1 Introduction.-.- 2 From the discovery of radioactivity to first accelerator experiments.- 3 Development of Cosmology:From a Static Universe to Accelerated Expansion.- 4 Evolution of Astrophysics5.1 Introduction and General Overview.- 5 Development of Ultra High-Energy Cosmic Ray Research.- 6 Very-High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy.- 7 Search for the neutrino mass and low energy neutrino astronomy.- 8 From Particle Physics to Astroparticle Physics: Proton Decay and the Rise of Non-Accelerator Physics.- 10 From Waves to Particle Tracks and Quantum Probabilities.- A Timetable.- B Nobel prizes.- C Textbooks.- C.1 Textbooks 1987-2012.- C.2 Textbooks 1962-1986.- C.3 Textbooks 1937-1961.- C.4 Textbooks 1912-1936.- D Books in History of Physics
The scope of the book is to give an overview of the history of astroparticle physics, starting with the discovery of cosmic rays (Victor Hess, 1912) and its background (X-ray, radioactivity).
The book focusses on the ways in which physics changes in the course of this history. The following changes run parallel, overlap, and/or interact:
- Discovery of effects like X-rays, radioactivity, cosmic rays, new particles but also progress through non-discoveries (monopoles) etc.
- The change of the description of nature in physics, as consequence of new theoretical questions at the beginning of the 20th century, giving rise to quantum physics, relativity, etc.
- The change of experimental methods, cooperations, disciplinary divisions.
With regard to the latter change, a main topic of the book is to make the specific multi-diciplinary features of astroparticle physics clear.