Description: Long ago and far away, before gray hairs and creaky knees, before history became my passion, I was an undergraduate physics major. Physics seemed fascinating and beautiful, if difficult. Later, after career paths led into history and science policy, I learned that physics, however elegant, did not reside in a cultural vacuum. Its people and discoveries coexisted with
Description: A previously unpublished photograph, from the Science Service "morgue" files in Accession 90-105, shows two Nobel laureate physicists, Anton Lorentz and Albert Einstein, in 1926.
Description: Formal portrait photographs of scientists tend to preserve the stiffness of the moment, rather than capture the sitter’s personality. Perhaps that is the reason that candid photographs of celebrities like Albert Einstein stick in public memory.A 1931 photograph of three Nobel laureate physicists illustrates why we tend to remember the informal photos of scientists more than
Description: May 11 is the anniversary of establishment of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). That 1976 legislation further ratified the influence of scientists on national policy, positioning them to provide ready advice to the President.
Description: At a September 27, 1931, symposium about the evolution of the universe, Watson Davis photographed astronomer Abbé Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaître, physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, astrophysicist Edward Arthur Milne, and Anglican bishop and mathematician Ernest William Barnes.
Description: Each Smithsonian Institution Archives collection has a life story. That narrative, much like the biography of a person, can explain how a collection's photographs, letters, and documents relate to each other. Closer inspection may also reveal hidden connections to other archival materials and can help in identifying photographers and writers. This new blog series will turn a