36 (August 2006):  533-564.
2005.
David Kaiser, "The Atomic Secret in Red Hands?  American Suspicions of Theoretical Physicists during the Early Cold War," Representations 90 (Spring 2005):   28-60.
2005.
David Kaiser, "Training and the Generalist's Vision in the History of Science," Isis 96 (June 2005):  244-251.
2005.
David Kaiser, "Making Tools Travel:  Pedagogy and the Transfer of Skill in Postwar Theoretical Physics," in Pedagogy and the Practice of Science:  Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. David Kaiser (Cambridge:  MIT Press, 2005), 41-74.
2005.
Andrew Warwick and David Kaiser, "Kuhn, Foucault, and the Power of Pedagogy," in Pedagogy and the Practice of Science:  Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. David Kaiser (Cambridge:  MIT Press, 2005), 393-409.
2005.
David Kaiser, "Einstein's Teachers," in Albert Einstein:  Chief Engineer of the Universe, ed. Jürgen Renn (Berlin:  Wiley VCH, 2005), 152-155.
2004.

David Kaiser, "The Postwar Suburbanization of American Physics," American Quarterly 56 (December 2004):  851-888.

2004.
David Kaiser, Kenji Ito, and Karl Hall, "Spreading the Tools of Theory:  Feynman Diagrams in the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union," Social Studies of Science 34 (December 2004):  879-922.
2002.
David Kaiser, "Scientific Manpower, Cold War Requisitions, and the Production of American Physicists after World War II," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 33 (Fall 2002): 131-159.
2002.
David Kaiser, "Nuclear Democracy: Political Engagement, Pedagogical Reform, and Particle Physics in Postwar America," Isis 93 (June 2002): 229-268.
2000.
David Kaiser, "Stick-Figure Realism: Conventions, Reification, and the Persistence of Feynman Diagrams, 1948-1964," Representations 70 (2000): 49-86.
2000.
David Kaiser, "Richard Feynman" and "Physics: 20th Century," in Reader’s Guide to the History of Science, ed. Arne Hessenbruch (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000), 257-258, 566-568.
1998.
David Kaiser, "A Mannheim for All Seasons: Bloor, Merton, and the Roots of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge," Science in Context 11 (1998): 51-87.
1998.
David Kaiser, "A psi is just a psi? Pedagogy, Practice, and the Reconstitution of General Relativity, 1942-1975," Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 29 (1998): 321-338. Reprinted in Making General Relativity, ed. Peter Galison, Michael Gordin, and David Kaiser (New York: Routledge, 2001), 291-308.
1998.
David Kaiser, "Do Feynman Diagrams Endorse a Particle Ontology? The Roles of Feynman Diagrams in S-Matrix Theory," in Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Field Theory, ed. Tian Yu Cao (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 343-356.
1994.
David Kaiser, "Bringing the Human Actors Back On Stage: The Personal Context of the Einstein-Bohr Debate," British Journal for the History of Science 27 (1994): 129-152.
1994.
David Kaiser, "Niels Bohr’s Conceptual Legacy in Contemporary Particle Physics," in Niels Bohr and Contemporary Philosophy, ed. Jan Faye and Henry Folse (Boston: Kluwer, 1994), pp. 257-268.
1992.
David Kaiser, "More Roots of Complementarity: Kantian Aspects and Influences," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 23 (1992): 213-239.




Articles:  Physics

(Most of these articles are available from arXiv.org and the SLAC-SPIRES High Energy Physics Electronic Library.)

2023. Tung X. Tran, Sarah R. Geller, Benjamin V. Lehmann, and David I. Kaiser, "Close encounters of a primordial kind: A new observable for primordial black holes as dark matter," arXiv:2312.17217 [astro-ph.CO].
2023. Thomas Steingasser, Morgane König, and David I. Kaiser, "Finite-temperature instantons from first principles," arXiv:2310.19865 [hep-th].
2023. Elba Alonso-Monsalve and David I. Kaiser, "Primordial black holes with QCD color charge," arXiv:2310.16877 [hep-ph].
2023. Elba Alonso-Monsalve and David I. Kaiser, "Debye screening of non-Abelian plasmas in curved spacetimes," Physical Review D 108:125010, arXiv:2309.15385 [hep-ph].
2023. Thomas Steingasser and David I. Kaiser, "Higgs criticality beyond the Standard Model," Physical Review D 108:095035, arXiv:2307.10361 [hep-ph].
2023. Wenzer Qin, Sarah R. Geller, Shyam Balaji, Evan McDonough, and David I. Kaiser, "Planck constraints and gravitational wave forecasts for primordial black hole dark matter seeded by multifield inflation," Physical Review D 108: 043508, arXiv:2303.02168 [astro-ph.CO].
2023. Feraz Azhar and David I. Kaiser, "Flows into de Sitter from anisotropic initial conditions: An effective field theory approach," Physical Review D 107: 043506, arXiv:2207.08355 [astro-ph.CO].
2022. Sarah R. Geller, Wenzer Qin, Evan McDonough, and David I. Kaiser, "Primordial black holes from multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings," Physical Review D 106: 063535, arXiv:2205.04471 [hep-th].
2022. David I. Kaiser, "Tackling loopholes in experimental tests of Bell's inequality," in Oxford Handbook of the History of Quantum Interpretations, ed. Olival Freire, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press), 331-370, arXiv:2011.09296 [quant-ph].
2021. Borna Salehian, Hong-Yi Zhang, Mustafa A. Amin, David I. Kaiser, and Mohammad Hossein Namjoo, "Beyond Schrödinger-Poisson: Nonrelativistic effective theory for scalar dark matter," Journal of High Energy Physics 09 (2021): 050, arXiv:2104.10128 [astro-ph.CO].
2021. Rouzbeh Allahverdi et al., "The first three seconds: A review of possible expansion histories of the early universe," Open Journal of Astrophysics 4, arXiv:2006.16182 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2020. Evan McDonough, Alan H. Guth, and David I. Kaiser, "Nonminimal couplings and the forgotten field of axion inflation," arXiv:2010.04179 [hep-th].
2020. Borna Salehian, Mohammad Hossein Namjoo, and David I. Kaiser, "Effective theories for a nonrelativistic field in an expanding universe: Induced self-interaction, pressure, sound speed, and viscosity," Journal of High Energy Physics 07 (2020): 059, arXiv:2005.05388.
2020. Jorinde van de Vis, Rachel Nguyen, Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, John T. Giblin, Jr., and David I. Kaiser, "Time-Scales for Nonlinear Processes in Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings," Physical Review D 102: 043528, arXiv:2005.00433 [astro-ph.CO].
2019. Rachel Nguyen, Jorinde van de Vis, Evangelos I. Sfakianakis, John T. Giblin, Jr., and David I. Kaiser, "Nonlinear Dynamics of Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings," Physical Review Letters 123: 171301, arXiv:1905.12562 [hep-ph].
2019. Jolyon K. Bloomfield, Patrick Fitzpatrick, Kiriakos Hilbert, and David I. Kaiser, "A Bumpy Start to a Smooth Ride: Onset of Inflation amid Backreaction from Inhomogeneities," Physical Review D 100: 063512, arXiv:1906.08651 [astro-ph.CO].
2019. Maximilian Daschner, David I. Kaiser, and Joseph A. Formaggio, "Exploiting Faraday Rotation to Jam Quantum Key Distribution via Polarized Photons," Quantum Information and Computation 19: 1313-1324, arXiv:1905.01359 [quant-ph].
2019. Andrew S. Friedman, Alan H. Guth, Michael J. W. Hall, David I. Kaiser, and Jason Gallicchio, "Relaxed Bell Inequalities with Arbitrary Measurement Dependence for Each Observer," Physical Review A 99: 012121, arXiv:1809.01307 [quant-ph].
2018. Feraz Azhar and David I. Kaiser, "Flows into Inflation: An Effective Field Theory Approach," Physical Review D 98: 063515, arXiv:1807.02088 [astro-ph.CO].
2018. Dominik Rauch et al., "Cosmic Bell Test using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars," Physical Review Letters 121 (20 August 2018): 080403, arXiv:1808.05966 [quant-ph]. (Highlighted as an Editors' Suggestion.)
2018. Mohammad Hossein Namjoo, Alan H. Guth, and David I. Kaiser, "Relativistic Corrections to Nonrelativistic Effective Field Theories," Physical Review D 98: 016011, arXiv:1712.00445 [hep-ph]. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2018. Calvin Leung, Amy Brown, Hien Nguyen, Andrew S. Friedman, David I. Kaiser, and Jason Gallicchio, "Astronomical Random Numbers for Quantum Foundations Experiments," Physical Review A 97: 042120, arXiv:1706.02276 [quant-ph].
2018. Matthew DeCross, David Kaiser, Anirudh Prabhu, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, and Evangelos Sfakianakis, "Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings, III: Dynamical Spacetime Results," Physical Review D 97: 023528, arXiv:1610.08916 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2018. Matthew DeCross, David Kaiser, Anirudh Prabhu, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, and Evangelos Sfakianakis, "Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings, II: Resonance Structure," Physical Review D 97: 023527, arXiv:1610.08868 [astro-ph.CO].
2018. Matthew DeCross, David Kaiser, Anirudh Prabhu, C. Prescod-Weinstein, and Evangelos Sfakianakis, "Preheating after Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings, I: Covariant Formalism and Attractor Behavior," Physical Review D 97: 023526, arXiv:1510.08553 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2017. Johannes Handsteiner et al., "Cosmic Bell Test: Measurement Settings from Milky Way Stars," Physical Review Letters 118 (7 February 2017): 060401, arXiv:1611.06985 [quant-ph]. (Highlighted as an Editors' Suggestion.)
2016. Joseph Formaggio, David Kaiser, Mykola Murskyj, and Talia Weiss, "Violation of the Leggett-Garg Inequality in Neutrino Oscillations," Physical Review Letters 117: 050402, arXiv:1602.00041 [quant-ph]. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2016. David Kaiser, "Nonminimal Couplings in the Early Universe: Multifield Models of Inflation and the Latest Observations," invited contribution for At the Frontier of Spacetime: Scalar-Tensor Theory, Bell's Inequality, Mach's Principle, Exotic Smoothness, ed. T. Asselmeyer-Maluga (New York: Springer 2016), pp. 41-57, in honor of Carl Brans's 80th birthday, arXiv:1511.09148 [astro-ph.CO].
2015. Luis Bettencourt and David Kaiser, "Formation of Scientific Fields as a Universal Topological Transition," arXiv:1504.00319 [physics.soc-ph].
2015. Mustafa Amin, Mark Hertzberg, David Kaiser, and Johanna Karouby, "Nonperturbative dynamics of reheating after inflation: A Review," invited review article, International Journal of Modern Physics D 24 (January 2015): 1530003 arXiv:1410.3808 [hep-ph]. (A topcite 250+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2014. Alan Guth, David Kaiser, and Yasunori Nomura, "Inflationary Paradigm after Planck 2013," Physics Letters B 733 (2 June 2014): 112-119, arXiv:1312.7619 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2014. Jason Gallicchio, Andrew Friedman, and David Kaiser, "Testing Bell's Inequality with Cosmic Photons: Closing the Settings-Independence Loophole," Physical Review Letters 112 (21 March 2014): 110405, arXiv:1310.3288 [quant-ph].
2014. Katelin Schutz, Evangelos Sfakianakis, and David Kaiser, "Multifield Inflation after Planck: Isocurvature Modes from Nonminimal Couplings," Physical Review D 89 (15 March 2014): 064044, arXiv:1310.8285 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 50+ paper on INSPIRE.)
2014. David Kaiser and Evangelos Sfakianakis, "Multifield Inflation after Planck: The Case for Nonminimal Couplings," Physical Review Letters 112 (10 January 2014): 011302 [Highlighted as an Editors' Suggestion], arXiv:1304.0363 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2013. Andrew Friedman, David Kaiser, and Jason Gallicchio, "The Shared Causal Pasts and Futures of Cosmological Events," Physical Review D 88 (15 August 2013): 044038, arXiv:1305.3943 [astro-ph.CO].
2013. Ross Greenwood, David Kaiser, and Evangelos Sfakianakis, "Multifield Dynamics of Higgs Inflation," Physical Review D 87 (15 March 2013): 064021, arXiv:1210.8190 [hep-ph]. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2013. David Kaiser, Edward Mazenc, and Evangelos Sfakianakis, "Primordial Bispectrum from Multifield Inflation with Nonminimal Couplings," Physical Review D 87 (15 March 2013): 064004, arXiv:1210.7487 [astro-ph.CO]. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2010. David Kaiser and Audrey Todhunter, "Primordial perturbations from multifield inflation with nonminimal couplings," Physical Review D 81 (15 June 2010): 124037, arXiv:1004.3805 [astro-ph.CO].
2010. David Kaiser, "Conformal transformations with multiple scalar fields," Physical Review D 81 (15 April 2010): 084044, arXiv:1003.1159 [gr-qc]. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2009. Luis Bettencourt, David Kaiser, and Jasleen Kaur, "Scientific discovery and topological transitions in collaboration networks," Journal of Informetrics 3 (April 2009): 210-221.
2008.
Luis Bettencourt, David Kaiser, Jasleen Kaur, Carlos Castillo-Chavez, and David Wojick, "Population Modeling of the Emergence and Development of Scientific Fields," Scientometrics 75 (2008): 495-518.
2006.
Luis Bettencourt, Ariel Cintron-Arias, David Kaiser, and Carlos Castillo-Chavez, "The Power of a Good Idea:  Quantitative Modeling of the Spread of Ideas from Epidemiological Models," Physica A 364 (2006):  513-536.
2005.
Alan Guth and David Kaiser, "Inflationary Cosmology:  Exploring the Universe from the Smallest to the Largest Scales," Science 307 (11 Feb 2005):  884-890, arXiv:astro-ph/0502328. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
2000.
Bruce Bassett, Christopher Gordon, Roy Maartens, and David Kaiser, "Restoring the Sting to Metric Preheating," Physical Review D 61 (2000): 061302 (Rapid Communication), arXiv:hep-ph/9909482. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1999.
Bruce Bassett, Fabrizio Tamburini, David Kaiser, and Roy Maartens, "Metric Preheating and Limitations of Linearized Gravity," Nuclear Physics B 561 (1999): 188-240, arXiv:hep-ph/9901319. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1999.
Bruce Bassett, David Kaiser, and Roy Maartens, "General Relativistic Effects in Preheating," Physics Letters B 455 (1999): 84-89, arXiv:hep-ph/9808404. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1999.
David Kaiser, "Larger Domains from Resonant Decay of Disoriented Chiral Condensates," Physical Review D 59 (1999): 117901, arXiv:hep-ph/9801307.
1998.
Joanne Cohn and David Kaiser, "Where do all the Supercurvature Modes Go?," Physical Review D 58 (1998): 083515, arXiv:gr-qc/9803073.
1998.
David Kaiser, "Resonance Structure for Preheating with Massless Fields," Physical Review D 57 (1998): 702-711, arXiv:hep-ph/9707516. (A top 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1997.
David Kaiser, "Preheating in an Expanding Universe: Analytic Results for the Massless Case," Physical Review D 56 (1997): 706-716, arXiv:hep-ph/9702244. (A topcite 50+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1996.
David Kaiser, "Post-Inflation Reheating in an Expanding Universe," Physical Review D 53 (1996): 1776-1783, arXiv:astro-ph/9507108. (A topcite 100+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1995.
David Kaiser, "Primordial Spectral Indices from Generalized Einstein Theories," Physical Review D 52 (1995): 4295-4306, arXiv:astro-ph/9408044. (A topcite 250+ entry on INSPIRE.)
1994.
David Kaiser, "Induced-gravity Inflation and the Density Perturbation Spectrum," Physics Letters B 340 (1994): 23-28, arXiv:astro-ph/9405029.
1994.
David Kaiser, "Constraints in the context of Induced-gravity Inflation," Physical Review D 49 (1994): 6347-6353, arXiv:astro-ph/9308043.
1993.
David Kaiser, "Distinguishing a Charged Higgs Signal from a Heavy WR Signal," Physics Letters B 306 (1993): 125-128.
1990.
David Kaiser, "Working Apparatus for Determining Metals’ Relative Rates of Oxidation," BASE: A Journal of Science and Technology 8 (1990): 53-58.





Editorials, Short Essays, and Blog Posts

David Kaiser, "Fantastical phenomena, illustrated," Science (20 October 2023): 273.

David Kaiser, "They probed quantum entanglement while everyone shrugged," Nautilus magazine (5 October 2022).

Diana Henderson, Daniel Jackson, David Kaiser, S.P. Kothari, and Sanjay Sarma, "Ideas for Designing An Affordable New Educational Institution," Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab, MIT (September 2022).

David Kaiser, "The beginning of electronic computing" [in Vietnamese], Tia Sáng 5 (5 March 2021): 33-37.

Anup Malani, Satej Soman, Sam Asher, Clément Imbert, Vaidehi Tandel, Anish Agarwal, Abdullah Alomar, Arnab Sarker, Devavrat Shah, Dennis Shen, Jonathan Gruber, Stuti Sachdeva, David Kaiser, and Luis M. A. Bettencourt, "Adaptive control of COVID-19 outbreaks in India: Local, gradual, and trigger-based exit paths from lockdown," NBER working paper 27532 (July 2020).

Anup Malani, David Kaiser, Rupam Bhattacharyya, and Bhramar Mukherjee, "Is There Really No Community Transmission of Coronavirus in India? Let's Do Some Math," Quartz India (23 April 2020).

David Kaiser, "Double Vision," Technology Review (15 April 2020).

David Kaiser, "Freeman Dyson's Letters Offer Another Glimpse of Genius," New Yorker (5 March 2020).

David Kaiser, "Discovery is Always Political," Nature 573 (26 September 2019): 487-490.

W. Patrick McCray and David Kaiser, "When Science was Groovy: Counterculture-Inspired Research Flourished in the Age of Aquarius," Science 365 (9 August 2019): 550-551.

David Kaiser, "Free Will, Video Games, and the Most Profound Quantum Mystery," New Yorker (9 May 2018).

David Kaiser, "A Physicist's Farewell to Stephen Hawking," New Yorker (15 March 2018).

Peter Galison and David Kaiser, "Silvan Samuel Schweber" (obituary), Physics Today 71 (January 2018): 63.

David Kaiser, "Learning from Gravitational Waves," New York Times (3 October 2017).

David Kaiser, "Operation: Neutrino," Aeon (20 July 2017).

Alan Guth, David Kaiser, Andrei Linde, Yasunori Nomura, Charles Bennett, J. Richard Bond, Francois Bouchet, Sean Carroll, George Efstathiou, Stephen Hawking, Renata Kallosh, Eiichiro Komatsu, Lawrence Krauss, David Lyth, Juan Maldacena, John Mather, Hiranya Peiris, Malcolm Perry, Lisa Randall, Martin Rees, Misao Sasaki, Leonardo Senatore, Eva Silverstein, George Smoot, Alexei Starobinsky, Leonard Susskind, Michael Turner, Alexander Vilenkin, Steven Weinberg, Rainer Weiss, Frank Wilczek, Edward Witten, and Matias Zaldarriaga, "A Cosmic Controversy" (Letter to the Editor), Scientific American (10 May 2017).

David Kaiser, "Quantum Theory by Starlight," New Yorker (7 February 2017).

David Kaiser, "Share the Joy of Science," Nature (11 November 2016).

David Kaiser, "How Einstein and Schrödinger Conspired to Kill a Cat," Nautilus (13 October 2016).

David Kaiser, "Quantum Theory Made Charming," The Guardian (7 January 2016).

David Kaiser, "Gaga for Gravitation," Huffington Post (23 November 2015).

David Kaiser, "How Politics Shaped General Relativity," New York Times (8 November 2015): SR9.

David Kaiser, "From Blackboards to Bombs," Nature 523 (30 July 2015): 523-525.

David Kaiser, "Is Quantum Entanglement Real?," New York Times (16 November 2014): SR10.

David Kaiser, "Of Black Holes and Glittering Stars: The Theory of Everything and Hollywood Physics," Huffington Post (12 November 2014).

David Kaiser, "Evolving Culture of Science Engagement," Huffington Post (3 October 2014).

David Kaiser, "Is Time Travel Possible? What Shape is the Universe? What's the Deal with Wormholes?," HIPPO Reads (8 September 2014), responses to the inaugural round of "Ask Me Anything."

David Kaiser, "The Sacred, Spherical Cows of Physics," Nautilus Magazine (1 May 2014).

David Kaiser, "Dance of the Elementary Particles," London Review of Books blog (24 March 2014).

David Kaiser, "Physicists' Golden Jubilee," Huffington Post (10 February 2014).

David Kaiser, "Cosmic inflation," London Review of Books 36 (6 February 2014): 27-28.

David Kaiser, "Shut Up and Calculate!," Nature 505 (9 January 2014): 153-155.

David Kaiser, "Everything but the Unicorn," London Review of Books blog (19 April 2013).

David Kaiser and Jonathan Moreno, "Dual-Use Research: Self-Censorship is Not Enough," Nature 492 (20 - 27 December 2012): 345-347.

David Kaiser, "I Didn't Write That," New York Times (4 November 2012): SR11.

David Kaiser, "Boiling Electrons," London Review of Books 34 (27 September 2012): 17-18.

David Kaiser, "David Kaiser's Top Ten Books about Quantum Theory," The Guardian (26 September 2012).

David Kaiser, "Higgs at Last," London Review of Books blog (6 July 2012).

David Kaiser and Angela Creager, "The Right Way to Get It Wrong," Scientific American 306 (June 2012): 70-75. Reprinted in Italian translation as "Il modo giusto di sbagliare," Le Scienze (August 2012), n. 528; in Japanese translation as "Uso kara deta dai hakken," Nikkei Saiensu (October 2012): 76-83; and in German translation as "Fruchtbare Irrtümer," Spektrum der Wissenschaft (January 2013), s. 76-81.

David Kaiser, "How the Hippies Saved Physics" (excerpt on Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement), Scientific American (30 January 2012).

David Kaiser, "Elegant Wiggles: Why the Universe is Lumpy," Huffington Post (22 May 2012).

David Kaiser, "In Retrospect: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," Nature 484 (12 April 2012): 164-166.

David Kaiser, "The Higgsy Higgsy Boson," Huffington Post (11 January 2012).

David Kaiser, "The Weighty Higgs Particle," Philadelphia Inquirer (9 January 2012). Distributed by Project Syndicate and also published in Spain, Germany, Dubai, Qatar, Singapore, Egypt, South Korea, and Taiwan.

David Kaiser, "The Quantum Universe," The Guardian (18 November 2011): 7.

David Kaiser, "Faster than a Speeding Neutrino," London Review of Books blog (23 September 2011).

David Kaiser, "Short Cuts" (on the search for the Higgs boson), London Review of Books 33 (25 August 2011): 20.

David Kaiser, "How the Hippies Saved Physics: Curious Contributions to Quantum Theory," NPR Cosmos and Culture blog (30 June 2011).

David Kaiser, "The Search for Clean Cash," Nature 472 (7 April 2011): 30-31.

David Kaiser, "Going Supernova," London Review of Books 33 (17 February 2011): 36-37.

David Kaiser, "Half the Blink of an Eye," London Review of Books blog (24 November 2010).

David Kaiser, "Diary: Aliens," London Review of Books 32 (8 July 2010): 34-35.

David Kaiser, "The Coldest Place in the Universe," London Review of Books blog (22 March 2010).

David Kaiser, "Gremlin Fireworks," London Review of Books 31 (17 December 2009): 19-20.

David Kaiser, "Physics and Pixie Dust," American Scientist 97 (November-December 2009): 496.

David Kaiser, "A x B not-equal B x A," London Review of Books 31 (26 February 2009): 21-22.

David Kaiser, "Cosi la politica perseguito Einstein e la relativita" ("How politics persecuted Einstein and relativity"), l'Unita (14 January 2009).

David Kaiser, "The Other Evolution Wars," American Scientist 95 (Nov-Dec 2007):  518-525. Reprinted in Italian translation as "La guerra dell'altra evoluzione," Le Scienze (June 2008), n. 478.

David Kaiser, "When Fields Collide," Scientific American 296 (June 2007):  62-69.  Reprinted in German translation as "Duell der Felder," Spektrum der Wissenschaft (Oct 2007):  26-33

David Kaiser, "Turning Physicists into Quantum Mechanics," Physics World 20 (May 2007):  28-33.  Reprinted in Polish translation as "Jak ksztalcic mechnikow kwantowych," Postepy Fizyki 58 (Sep-Oct 2007):  201-206.

David Kaiser, "Viki Weisskopf:  Searching for Simplicity in a Complicated World," Physics @ MIT 20 (2007):  44-56.

David Kaiser, "Physics and Feynman's Diagrams," American Scientist 93 (March-April 2005):  156-165. Reprinted in Spanish translation as "La fisica y los diagramas de Feynman," Investigacion y Ciencia (Sep 2005): 74-83.

David Kaiser with Felice Frankel, "Sightings" (column on Feynman diagrams), American Scientist 91 (Sep-Oct 2003):  450-451.

David Kaiser, "Francis E. Low: Coming of Age as a Physicist in Postwar America," Physics @ MIT 14 (2001): 24-31, 70-77.

Back to Kaiser's home page




In the News


Laura Bliss, "MapLab: The secret history of GPS," Bloomberg (27 September 2023).

Meghan Bartels, "Oppenheimer alomst discovered black holes before he became 'destroyer of worlds'," Scientific American (21 July 2023).

Sandi Miller, "Professor Emeritus Roman Jackiw, 'giant of theoretical physics,' dies at 83," MIT News (20 June 2023).

Michelle Frank, "The little-known origin story behind the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics," Scientific American (1 April 2023).

Claire Webb, "Cosmic vision," Aeon (March 2023).

Dimitros Karaiskos, "Quantum physics, GPS, and other mysteries of life," (in Greek), Kathimerini (13 March 2023).

Ryan Dahn, "Gravitation's attraction, 50 years later," Physics Today (10 March 2023).

Heather Hill, "Physics Nobel honors foundational quantum entanglement experiments," Physics Today 75 (December 2022): 14.

Zach Winn, "Community members greet MIT's 18th president," MIT News (28 October 2022).

Michael Feldstein, "If you were designing Cal State today: A proposal out of MIT," eLiterate (25 October 2022).

Daniel Garisto, "This month in physics history: John Stewart Bell quietly rings in new era of quantum theory," APS News (13 October 2022).

David Rosowsky, "Will MIT's proposal for an 'Affordable New Educational Institute' grab hold or fall flat?," Forbes (13 October 2022).

Daniel Garisto, "The universe is not locally real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners proved it," Scientific American (6 October 2022).

Isabella Kwai, Cora Engelbrecht, and Dennis Overbye, "Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to 3 scientists for work exploring quantum weirdness," New York Times (4 October 2022).

Heather M. Hill and Andrew Grant, "Demonstrations of quantum entanglement earn the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics," Physics Today (4 October 2022).

Davide Castelvecchi and Elizabeth Gibney, "'Spooky' quantum-entanglement experiments win physics Nobel," Nature (4 October 2022).

Jeffrey R. Young, "MIT professors propose a new kind of university for post-COVID era," EdSurge (28 September 2022).

Brittany Bowker, "Under Amy Brand's command, the MIT Press celebrates 60 years of mobilizing knowledge," Boston Globe (8 June 2022).

Gregory Goth, "Collegiate CS Ethics programs emerging en masse," Communcations of the ACM (3 May 2022).

Adam Zewe, "Learning to think critically about machine learning," MIT News (15 April 2022).

Michael Gordin, "Weird science," Los Angeles Review of Books (14 March 2022).

Terri Park, "A new resource for teaching responsible technology development,"MIT News (2 March 2022).

Davide Castelvecchi, "100 years ago, a quantum experiment explained why we don't fall through our chairs," Scientific American (8 February 2022).

Robert K. Elder, "Psychedelics: The newest tool in nuclear negotiations?," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (17 December 2021).

Maxwell Moe, "Epoch of the Cosmic Dawn: Faint Signal of First Atoms Detected," The Daily Galaxy (19 September 2021).

Terri Park, "3 Questions: David Kaiser and Julie Shah on Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing," MIT News (3 August 2021).

Maxwell Moe, " 'All Hell Breaks Loose': A Trillionth of a Second before the Big Bang Expansion," The Daily Galaxy (19 June 2021).

MIT Press, "The MIT Press launches MIT Open Publishing Services," MIT News (6 April 2021).

Terri Park, "Fostering ethical thinking in computing," MIT News (2 March 2021).

Adrian Cho, "Postage stamp to honor female physicist who many say should have won the Nobel Prize," Science (5 February 2021).

Azumi Hasegawa, "Explaining the paradigm shift in society and the future," Japan Vogue (January 2021): 113.

Cameron Reed, "Review: Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World," American Journal of Physics 89 (2021): 123.

James Dacey, "The best of physics in books, TV and film in 2020," Physics World (23 December 2020).

Ryan Dahn, "The year in reviews: Books and more that stood out in 2020," Physics Today (11 December 2020).

Sophia Chen, "What, exactly, is a photon?," SPIE: International Society for Optics and Photonics (1 November 2020).

José G. Perillán, "More than a quantum chimera," Physics Today 73 (November 2020): 51.

Melanie Frappier, "Physics meets America's defense agenda," Science (29 June 2020).

MIT News Office, "Taking an MIT approach to a return to campus," MIT News (5 June 2020).

Elizabeth Gibney, "The pandemic mixed up what scientists study, and some won't go back," Nature (5 June 2020).

Chad Orzel, "Book review: Quantum Legacies, by David Kaiser," Forbes (29 May 2020).

Ashutosh Jogalekar, "Book review: David Kaiser's 'Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World'," The Curious Wavefunction (24 May 2020).

Philip Ball, "Quantum inheritance and the ongoing quest for meaning," Physics World (May 2020): 47-48.

Nick Smith, "How sociopolitics have influenced the quest to comprehend science that underpins space, time and matter," Engineering and Technology (29 April 2020).

Peter Dizikes, "How growth of the scientific enterprise influenced a century of quantum physics," MIT News (29 April 2020).

Leda Zimmerman, "A responsible path to computing advances," MIT Spectrum (Spring 2020).

Melinda Baldwin, "Author Q&A: David Kaiser on physics and its history," Physics Today (16 April 2020).

Sabine Hossenfelder, "How physics is rocked by the waves of history," Nature 580 (9 April 2020): 183-184.

Michael Gordin, "Quantum conversations, entanglement, and the American Cold War 'physics bubble,'" Los Angeles Review of Books (7 February 2020).

Terri Park, "A college for the computing age," MIT News (4 February 2020).

Mara Johnson-Groh, "The steady state: When astronomers tried to overthrow the big bang," Discover (3 January 2020).

Robert Crease, "Paper tools: Feynman diagrams reveal why the tools theorists use are as important as the theories themselves," Physics World (December 2019).

Rachel Berkowitz, "Physical cosmology wins a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics," Physics Today 72 (1 December 2019): 12, 14.

Don Lincoln, "A new idea might help scientists understand the Big Bang better," Forbes (12 November 2019).

Tim Childers, "We may finally understand the moments before the Big Bang," Fox News (12 November 2019).

Jennifer Chu, "Putting the 'bang' in the Big Bang: Physicists simulate critical 'reheating' period that kickstarted the Big Bang in the universe's first fractions of a section," MIT News (24 October 2019).

Kevin Berger, "A novelist teaches herself physics: To explore loss and mystery, Nell Freudenberger journeyed into the atomic world," Nautilus (15 August 2019).

Ryan Mandelbaum, "This theory could breathe new life into the hunt for dark matter," Gizmodo (9 August 2019).

Alan Cowell, "Overlooked no more: Alan Turing, condemned code breaker and computer visionary," New York Times (5 June 2019).

Michael Greshko, "Cold fusion remains elusive--but these scientists may revive the quest," National Geographic (29 May 2019).

Thomas Lin, "How Feynman diagrams revolutionized physics," Quanta (14 May 2019).

Thomas Levenson, "Game over, the Chinese have won," Boston Globe (4 April 2019).

Leah Crane, "Vibrating crystal made of 10 billion atoms smashes quantum record," New Scientist (11 December 2018).

Brian Koberlein, "Photons, quasars, and the possibility of free will," Scientific American (21 November 2018).

Anil Ananthaswamy, "Reality's last stand" (cover story about Cosmic Bell experiments), New Scientist (17 November 2018): 28-31.

Laura Dattaro, "The quest to test quantum entanglement," Symmetry Magazine (6 November 2018).

Jake Parks, "Quantum entanglement loophole quashed by quasar light," Astronomy Magazine (23 August 2018).

Mike McRae, "Quantum weirdness just got reinforced with an experiment billions of years in the making," Science Alert (22 August 2018).

Hamish Johnston, "Cosmic Bell test uses light from ancient quasars," Physics World (21 August 2018).

Ryan Mandelbaum, "'Spooky' quantum entanglement confirmed using distant quasars," Gizmodo (21 August 2018).

Daniel Oberhaus, "Ancient starlight just helped confirm the reality of quantum entanglement," Motherboard (21 August 2018).

Michael Irving, "Quasars may prove quantum entanglement -- or a 12 billion-year-old conspiracy," New Atlas (21 August 2018).

Chelsea Gohd, "Ancient quasars provide incredible evidence for quantum entanglement," Space.com (21 August 2018).

Jennifer Chu, "Light from ancient quasars helps confirm quantum entanglement," MIT News (19 August 2018).

Anil Ananthaswamy, "Closed loophole confirms the unreality of the quantum world," Quanta (25 July 2018).

Catherine Brahic and Richard Webb, "How to think about ... Particles," New Scientist (27 June 2018).

Tanja Traxler, "Historiker Kaiser: Es gibt ein Hippie-Erbe in der Quantenphysik" ["Historian Kaiser: There is a hippie legacy in quantum physics"], Der Standard (Austria) (31 May 2018).

Lluis Amiguet, "Fisicos hippies alumbraron la teoria cuantica leyendo el Tao," ["Hippie physicists illuminated quantum theory by reading the Tao"], La Vanguardia (Spain) (25 May 2018).

Michele Catanzaro, "'Feynman era un gran narrador, con una curiosidad insaciable'" ["Feynman was a great storyteller, with an insatiable curiosity"], El Periodico (Spain) (12 May 2018).

Toni Pou, "'Feynman ens va ensenyar a mirar el mon d'una manera nova'" ["Feynman has taught us to look at the world in a new way"], ARA Newspaper (Spain) (11 May 2018).

Sophia Chen, "This random videogame powers quantum entanglement experiments," Wired (9 May 2018).

Malcolm Ritter, "Hawking's last physics paper argues for a 'simpler' cosmos," Associated Press (2 May 2018).

Michael Shirber, "Synopsis: Random bit stream from cosmic light," Physics (24 April 2018).

Leah Crane, "Encrypt your data with random quantum weirdness," New Scientist (11 April 2018).

Nicole Estvanik Taylor, "Why Do You Ask? The Power of Wanting to Know," MIT Spectrum (Fall 2017).

Elizabeth Landau, "The Last Woman to Win a Physics Nobel," Scientific American (26 September 2017).

Zoe Corbyn, "The long summer of love: Historians get hip to the lasting influences of '60s counterculture," Chronicle of Higher Education (3 September 2017).

Steven T. Corneliussen, "Cosmic inflation debate bleeds into popular science media," Physics Today (5 June 2017).

Amanda Gefter, "The inflated debate over cosmic inflation: Why the majority of physicists are on one side of a recent exchange of letters," Nautilus (1 June 2017).

Sophia Chen, "The bizarre quantum test that could keep your data secure," Wired (16 May 2017).

Aric Jenkins, "Stephen Hawking and fellow scientists dismiss 'big bounce' theory in letter," Time Magazine (13 May 2017).

Hannah Osborne, "Big bang or big bounce? Stephen Hawking and others pen angry letter about how the universe began," Newsweek (12 May 2017).

Dom Galeon, "Stephen Hawking responds to colleagues' critical article on the origins of the universe," Futurism (12 May 2017).

Fiona Macdonald, "Stephen Hawking and 32 top physicists just signed a heated letter on the universe's origin," Science Alert (12 May 2017).

Ethan Siegel, "What if cosmic inflation is wrong?," Forbes (11 May 2017).

Joshua Sokol, "A Cold War among cosmologists turns hot," The Atlantic (11 May 2017).

Ryan Mandelbaum, "Thirty-three famous physicists sign angry letter about the origin of the universe," Gizmodo (11 May 2017).

Michael Schulson, "A debate over cosmic inflation (and editing at Scientific American) gets heated," Undark (9 May 2017).

Chris Mooney, "Historians say the March for Science is 'pretty unprecedented,'" Washington Post (22 April 2017).

Rachel Ehrenberg, "March for Science will take scientists' activism to a new level," Science News (19 April 2017).

Mark Wolverton, "Scientists and Strategists Contemplate the Increasing Odds of Nuclear War," Undark (18 April 2017).

Anil Ananthaswamy, "Speaking in ripples: Unseen influences may explain the mysteries of quantum reality," New Scientist (8 April 2017): 28-32.

Javier Yanes, "Einstein's Love-Hate Relationship with Quantum Physics," BBVA Open Mind (14 March 2017).

Adam Mann, "The Long, Tempestuous Relationship between Physics and Philosophy," Now.Space (8 March 2017).

Maria Temming, "Roll over, Einstein," Knight Science Journalism at MIT (7 March 2017).

Chris Lee, "Starlight-controlled entanglement experiment makes shared history unlikely," Ars Technica (16 February 2017).

Calla Cofield, "600-year-old starlight bolster's Einstein's 'spooky action' theory," CBS News (13 February 2017), also available at Space.com (13 February 2017).

Chad Orzel, "Quantum loopholes and the problem of free will," Forbes (8 February 2017).

Sarah Tesh, "Starlight closes Bell loophole," Physics World (8 February 2017).

Dianne Depra, "600-year-old starlight helps physicists address quantum theory loophole," Tech Times (8 February 2017).

Natalie Wolchover, "Universe is as spooky as Einstein thought," The Atlantic (10 February 2017), also published in Quanta Magazine (7 February 2017).

Leah Crane, "Starlight test shows quantum world has been weird for 600 years," New Scientist (7 February 2017).

Katherine Wright, "Synopsis: Cosmic test of quantum mechanics," Physics (7 February 2017).

Brian Koberlein, "Quantum physics tells us our fate is not written in the stars," Forbes (6 February 2017).

Jennifer Chu, "Stars align in test supporting 'spooky action at a distance': Physicists address loophole in tests of Bell's inequality, using 600-year-old starlight," MIT News (6 February 2017).

Elizabeth Gibney, "Cosmic test backs 'quantum spookiness': Physicists harness starlight to support the case for entanglement," Nature (2 February 2017), also published in Scientific American (3 February 2017).

Sarah Derouin, "Frustrated scientists turn to online sites for research money," San Jose Mercury News (17 December 2016).

Nidhi Subbaraman and Azeen Ghorayshi, "Scientists are freaking out about Rick Perry heading the Energy Department," BuzzFeed News (14 December 2016).

Emily Conover, "Cosmic test confirms quantum weirdness," Science News (5 December 2016).

Andrew Grant, "Cosmic experiment is closing another Bell test loophole," Physics Today (1 December 2016).

Kate Becker, "What counts as science? The arXiv preprint service is trying to answer an age-old question," Nautilus (27 October 2016).

Ephrat Livni, "Physicists are hiding a dark secret behind murky language," Quartz (19 October 2016).

Eran Moore Rea, "Your Friday Reading: 'Obscurantism'," Physics Central: Physics Buzz blog (14 October 2016).

Massimiano Bucchi, "Il mondo è cambiato, adesso la ricerca è un'opera collettiva" ("The World has Changed and Research is Now Collective"), La Repubblica (9 October 2016): 41.

Melinda Baldwin, "Five essential history of physics books," Physics Today (15 September 2016).

Brian Koberlein, "New Experiment Finds Neutrino Oscillation Isn't 'Real'," Forbes (23 August 2016).

Michael Schirber, "Synopsis: Testing Quantum Physics with Neutrinos," Physics (26 July 2016).

Katyanna Quach, "Schrödinger's cat explained with neutrinos: Physicists show quantum weirdness of neutrinos over longest distance yet," The Register (UK) (20 July 2016).

Michael Byrne, "Physicists stretch quantum superposition from Chicago to Minnesota," Motherboard (20 July 2016).

Joshua Krisch, "Scientists sent neutrinos on a cross-country road trip," Vocativ.com (20 July 2016).

Ryan O'Hare, "Weird quantum effects can travel hundreds of miles: Physicists detect bizarre phenomenon over longest range yet," Daily Mail (UK) (19 July 2016).

Gonzalo Lopez Sanchez, "Las particulas cuanticas vuelven a derribar el 'mundo feliz' de Einstein'" ["Quantum particles topple the 'brave new world' of Einstein"], ABC Newspaper (Spain) (19 July 2016).

Jennifer Chu, "MIT scientists find weird quantum effects, even over hundreds of miles," MIT News (19 July 2016).

Adrian Cho, "Massive neutrino experiment undermines our sense of reality," Science (12 July 2016).

Chad Orzel, "The real reasons quantum entanglement doesn't allow faster-than-light communication," Forbes (4 May 2016).

Benjamin Winterhalter, "I [heart] Physics: A Love Story," JStor Daily (26 December 2015).

Chad Orzel, "Football physics: Can we do better than tossing coins?," Forbes (7 December 2015).

Tia Ghose, "Spooky action is real: Bizarre quantum entanglement confirmed in new tests," LiveScience.com (17 November 2015).

Davey Alba, "Google aims a $50 million moonshot at churing heart disease," Wired (16 November 2015).

John Markoff, "Sorry, Einstein: Quantum Study Suggests 'Spooky Action' is Real," New York Times (21 October 2015).

Jean-Louis Santini, "After 100 Years, Einstein's Theory Stands," Agence France-Press (20 October 2015).

Reactions to Kaiser's talk on quantum entanglement at the 2015 Science Writers annual meeting, 11 October 2015.

Dennis Overbye, "Bernard d'Espagnat, 93, Physicist, Dies; Sought Implications of Quantum Theory," New York Times (15 August 2015).

Chad Orzel, "Great Books for Non-Physicists Who Want to Understand Quantum Physics," Forbes (5 August 2015).

Kristin Toussaint, "Explaining Einstein Through Dance," Boston.com (24 April 2015).

Neel Patel, "Crowdfunded Science is Here. But Is It Legit Science?," Wired (24 April 2015).

MIT News, "Celebrating Einstein: Events across MIT will mark the 100th anniversary of the general theory of relativity," 3 April 2015.

Martha Jablow, "The Crowdfunding Phenomenon: Can it Work for Biomedical Research?," Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Reporter (April 2015).

Asma Khalid, "Visionaries: MIT's Alan Guth Made a 'Spectacular Realization' About the Universe," WBUR News (26 February 2015).

Kate Becker, "Presenting the Physics Oscars!," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (19 February 2015).

Benjamin Winterhalter, "Do You Believe in Ghosts?" [On the film Interstellar], The Morning News (22 January 2015).

Ariana Eunjung Cha, "Crowdfunding propels scientific research," Washington Post (18 January 2015).

Dan Vergano, "5 Ways Einstein was a Regular Guy," National Geographic (5 December 2014).

Michael Lucibella, "APS and Smithsonian roll out red carpet for The Theory of Everything," APS News (11 November 2014).

Danielle Paquette, "Five climate lessons from Stephen Hawking," Washington Post (10 November 2014).

Andrew Friedman, "Can the cosmos test quantum entanglement?," Astronomy Magazine (October 2014): 28-33.

Peter Dizikes, "Q&A: John Durant and David Kaiser on spurring public interest in science," MIT News (17 September 2014).

Bruce Dorminey, "Cosmic Test for Quantum Physics' Last Major Loophole," Forbes (18 June 2014).

Kate Becker, "The Mistaken Assumptions that Changed Physics History," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (18 June 2014).

Iulia Georgescu, "Bell's theorem: Closing the loopholes," Nature Physics 10 (1 April 2014): 248.

Kerri Smith, "Nature PastCast" on testing Einstein's general relativity, Nature.com (20 March 2014).

Andrew Friedman, "The universe made me do it? Testing 'free will' with distant quasars," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (19 March 2014).

Charles Q. Choi, "Quasar experiment may shed light on quantum physics and free will," NBC News (5 March 2014). Also available from Inside Science.

Tom Jokinen, "What if the universe is really against us?," Random House of Canada Hazlitt (5 March 2014).

Annalisa Arci, "Distant quasars to fill a loophole of Bell's theorem," Gaia News (Italy) (2 March 2014).

Jacqueline Godany, "Kosmischer Test für die Quantentheorie" ("Cosmic test for quantum theory"), Weltraum Aktuell (Germany) (26 February 2014).

Zeeya Merali, "Cosmic light could close quantum-weirdness loophole," Nature (25 February 2014).

Richard Chirgwin, "MIT wants quasars to help put free will to rest: Ringing the Bell on inequality," The Register (UK) (24 February 2014).

Vasudevan Mukunth, "For the last loophole, let there be light!," The Hindu (India) (24 February 2014).

Matthew Francis, "Is entanglement real or is there a super-deterministic cosmic conspiracy?," Ars Technica (21 February 2014).

Jennifer Chu, "Closing the 'free will' loophole: MIT researchers propose using distant quasars to test Bell's theorem," MIT News (20 February 2014).

Kerri Smith, "Nature PastCast" on Max Planck and quantum theory, Nature.com (19 December 2013).

Rebecca Jacobson, "What's in a Name? In Physics, Everything and Nothing," PBS Newshour (23 October 2013).

Kerri Smith, "Nature PastCast" on Carl Sagan and astrobiology, Nature.com (16 October 2013).

Kate Becker, "8 Ways to Win the Nobel Prize in Physics," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (7 October 2013).

Marianne Freiberger and Rachel Thomas, "The problem with infinity," "Taming QED," and "Quantum pictures" (series on quantum field theory), Plus Magazine (22 July 2013).

Sanden Totten, "Fund my science? Years of decreases in federal funds lead researchers to ask the public for money," KPCC Southern California Public Radio (5 July 2013).

Nastaran Tavakoli-Far, "Is it possible to kick start science?," BBC News (22 May 2013).

Peter Dizikes, "3 Questions: David Kaiser on Thomas Kuhn's Paradigm Shift," MIT News (6 December 2012).

John Leland, "A Hip-Hop Experiment," New York Times (16 November 2012): MB1.

Kate Becker, "Bittersweet victory: Physics after the Higgs," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (6 August 2012).

Carmen Drahl, "A primordial composition, a quantum rap album," Chemical and Engineering News 90 (18 June 2012): 48. Additional material at Carmen Drahl, "More on GZA and 'Dark Matter'," CENtral Science Newscripts (18 June 2012).

Ann Finkbeiner, "What's the matter with gravity?," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (3 May 2012).

Matthew Perpetua, "GZA Talks Lectures, Science, and 'Dark Matter': Wu-Tang Clan Rapper's Next Album is Inspired by Quantum Physics," Rolling Stone (3 April 2012).

Kate Becker, "A Higgs by any other name," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (29 March 2012).

Kate Becker, "It's a paradox," NOVA: The Nature of Reality blog (29 February 2012).

Mary Carmichael, "Science and 'the Genius': Intellect rules for hip-hop star, who keeps the teachers well on their toes," Boston Globe (3 December 2011).

Sharon Weinberger, "Power of the Pentagon: The changing face of military science," Nature 477 (21 September 2011): 386-387.

MIT News, "Five from MIT elected Fellows of the American Physical Society," 13 December 2010.

Ned Stafford, "Science in the digital age," Nature 467 (14 October 2010): S19-S21.

Bina Venkataraman, "Want a solution? Try offering a prize," Boston Globe (2 November 2009).

Dan Vergano and Elizabeth Weise, "Should anthropologists work alongside soldiers?," USA Today (8 December 2008).

Joel Brown, "For this musician, pain has been the family business" (about the documentary film Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives by Mark Oliver Evertt, son of quantum physicist Hugh Everett), Boston Globe (19 October 2008).

Martin Uhlir, "How to steal an atomic bomb: With American physicist David Kaiser on the theft of the atomic bomb, Soviet espionage, and the deepest secrets of the universe," (in Czech) Respekt 41 (6 October 2008): 42-45.

Robin Lloyd, "Era of scientific secrecy nears its end: Emergence of online venues opening up the scientific process," LiveScience.com; also posted on MSNBC.com (2 September 2008).

Jon Mooallem, "A curious attraction: On the quest for antigravity,"Harper's (October 2007): 84-91.

Marcella Bombardieri, "In computer science, a growing gender gap: Women shunning a field once seen as welcoming," Boston Globe (18 December 2005).

Peter Weiss, "Dr. Feynman's doodles: How one scientist's simple sketches transformed physics," Science News 168 (16 July 2005): 40-44.

Back to Kaiser's home page




Public Broadcasting Appearances


TV, Film, and other Video

Advisor, NOVA two-part series on Cosmology and Quantum Theory, 2022–.

Contributor, Anichnefseis (Explorations), Greek television. Original broadcast October 2023.

Advisor, Boston Museum of Science IMAX film, The Heart of New England, 2020–2023.

Contributor, BBC and PBS five-part series, NOVA Universe Revealed, episodes 4 (black holes) and 5 (the big bang). Originally broadcast on PBS in October and November 2021.

Advisor and contributor, NOVA documentary film, Particles Unknown about neutrinos. Originally broadcast on PBS in October 2021.

Quasars to the Rescue! A Cosmic Test for Quantum Entanglement, Boston Museum of Science (23 February 2019).

Advisor and contributor, BBC documentary film, Einstein and Hawking: Unlocking the Universe. Originally broadcast on the Science Channel in March 2019.

Advisor and contributor, NOVA documentary film, Einstein's Quantum Riddle, about quantum entanglement and the Cosmic Bell experiments. Originally broadcast on PBS in January 2019.

Advisor and contributor, NOVA Wonders: What's the Universe Made Of?, about dark matter and dark energy. Originally broadcast on PBS in May 2018.

Contributor, "Caccia ai numeri primi [The Hunt for Prime Numbers]," RAI Scuola (Rome), 28 April 2018.

Contributor, "Nooks and Crannies: Newton's Nooks," WCVB-ABC (Boston), 13 February 2018.

Contributor, "Cosmic Quantum Bell Test," Physics Girl, 11 May 2017.

Contributor, "These scientists are proving Einstein wrong," Mashable.com, 9 February 2017.

Contributor, "Einstein and the 100th Anniversary of General Relativity," Daily Planet, Discovery Channel (Canada), 25 November 2015.

Advisor and contributor, NOVA documentary film, Inside Einstein's Mind, about the centennial of general relativity. Originally broadcast on PBS in November 2015.

Contributor, PBS documentary film, The Mystery of Matter, about modern physics and chemistry. Three one-hour episodes, originally broadcast on PBS in August 2015.

Contributor, The Search for the Theory of Everything, in preparation. Watch a preview on "The Nature of Conceptual Revolutions," November 2013.

Elegant Wiggles: Why the Universe is Lumpy, Cambridge Science Festival (12 April 2013).

Advisory Board member and contributor, NOVA documentary film, The Fabric of the Cosmos, about modern cosmology. Four one-hour episodes, originally broadcast on PBS in November 2011.

Contributor, Time Since Einstein, World Science Festival, June 2009.

Advisor, BBC and NOVA documentary film, Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives, about Hugh Everett's "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. Originally broadcast on PBS on 21 October 2008.

Contributor to PBS Wired Science television segment on the X-prize.  Originally broadcast on PBS on 7 November 2007.

Contributor to NOVA ScienceNOW television segment on nuclear physics and the "island of stability."  Originally broadcast on PBS on 3 October 2006.  Listen to an extended podcast of the interview.

Advisory Board member and contributor to NOVA documentary film, Einstein's Big Idea, about Einstein's equation, E = mc2. Originally broadcast on PBS on 11 October 2005.


Radio

Invited guest, "Adjusting clocks across time and space," KUAF Arkansas public radio (22 March 2023).

Invited guest, "The universe was full of cold goop, then came the Big Bang," CBC radio Quirks and Quarks series (1 November 2019).

Invited guest, "Radio Boston" on WBUR to talk about trends in research funding, 21 August 2019.

Invited guest, "Science Friday" on NPR to talk about "revisiting a once-great scientific idea," 31 May 2019.

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about dark matter and dark energy, 5 April 2018.

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about neutrinos, 13 September 2017.

"Love, quantum physics, and 'entanglement,'" PRI The World, 25 July 2017.

Invited guest, "Crowdfunding: A welcome resource for researchers," Utah Public Radio, 7 December 2016.

Invited guest, "New MIT study proves quantum theory holds for long distances," WBUR Radio Boston, 19 July 2016.

Invited guest, "Umstrittene Allianzen [Controversial alliances]," Deutschlandradio Kultur, 14 July 2016.

Invited guest, "Remembering Great Moments in Science History," NPR Here and Now, 17 June 2016.

Invited guest, "Einstein, l'universo e tutto quanto," Radio3Scienza (Rome, Italy), 19 May 2016.

Invited guest, "Four New Periodic Table Elements: What Does It Matter?," WGBH Curiosity Desk, 8 January 2016.

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about star formation and the dimming of the universe, 22 September 2015. (Also available here.)

Invited guest, "Science Friday" on NPR to talk about the centennial of Einstein's general relativity, 6 March 2015.

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about the search for dark matter, 23 September 2014. (Also available here.)

Invited guest, "Frontiers," BBC4 radio interview about inflationary cosmology and recent observations, 9 July 2014. (Also available via BBC World Service.)

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about supermassive black holes, 2 July 2014. (Also available here.)

Invited guest, "Aufbau des Kosmos," Bayern 2 public radio, Germany, interview about quantum theory and the cosmos, 2 June 2014.

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about the Higgs boson, 30 April 2014. (Also available here.)

Invited guest, "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod" KPFK radio interview about cosmic inflation, 26 March 2014. (Also available here.)

Invited guest, Feature Story News syndicated radio interview about cosmic inflation, 18 March 2014.

Invited guest, National Geographic Weekend radio, 5 August 2012.

Invited guest, "Today Programme," BBC Radio interview about quantum theory, 5 March 2012.

Invited guest, "Focus," Illinois Public Radio interview about quantum theory, 9 January 2012.

Invited guest, "The Veronica Rueckert Show," Wisconsin Public Radio interview about quantum theory, 16 December 2011.

Invited guest, "On Point," WBUR / National Public Radio interview about quantum theory, 1 November 2011.

Invited guest, "To the Best of Our Knowledge," Wisconsin Public Radio interview about quantum theory, 2 October 2011.

Invited guest, "The Takeaway" WNYC / Public Radio International radio interview about neutrinos and relativity, 23 September 2011.

Invited guest, "The Current," Canadian Broadcasting Company radio interview about quantum theory, 9 August 2011.

Invited guest, WICN radio interview about quantum theory, 13 July 2011.

Invited guest, RAI Radio 3 Scienze (Italy) interview about Einstein, relativity, and politics, 15 January 2009.

Invited guest, KXTR radio (Kansas City) interview about Einstein and relativity, 17 November 2005.

Invited guest, "Daybreak" USA Radio Network interview about Einstein and relativity, 10 October 2005.

Invited guest, "Science Friday" on NPR to discuss the centennial of Einstein's special relativity, 24 June 2005.  


Other Lectures and Podcasts

"Beyond Reach: On Understanding in Physics," with Kaca Bradonjic and Tracy Slatyer, Catalyst Conversations (14 November 2023).

"Scientific Training," The HPS Podcast, Season 2 Episode 2 (11 October 2023).

"Secret Clocks: The United States Military, Einstein's Relativity, and the Global Positioning System," Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris (15 September 2023).

"Quantum Stories," LifeCycle podcast, Season 2 Episode 10 (1 June 2023).

"Freeman Dyson: We explore the extraordinary life of the rebel physicist," Physics World podcast (4 May 2023).

"MTW@50: A 50th anniversary celebration of Gravitation by Misner, Thorner, and Wheeler," with Kip Thorne and Charles Misner, International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation (3 May 2023).

American Museum of Science and Energy podcast episode on quantum theory (May 2023).

"Tackling Loopholes in Experimental Tests of Bell's Inequality," Symposium on History and Foundations of Quantum Theory, Paris (April 2023).

"Primordial black holes as dark matter candidates," Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University (12 December 2022).

"'Well, Doc, You're In': Freeman Dyson's Journey through the Universe," New Books Network (2 November 2022).

"The weird and wonderful history of quantum entanglement that led to this year's Nobel prize," Physics World podcast (6 October 2022).

"Quantum Legacies" book talk with Amanda Gefter, Harvard Bookstore event (9 June 2022).

"The Big Bang: Started from inflation, now we're here," NOVA Now podcast (2 December 2021).

"Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC): New Activities at MIT," MIT Industrial Liaison Program (November 2021).

"Space, Time, and Spacetime," guest lecture for 8.20, Introduction to Special Relativity, MIT OpenCourseWare (2021).

"The Wonderful Weirdness of Quantum Theory," parts 1 and 2, The Academy for Teachers (April 2021).

"Cosmic Bell Experiments: Using Quasars to Test Quantum Theory," University of British Columbia Department of Physics and Astronomy Colloquium (22 April 2021).

"Nonlinear physics at the start and end of cosmic inflation," Quantum Aspects of Space-Time and Matter (QASTM) seminar series, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Albert Einstein Institute, Potsdam, Germany (22 October 2020).

"Quantum Legacies," Time to Eat the Dogs podcast (22 July 2020).

"Working Scientist podcast: How to craft and communicate a simple science story," Nature Careers podcast (16 July 2020).

"The shifting terrain of scientific inquiry," The Edge (13 July 2020).

"Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World," New Books Network interview with Matthew Jordan (13 July 2020).

"Entangled brains?," What the If? podcast (24 May 2020).

"David Kaiser's Quantum Legacies," Into the Impossible podcast with Brian Keating (13 May 2020).

"Cosmic Bell Experiments: Using Quasars to Test Quantum Theory," MIT Physics Department colloquium (30 April 2020).

"David Kaiser on Science, Money, and Power," Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast (30 March 2020).

"David Kaiser on writing about quantum entanglement," Line Edit podcast (21 February 2020).

"History of, and, for Physics," Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation (IQOQI Vienna) (10 February 2020).

"Into the Ether," Undiscovered podcast (4 December 2019).

Tushna Commissariat and Andrew Glester, "Book of the Year 2018," Physics World podcast (17 December 2018).

"Closed loophole confirms the unreality of the quantum world," Quanta podcast (25 July 2018).

"It was Fifty Years Ago Today": A Brief Look Back at Physics, MIT, and the World of 1968," MIT Center for Theoretical Physics 50th anniversary symposium (24 March 2018).

"Failure: A Typology of Scientific Errors," The Success of Failure: Perspectives from the Arts, Sciences, Humanities, Education, and Law conference, Columbia University (December 2017).

Cosmic Bell Experiment, MIT Museum YouTube channel (18 July 2017).

Quantum Quandaries "Soap Box" series at the MIT Museum: Quantum Computers and the Philosophy of Science (with Paola Cappellaro and Brad Skow, 28 February 2017); Higgs Boson and Neutrinos (with Markus Klute and Janet Conrad, 7 March 2017); and Gravity Waves and Dark Matter (with Lisa Barsotti and Tracy Slatyer, 15 March 2017).

Love and Other Entanglements, MIT Museum (11 February 2017).

Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality, Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth College (February 2017).

Imagining the Impossible podcast from the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, UCSD (1 November 2016).

Cold War Curvature: Measuring and Modeling Gravitational Systems in Postwar American Physics, A Century of General Relativity Conference, Berlin (4 December 2015).

Hippies, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, Serious Science (12 August 2015).

Transcending Matter: Physics and Ultimate Meaning, New York Academy of Sciences (4 February 2015).

The Social Context of Science, Science for the Public (13 January 2015).

Manhattan Project Innovations, Atomic Heritage Foundation (19 December 2014).

Cosmic Inflation and the Origin of Structure in the Universe, Serious Science (15 December 2014).

How the Hippies Saved Physics ... and what's new in inflation, Virtually Speaking Science (30 July 2014).

Politics and Einstein's Relativity Theory, Serious Science (10 June 2014).

American Physics in the Cold War, Serious Science (10 April 2014).

How the Hippies Saved Physics, New Books in Science, Technology, and Society (2 April 2014).

Nature PastCast: Testing Einstein (20 March 2014).

Nature PastCast: The Quantum Theory (19 December 2013).

Nature PastCast: Signs of Life (16 October 2013).

How the Hippies Saved Physics, IdeaFestival (20 September 2012).

Kuhn Among the Psychologists, University of Chicago (1 December 2012).

Mavericks, Outsiders, and Cranks, Physics World (15 October 2012).

How the Hippies Saved Physics, Physics Central, American Physical Society (4 July 2012).

How the Hippies Saved Physics, Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo (7 May 2012).

MIT: A History, Nature (7 April 2011).

How the Hippies Saved Physics, Cambridge Science Festival (April 2010).

Nuclear Weapons in the Cold War Era: Weapons, Wiretaps, and Treaties, MIT (January 2010).

Toil, Trouble, and the Cold War Bubble: Physics and the Academy since World War II, Perimeter Institute (September 2008).

Give Latkes a Chance, Latke-Hamentaschen debate, MIT (March 2007).

 

Back to Kaiser's home page




Honors and Awards



2020.
Choice Outstanding Academic Title awarded to Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World
2020.
Physics World magazine, Best of Physics in Books, TV, and Film, awarded to Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World.
2016.
George Sarton Memorial Lecturer, plenary address sponsored by the History of Science Society, delivered at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.
2013.
History of Science Society, Davis Prize for best book aimed at a general audience, awarded for How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. Read the prize citation here.
2012.
Physics World magazine, Book of the Year awarded to How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. Read the award citation here.
2012.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT's highest honor for excellence in undergraduate teaching.
2012.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising, for demonstrating "unbounded compassion and dedication towards students."
2010.
American Physical Society, Fellow, elected for "outstanding publications that combine technical mastery of twentieth-century physics with a deep knowledge of recent developments in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science."
2007.
History of Science Society, Pfizer Award for best book in the field, awarded for Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics. Read the Pfizer Award citation here.
2006.
Forum for History of Science in America Book Prize, awarded for Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics.
2006.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award, awarded to one tenure-track faculty member for "exceptional distinction in teaching and research."
2005.
Forum for History of Science in America Article Prize, awarded for the article, " The Postwar Suburbanization of American Physics."
2004.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, awarded to one professor in MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences "for excellence in teaching a graduate level course."
2001.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Levitan Prize in the Humanities, awarded to one faculty member at MIT for "innovative and creative scholarship in the humanities."
2000.
British Society for the History of Science, Ivan Slade Prize (best article in the field) runner-up, awarded for the article, " Stick-Figure Realism."
1996-99.
Harvard University, awarded three Certificates for Distinction in Teaching from the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.
1993.
American Physical Society, Leroy Apker Award, awarded first place nationally "for outstanding achievement in physics by an undergraduate student."
1992.
Dartmouth College, Phi Beta Kappa Society, junior-year recipient.




Course Materials

The MIT Case Studies Series in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) features specially commissioned and peer-reviewed cases, based on original research, aimed at undergraduate instruction across a range of classes and fields of study. All cases are made freely available via open-access publishing, with author-retained copyright, through Creative Commons licensing. SERC also has a companion site on MIT's OpenCourseWare that includes original homework problems, in-class demos, and active learning projects designed by multidisciplinary teams, all available for free.

In addition, here are the MIT OpenCourseWare sites for some classes I regularly offer:

STS.003
The Rise of Modern Science
8.225 / STS.042
Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the 20th Century
STS.310
History of Science
STS.436
Cold War Science