Dr. Alexander Blum

I received a PhD in theoretical particle physics from the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in 2009. As a postdoc worked in the Project on History and Foundations of Quantum Physics at the Max Planck Institute for History of Science and the Fritz Haber Institute. Most recently (from 2017-2025) I was head of the Max Planck Research Group Historical Epistemology of the Final Theory Program at the Albert Einstein Institute and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. I joined the MCMP in February 2025.

Research Interests

I’m interested in exploring the foundations of modern physics through its history. My main interest is in quantum field theory, but I have also worked extensively on the renaissance of general relativity, the origins of quantum mechanics, and the history of magnetohydodynamics. My aim is to better understand how we arrived at the multifarious concepts, theoretical structures and calculational practices that we use to order the world and to what extent we can view them as contributing to a unified picture.

Selected Publications

• Einstein’s second-biggest blunder: the mistake in the 1936 gravitational-wave manuscript of Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen. Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 76: 623–632 (2022). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00407-022-00295-6
• Blum, Alexander S. and Martin Jähnert (2022). The birth of quantum mechanics from the spirit of radiation theory. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 91: 125–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.11.004
• ASB, & Stefano Furlan. How John Wheeler lost his faith in the law. In Yemima Ben-Menahem (Ed.). Rethinking the Concept of Laws of Nature: Natural Order in the Light of Contemporary Science (pp. 283–322). Cham: Springer (2022). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-96775-8_11
• John Wheeler’s Desert Island: The conservatism of non-empirical physics. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 90: 219-225 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.10.010
• ASB, & Dieter Brill. Tokyo Wheeler or the epistemic preconditions of the renaissance of relativity. In ASB, Roberto Lalli, & Jürgen Renn (Eds.). The Renaissance of General Relativity in Context (pp. 141–187). Cham: Birkhäuser (2020). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-50754-1_5
• ASB, Roberto Lalli, & Jürgen Renn. Gravitational waves and the long relativity revolution. Nature Astronomy 2: 534–543 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-018-0472-6
• Blum, Alexander S. and Dean Rickles (2018). Quantum Gravity in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: A Sourcebook. Berlin: Edition Open Access. https://edition-open-sources.org/sources/10/toc.html
• The State is not abolished, it withers away: How Quantum Field Theory became a Theory of Scattering. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 60: 46-80 (2017). https://arxiv.org/abs/2011.05908
• ASB, & Christian Joas. From Dressed Electrons to Quasiparticles: The Emergence of Emergent Entities in Quantum Field Theory. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 53: 1-8 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsb.2015.10.005
• QED and the man who didn’t make it: Sidney Dancoff and the infrared divergence. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science B 50: 70-94 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsb.2015.03.008