RUI: A Marriage of Equals, the Scientific Lives of Joseph and Maria Goeppert Mayer

诺贝尔奖获得者、物理学家玛丽亚·戈珀特·梅耶尔和她的丈夫、化学家约瑟夫·梅耶尔在不同的学科工作，从事不同的研究领域，很少发表合作研究成果。然而，仔细研究他们的科学生涯就会发现，随着时间的推移，约瑟夫·梅耶尔开始从物理学家的角度来研究化学，他试图将统计力学融入物理化学中，而玛丽亚·戈珀特·梅耶尔在她发展核壳模型的过程中开始从化学家的角度来看待物理学。这种智力互动说明了一种在科学上的合作形式，这种形式在历史文献中没有得到充分的探索。科学史学家倾向于以两种不同的方式关注科学理论的演变：要么作为知识史，强调个别科学家遵循的智力道路，要么作为一种超越任何个人智力生活的社会现象。这两种方法都不能充分描述科学家之间非正式互动的多维矩阵，这些矩阵塑造了科学家个人的独特工作，并产生了梅耶斯夫妇工作中发现的那种协同效应。首席研究员请求瑞在2002-2003年的休假期间支持她写一本约瑟夫和玛丽亚·戈珀特·梅耶尔的双重科学传记。这本传记将对二十世纪两位杰出的科学家的生活、职业和选择进行全面的考察和分析。它还将极大地促进目前对科学家个人如何受到与其同事的非正式互动的影响的调查，将提供一个在自然科学领域取得成功的女性的例子，并将提供一个在科学领域进行跨性别跨学科合作的罕见例子，并将作为一个案例研究已婚夫妇的生活和职业生涯中公共和私人领域的交叉。瑞的奖项将使她深化她的学术活动，同时丰富和告知她的教学和课程发展，并将成为科学史本科生的典范。

Nobel Prize winner and physicist Maria Goeppert Mayer and her husband, chemist Joseph Mayer, worked in different disciplines, pursued different fields of research, and rarely published collaborative work. A close scrutiny of their scientific careers reveals, however, that over time Joseph Mayer began to approach the study of chemistry from the perspective of a physicist in his attempts to incorporate statistical mechanics into physical chemistry, and Maria Goeppert Mayer began to approach physics from the perspective of a chemist in her development of the nuclear shell model. This intellectual interaction illustrates a form of collaboration in science that has not been adequately explored in the historical literature. Historians of science have tended to focus on the evolution of scientific theories in two different ways: either as intellectual history, emphasizing the intellectual paths followed by individual scientists, or as a social phenomenon transcending the intellectual life of any individual. Neither of these approaches can adequately describe the multi-dimensional matrix of informal interactions among scientists that shapes the distinctive work of individual scientists, and results in the kind of synergy found in the work of the Mayers. The principal investigator requests RUI support during her sabbatical year 2002-2003 to write a dual scientific biography of Joseph and Maria Goeppert Mayer. This biography will constitute a comprehensive examination and analysis of the lives, careers, and choices of two of the preeminent scientists of the twentieth century. It will also contribute significantly to current investigations into the ways in which individual scientists are influenced by informal interactions with their colleagues, will present an example of a successful woman in physical science and provide a rare example of cross-gender interdisciplinary collaboration in science, and will serve as a case study of the intersection of the public and private spheres in the lives and careers of a married couple. The RUI award will enable the PI to deepen her scholarly activity, while enriching and informing her teaching and curriculum development, and will serve as a model for undergraduate students in history of science.