Bibliography

 

A. BOOKS
1. The World of Elementary Particles (Blaisdell Publishing Co., 1963). Translated into Italian, German, and Russian. (Library of Science selection in the United States, science writing prize in Italy.)
2. Basic Physics (Blaisdell, 1968). Introductory text for nonscience students.
3-5. Classical and Modern Physics (Xerox College Publishing, 1972-74). Introductory text for students of science and engineering. 3 volumes.
6. Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics, with John Archibald Wheeler (W. W. Norton, 1998). Wheeler’s autobiography. Translated into Chinese and Greek. (1999 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Prize.)
7. The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone (Harvard University Press, 2004). Translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, and Korean. Paperback with “Quantum Questions,” 2005. Answer Manual available.
8. In Love With Flying (H Bar Press, 2007). Memoir on 50 years of flying small planes and gliders.
9. 101 Quantum Questions: What You Need to Know About the World You Can’t See (Harvard University Press, 2011). Translated into Japanese, Polish, and Turkish.
10. Building the H Bomb: A Personal History (World Scientific, 2015). A combined memoir of a young Ken Ford, thermonuclear history, and nuclear physics primer. Winner of Indiefab Gold award as best book of 2015 from an independent publisher in the category adult nonfiction, science. For audio interview on this book, go here. For a list of other books about the H Bomb, see The most readable books about nuclear weapons and the people who make them.
2a. Basic Physics: A Resource for Physics Teachers (World Scientific, 2016). The older textbook reissued, enhanced with “Features” to make it useful to teachers of introductory physics.
11. The First 95 Years (H Bar Press, 2021). A collection of autobiographical essays, called by its author “A pointillist portrait.” Designed and illustrated by Adam Ford.
B. WEB POSTINGS
1. Essays on Physics (2017). Selected essays based on the Features in Basic Physics. basic-physics.com
C. RESEARCH PAPERS AND CHAPTERS
1. “Nuclear Size Resonances” (with D. Bohm), Phys. Rev. 79, 745 (1950).
2. “The First Excited States of Even-Even Nuclei,” Phys. Rev. 90, 29 (1953).
3. “Isotope Shift Anomalies and Nuclear Structure” (with L. Wilets and D. L. Hill), Phys. Rev. 91, 1488 (1953).
4. “Mu-Mesonic X-Rays and the Shape of the Nuclear Charge Distribution” (with D. L. Hill), Phys. Rev. 94, 1617 (1954).
5. “Nonuniform Nuclear Charge Distributions and Measurements of Nuclear Electrical Radius” (with D. L. Hill), Phys. Rev. 94, 1630 (1954).
6. “Nuclear Deformation and the Moment of Inertia of Nuclear Rotational States,” Phys. Rev. 95, 1250 (1954).
7. “Elastic Scattering of 22-MeV Alpha Particles” (with N. S. Wall and J. R. Rees), Phys. Rev. 97, 726 (1955).
8. “Predicted 0+ Level in Zr90,” Phys. Rev. 98, 1516 (1955).
9. “Independent Particle Model of the Nucleus I” (with C. Levinson), Phys. Rev. 99, 792 (1955).
10. “Independent Particle Model of the Nucleus II” (with C. Levinson), Phys. Rev. 100, 1 (1955).
11. “Independent Particle Model of the Nucleus III” (with C. Levinson), Phys. Rev. 100, 13 (1955).
12. “The Distribution of Charge in the Nucleus” (with D. L. Hill), Annual Review of Nuclear Science 5, 25 (1955).
13. “Problem of Ghost States in Field Theory,” Phys. Rev. 105, 320 (1957).
14. “Shell Model Theory of Pb206” (with W. W. True), Phys. Rev. 109, 1675 (1958).
15. “Evaluation of Slater Integrals with Harmonic Oscillator Wave Functions” (with E. J. Konopinski), Nuclear Physics 9, 218 (1958-59).
16. “Effect of Recoil on the Elastic Scattering of High-Energy Electrons by Zero-Spin Nuclei” (with L. L. Foldy and D. R. Yennie), Phys. Rev. 113, 1147 (1959).
17. “Quantum Effects Near a Barrier Maximum” (with D. L. Hill, M. Wakano, and J. A. Wheeler), Annals of Physics 7, 239 (1959).
18. “Semi-Classical Description of Scattering” (with J. A. Wheeler), Annals of Physics 7, 259 (1959).
19. “Applications of Semi-Classical Scattering Analysis” (with J. A. Wheeler), Annals of Physics 7, 287 (1959).
20. “Optimal Accuracy Rocket Trajectories” (with G. A. Baker, Jr. and C. E. Porter), Journal of Applied Physics 30, 1925 (1959).
21. “Muon Capture by C12 and Beta Decay of B12” (with G. Flamand), Phys. Rev. 116, 1591 (1959).
22. “Charge Distributions of Nuclei in the 1P Shell” (with U. Meyer-Berkhout and A. E. S. Green), Annals of Physics 8, 119 (1959).
23. “Theoretical Values for Magnetic Moments of Mu-Mesonic Atoms” (with Vernon W. Hughes), Phys. Rev. Letters 7, 134 (1961).
24. “Possible Mechanism of Very High-Energy Resonances,” Il Nuovo Cimento 24, 467 (1962).
25. “Calculated Properties of Mu-Mesonic Atoms” (with John G. Wills), Nuclear Physics 35, 2 (1962).
26. “Theoretical Values for Magnetic Moments of Mu-Mesonic Atoms” (with Vernon W. Hughes), Phys. Rev. 129, 194 (1963).
27. “Nuclear Charge Radii” (with A. N. Kaufman), 1962 Nuclear Data Tables, National Academy of Sciences.
28. “Search for Ferromagnetically Trapped Monopoles of Cosmic Ray Origin” (with E. Goto and H. Kolm), Phys. Rev. 132, 387 (1963).
29. “Electrodynamics with a Quantum of Length,” Phys. Rev. 175, 2048 (1968).
30. “Muonic Atoms and the Radial Shape of the Nuclear Charge Distribution” (with John G. Wills), Phys. Rev. 185, 1429 (1969).
31. “Approximation Methods in the Analysis of Muonic-Atom X-Rays,” chapter in Magic Without Magic – John Archibald Wheeler (San Francisco, California: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1972).
32. “Analysis of Muonic-Atom X-Rays in the Lead Isotopes” (with G. A. Rinker, Jr.), Phys. Rev. C7, 1206 (1973).
33. “Comparison of Muonic-Atom and Electronic X-Ray Isotope Shifts in Lead” (with G. A. Rinker, Jr.), Phys. Rev. C9, 2444 (1974).
34. Efficient Use of Energy (co-editor and co-author), AIP Conference Proceedings No. 25, 1975.
35. “Efficient Use of Energy,” Proceedings of the symposium “Energy and Development in the Americas,” Guaruja, Santos, S. P., Brazil, March 1978; Interciencia 4, 38 (Jan.-Feb. 1979).
D. OTHER PUBLICATIONS
1. Numerous Los Alamos reports (1950s).
2. Assorted book reviews in Physics Today, American Journal of Physics, and Perspectives in Physics. 1950s to 1990s.
3. “Nuclear Optical Model—A Conference Report,” Physics Today 12, 22 (1959).
4. “Magnetic Monopoles,” Scientific American, December 1963.
5. Editor or co-editor of 9 volumes of Brandeis Summer Institute Lecture Notes, 1959-1964 (published by Brandeis University, by W. A. Benjamin, and by Prentice-Hall).
6. “The Key Ideas of Quantum Mechanics,” The Physics Teacher, November 1966.
7. “Probability and Entropy in Thermodynamics,” The Physics Teacher, February 1967.
8. “The Arrow of Time,” The Physics Teacher, March 1967.
9. “Elementary Particles,” Article for a French edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968±.
10. Definitions for elementary-particle terms, Webster’s Third International Dictionary, 1966-70.
11. “America XC,” Air Facts, July 1970.
12. “Why is Your Image in a Plane Mirror Inverted Left-to-Right But Not Top-to-Bottom?”, The Physics Teacher 13, 228 (1975).
13. “Technological Advance,” Vital Issues Newsletter, 1976.
14. “Why Does a Finger Ring Flip?”, The Physics Teacher 16, 322 (1978).
15. Editor of “Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War,” a booklet published by the American Association of Physics Teachers, 1983.
16. “Conservation Laws,” chapter in The World of Physics, Jefferson Hane Weaver, Ed. (New York: Simon and Schuster, vol. 2, p. 760, 1987).
17. “What Ever Happened to Curriculum S?” (Editorial), The Physics Teacher 25, 138 (1987).
18. “Problems in Physics Education,” Chapter in Physics for the 1990’s (American Association of Physics Teachers, May 1989).
19. “Is Physics Difficult?” (Editorial), American Journal of Physics 57, 10 (1989).
20. “Conservation Laws”, entry in Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics, John S. Rigden, Ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1997).
21. “Ray Smith,” Germantown Academy Faculty Journal, 1997.
22. “The Physics of Soaring,” The Physics Teacher 38, 8 (2000).
23. “Conservation Laws”, entry in Elementary-Particle Supplement to Macmillan Encyclopedia of Physics, John S. Rigden, Ed. (New York: Macmillan, 2003).
24. Index to Science and Ultimate Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
25. “Working (and Not Working) on Weapons” Radiations Spring 2005.
26. Contribution in What We Believe But Cannot Prove, John Brockman, Ed. (Harper Perennial, 2006).
27. Essay on John Archibald Wheeler in Biographical Enclopedia of Astronomers, Thomas Hockey, Ed. (Germany: Springer Verlag, in press).
28. “Oersted Medal Lecture: Love Them to Death,” American Journal of Physics 74, 661-664 (2006).
29. “Giant of physics John Wheeler dies,” Physics World May 2008, p. 7.
30. “John Wheeler’s work on particles, nuclei, and weapons,” Physics Today April 2009, p. 29.
31. Contribution in This Will Change Everything, John Brockman, Ed. (Harper Perennial, 2010).
32. Index to Visions of Discovery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
33. “Princeton and Fusion Energy,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, Oct. 9, 2013.
34. “Teaching the Bohr Atom,” Physics Teacher 56, 196 (April 2018).
35. “Niels Bohr’s First 1913 Paper: Still Relevant, Still Exciting, Still Puzzling,” Physics Teacher 56, 500 (Nov. 2018).
36. “Rainbows: A Graphical Approach,” Physics Teacher 58, 152 (Mar. 2020).
37. “More Secrets,” Inference, (June 2021). https://inference-review.com/letter/more-secrets