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Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences

Alexander S. Blum

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Alexander S. Blum

Professor of History
VorDiplom, University of Leipzig, 2004; MSc, Michigan State University, 2005; PhD., University of Heidelberg, 2009. Visiting Associate, Caltech, 2017, 2023; Professor, 2026-.

Profile

Alexander Blum studied physics and philosophy at the University of Leipzig, Michigan State University and the Technical University Munich. In 2009, he completed his PhD in theoretical particle physics at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg. He then retrained as a historian at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. From 2017 to 2025 he led a Max Planck research group at that institute, investigating the search for a final theory of physics, before joining Caltech in 2026. Blum has written and edited several books on the history of 20th century physics and is editor-in-chief of the European Physical Journal H.

Research Summary
History and Foundations of Quantum Field Theory, Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity and Astrophysics

Selected Publications


Books and Special Issues

  • Probing the Consistency of Quantum Field Theory I: From Non-Convergence to Haag's Theorem (1949–1954). Cambridge University Press (2026).
  • Die Anfänge der Quantenmechanik, with Martin Jähnert. Springer (2025).
  • Approximation Methods in Physics, with Pablo Ruiz de Olano and James Fraser. Special Issue of Synthese (2025).
  • Einstein Studies Volume 15: The Renaissance of General Relativity, with Roberto Lalli and Jürgen Renn. Birkhäuser (2020).
  • Heisenberg's 1958 Weltformel and the Roots of Post-Empirical Physics. Springer (2019).

Articles

  • "Brans–Dicke Theory and the Empirical Renaissance of General Relativity," with Roberto Lalli and Jürgen Renn, in Testing Einstein: One Hundred Years of Experimental Relativity (The MIT Press, 2026)
  • "Combining electrodynamics with hydrodynamics: the origins and development of magnetohydrodynamics," with Arnab Rai Choudhuri. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 80 (2026)
  • "Nothing Comes from Nothing but the Rho Meson: The Origin of the Bootstrap Concept in Particle Physics," with Jens Salomon. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 114 (2025)
  • "Perturbative Causality," with James Fraser. Synthese 206 (2025)
  • "Quantum mechanics, radiation, and the equivalence proof," with Martin Jähnert. Archive for History of Exact Sciences 78 (2024)
  • "Einstein's second-biggest blunder: the mistake in the 1936 gravitational-wave manuscript of Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen," Archive for History of Exact Sciences 76 (2022)
  • "The Genesis of the CPT Theorem," with Andrés Martínez de Velasco. European Physical Journal H 47 (2022)
  • "How John Wheeler lost his faith in the law," with Stefano Furlan in Rethinking the Concept of Laws of Nature: Natural Order in the Light of Contemporary Science (Springer, 2022)
  • "Quantum Gravity and the Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," with Bernadette Lessel, in Oxford Handbook of the History of Quantum Interpretations (Oxford University Press, 2022)
  • "Gravitational waves and the long relativity revolution," with Roberto Lalli and Jürgen Renn. Nature Astronomy 2 (2018)
  • "The Literature Review as Imagined Past," Isis 108 (2018)
  • "The State is not abolished, it withers away: How Quantum Field Theory became a Theory of Scattering," Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 60 (2017)