Gerald Holton

Born 1922 in Berlin to Austrian parents, Holton grew up in Vienna, attending Humanistisches Gymnasium before emigrating to England in 1938 thanks to the Kindertransport. He received an electrical engineering certificate at the School of Technology, City of Oxford in 1940, and then a B.A. in 1941 and a M.A. in 1942 at Wesleyan University. As a student of Percy Williams Bridgman in physics, he obtained his A.M. and Ph.D. at Harvard University respectively in 1946 and 1948.

His chief interests are in the history and philosophy of science, in the physics of matter at high pressure, in education, and in the study of career paths of young scientists. Along with co-author Gerhard Sonnert he has studied and published works on the gender gap in science studies and careers. In 1952, he published Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Sciences, a seminal work in the development of physics education, which led to Harvard Project Physics, the NSF sponsored national curriculum-development project that he co-directed.

Gerald Holton is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1956), as well as several American and European learned societies, including the German Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He served as President of the History of Science Society from 1983-84 and served on a number of U.S. National Commissions, including those on UNESCO and Excellence on Education. He also served on the board of trustees of Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1972-1978, as well as of the Boston Museum of Science,the National Humanities Center, and Wesleyan University.

His book publications include Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought, The Scientific Imagination, Einstein, History and Other Passions, Science and Anti-Science, and Victory and Vexation in Science. He is also author, with Gerhard Sonnert, of What Happened to the Children Who Fled from Nazi Persecution, and "Who Succeeds in Science--The Gender Dimension".

Holton is founding editor of the quarterly journal Daedalus, and founder in 1972 of the Newsletter on Science, Technology, and Human Values (from 1976 Science, Technology, and Human Values). He was also on the editorial committee of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Professor Holton has received the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, the Andrew Gemant Award of the American Institute of Physics, the Abraham Pais Prize of the American Physical Society, the Robert A. Millikan award and Oersted Award of the American Association of Physics Teachers, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Ehrenkreuz of the Republic of Austria (2008).

In 1981 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected Holton for the tenth Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. Holton was the first scientist selected for this honor, and his lecture was entitled "Where is Science Taking Us?" In his lecture, Holton argued that Jefferson's vision of science as a force for social improvement was still viable, opined that there had been a "relocation of the center of gravity" of scientific inquiry toward solving society's important problems, and cautioned that science education had to be improved dramatically or only a small "technological elite" would be equipped to take part in self-government.

A considerable collection of his papers have been collected, processed, and annotated by the archivists at Harvard University Archives, donated by Holton since 2007.

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• Gerhard Sonnert and Gerald Holton, Who Succeeds in Science? The Gender Dimension.Rutgers University Press,New Brunswick, New Jersey. 1995,ISBN 0813522196.
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• Gerald Holton, Victory and Vexation in Science: Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Others,Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005. ISBN 0674015193.
• Gerhard Sonnert and Gerald Holton, What Happened to the Children Who Fled Nazi Persecution, Pangrave Macmillan, New York New York,2006. ISBN 9780230609075
• Gerhard Sonnert and Gerald Holton, Helping Young Refugees and Immigrants Succeed, Palgrave Macmillan, New York New York 2010
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• David Cassidy, Gerald Holton, and James Rutherford, Comprendre la Physique,Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes,Lausanne,Switzerland,2014. ISBN 978-2-88915-083-0.