Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Peter Galison

Professor of History of Science and PhysicsCambridge, MA

Expert
Listen to Peter Galison’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Peter Galison is the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in History of Science and Physics at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in both Physics and the History of Science in 1983. The central component of Galison’s work involves the exploration of twentieth century physics, including atomic, nuclear, and particle physics. In particular, he examines physics as a closely interconnected set of scientific subcultures: experimenters, instrument makers, and theorists.

Galison has published a number of books, including Big Science: The Growth of Large-scale ResearchImage and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics, and Einstein for the 21st Century: His Legacy in Science, Art, and Modern Culture.

Galison courses include: “History and Philosophy of 20th-Century Physics;” “History and Philosophy of Experimentation;” “Fascism, Art and Science in the Interwar Years;” “Scientific Realism;” “The Einsteinian Revolution;” seminars on Critical History and on the History and Philosophy of Theory in 20th Century Physics; and “Filming Science.”

Peter Galison’s Timeline
1955 Born in New York.

1983 Received Ph.D. in Physics and History of Science from Harvard University.

Related Profiles

Jim Eckles

Trinity Site

Jim Eckles worked for decades for the White Sands Missile Range Public Affairs Office, managing open houses and tours of the Trinity site, where the world’s first nuclear test took place.

Karen Dorn Steele

Hanford, WA

Karen Dorn Steele is a former reporter for the Spokesman Review. Since her father was part of the press liaison for the U.

Percy Spencer

Cambridge, MA

Percy Spencer was an American physicist and inventor. Spencer was born in 1894 in Howland, Maine. He dropped out of grammar school at age 12 to work as a spindle boy in a weaving mill, but in his early years he taught himself about electricity, even setting up a new electrical system at a local […]

Jackie Peterson

Hanford, WA

Jackie Peterson is an independent curator and exhibit developer in Seattle, Washington.  Peterson earned her bachelor degrees in English and History from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in Museum Studies from New York University.