Interference
INTERFERENCE:
THE HISTORY OF OPTICAL INTERFEROMETRY
AND THE SCIENTISTS WHO TAMED LIGHT
David D. Nolte
Oxford University Press, September 6, 2023, $40
ISBN-13: 9780192869760
Nolte reports:
As both a practicing physicist and a science popularizer, I am always looking for interesting backstories that bring the science that I work on alive for both specialized and general audiences. To my surprise, I found that the history of the interference of light had great backstories of political intrigue, military campaigns, house arrest, mental illness, personal firestorms, and more.
Few of these stories were widely known, so I wrote a book proposal and sent it to the editor at Oxford University Press who had published two of my previous books. While the internal reviews of the book proposal were not overly positive, the advice of one of the reviewers was perfectly on point. My revised book proposal was stronger and better focused. I am indebted to that anonymous reviewer.
David D. Nolte
One of the biggest surprises I uncovered during my research was a well-hidden story about Albert Michelson, the first American to receive a Nobel prize. His obsessive attention to his work prompted his wife to have him committed to an insane asylum. He was treated by a forward-looking psychiatrist, a great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, who brought him back to mental health, to his work, and to his eventual Nobel.
Because I work professionally in the field I was writing about—I am a professor of physics and astronomy at Purdue University—I knew some of the scientists and was able to do one-on-one interviews. The stories for the book came together even better than I had hoped.
I called up Alastair Glass of Bell Labs, who told me about his early years developing the field of holographic optics. In another interview, I got great background material on Mats Gustafsson from his post-doc advisor. Gustafsson helped usher in the revolution in high-resolution microscopy in the early 2000s. Sadly, he died of brain cancer in 2011 at age 59.
My advice for aspiring authors in science nonfiction is to start with the university presses.Their editors are a bit less driven by the bottom line and typically work with you to improve the product at all stages.
Contact Info:
- David D. Nolte, 765-494-3013, [nolte@purdue.edu](mailto:nolte@purdue.edu, https://galileo-unbound.blog/
- Interference: The History of Optical Interferometry and the Scientists Who Tamed Light, https://wordpress.com/page/galileo-unbound.blog/4551
- Publicist: Hope Jennings-Grounds, science.books.uk@oup.com
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