Seth Kaller, Inc.

Owned by Manhattan Project Scientist, Assistant to Chief of Scientific Branch of the War Department (1946-7) and notable scientist and historian of science Erwin Hiebert.

H.D. SMYTH. A General Account of … Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government 1940-1945. Written at the Request of Major General L. R. Groves, United States Army... Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents. (1945). Book, 1945. 182 pp, illus. with 2 graphs. With ownership signature of “Erwin Hiebert” twice.

Inventory #20807       Price: $2,250

Erwin N. Hiebert (1919-2012) was a notable scientist and philosopher and historian of science. His radically egalitarian and rationalist Protestant Mennonite background impacted his research and teaching, and he trained a large number of women scholars in fields rife with prejudice. His interest in the philosophy of science was tethered to his interest in doing science, especially at the frontiers of knowledge.  

·   B.A. in Chemistry and Mathematics at Bethel College.

·   M.A. in Chemistry and Physics at University of Kansas at Lawrence.

·   Research chemist with the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, under the jurisdiction of the University of Chicago Metallurgical Laboratories of the Manhattan Project.

·   Assistant to the Chief of the Scientific Branch of the War Department, 1946-47

·   M.Sc. in Physical Chemistry at University of Chicago, 1949.

·   Ph.D.in History of Science and Physical Chemistry, University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1954.

·   Fulbright fellowship to the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik in Göttingen, 1954-5.

·   Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, 1961-2.

·   Assistant Professor at San Francisco State College, 1954

·   Harvard University (as instructor in History of Science, 1955-7, and 1965)

·   University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1957.

·   Harvard University, Department of History of Science, 1970-1989, chair, 1977-84 

·   Visiting professorships at the Universität Tübingen, 1965, Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung at the Universität Bielefeld, 1973, and Hebrew University, 1981,

·   Scientist on a geophysical expedition to the Arctic, 1959

·   Consultant for the University of Kabul, 1961.

 

Hiebert's books

·   The Impact of Atomic Energy (1961), examined from ethical and religious point of view.

·   The Historical Roots of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy (1962)

·   The Conception of Thermodynamics in the Scientific Thought of Max and Planck (1968)

 

Biographical Sketches

·   https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hiebert/

·   https://histsci.fas.harvard.edu/people/erwin-n-hiebert