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.
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