David I. Kaiser is an American physicist and historian of science. He is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a full professor in MIT's department of physics. He also served as an inaugural associate dean for MIT's cross-disciplinary program in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing. Kaiser is the author or editor of several books on the history of science, including ''Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics'' (2005), ''How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival'' (2011), and ''Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World'' (2020). He received the Apker Award from the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in 1993 and was elected a Fellow of the

in 2010. His historical scholarship has been honored with the Pfizer Award (2007) and the Davis Prize (2013) from the History of Science Society. In March 2012 he was awarded the MacVicar fellowship, a prestigious MIT undergraduate teaching award. In 2012, he also received the Frank E. Perkins Award from MIT for excellence in mentoring graduate students.

Education

Kaiser completed his AB in physics at Dartmouth College in 1993. He completed two PhDs from Harvard University. The first was in physics in 1997 for a thesis entitled "Post-Inflation Reheating in an Expanding Universe," the second in the history of science in 2000 for a thesis on "Making Theory: Producing Physics and Physicists in Postwar America."Kaiser CV
MIT, accessed January 13, 2023

MIT, accessed January 13, 2023.

Research

Kaiser's physics research mostly focuses on early-universe cosmology, including topics such as

cosmic inflation In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation, or just inflation, is a theory of exponential expansion of space in the early universe. The inflationary epoch lasted from seconds after the conjectured Big Bang singularity ...

, post-inflation reheating, and primordial black holes. He has also helped to design and conduct novel experimental tests of quantum theory, including the "Cosmic Bell" experiments that Kaiser worked on with Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger, and which were featured in the

PBS Nova ''Nova'' (stylized as ''NOVΛ'') is an American popular science television program produced by WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts, since 1974. It is broadcast on PBS in the United States, and in more than 100 other countries. The program has won man ...

documentary film ''Einstein's Quantum Riddle'' (2019). Kaiser's historical research focuses on intersections among modern natural sciences, geopolitics, and the history of higher education during the Cold War. His MIT course o
"Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the Twentieth Century"
is available via

MIT OpenCourseWare MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to publish all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anywh ...

. In addition to his scholarly writing, Kaiser's work has appeared in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', the

New Yorker magazine ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

, and in several

television programs.David Kaiser
"Public Broadcasting Appearances"
He also serves as Chair of the Editorial Board of the

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publ ...

and as Editor of th
MIT Case Studies Series on Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing

Books

*(2005)
''Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics''
University of Chicago Press. *(2005). (ed.
''Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives''
MIT Press. *(2010). (ed.
''Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision''
MIT Press. *(2011)
''How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival''
W. W. Norton, . *with Sally Gregory Kohlstedt: (2013). (eds.

University of Chicago Press. *with

W. Patrick McCray W. Patrick McCray (born 1967) is a historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He researches, writes about, and teaches the history of science and the history of technology. Life McCray grew up in rural southwestern Pennsylvania ...

: (2016). (eds.
''Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture''
University of Chicago Press. *(2020)
''Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World''
University of Chicago Press. *with Aaron S. Wright and Diana Coleman: (2022). (eds.
''Theoretical Physics in Your Face: Selected Correspondence of Sidney Coleman''
World Scientific. *(2022). (ed.
'' 'Well, Doc, You're In': Freeman Dyson's Journey through the Universe''
MIT Press. * (forth coming).

'. University of Chicago Press.

Education

Research

Books

References

Further reading