David I. Kaiser is an American physicist and historian of science. He is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a full professor in MIT's department of physics. He also served as an inaugural associate dean for MIT's cross-disciplinary program in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.^[1]

Kaiser is the author or editor of several books on the history of science, including Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (2005), How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival (2011),^[2] and Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World (2020).^[3] He received the Apker Award^[4] from the American Physical Society in 1993 and was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010. His historical scholarship has been honored with the Pfizer Award (2007)^[5] and the Davis Prize (2013)^[6] from the History of Science Society. In March 2012 he was awarded the MacVicar fellowship, a prestigious MIT undergraduate teaching award.^[7] In 2012, he also received the Frank E. Perkins Award from MIT for excellence in mentoring graduate students.^[8]

Kaiser completed his AB in physics at Dartmouth College in 1993. He completed two PhDs from Harvard University. The first was in physics in 1997 for a thesis entitled "Post-Inflation Reheating in an Expanding Universe," the second in the history of science in 2000 for a thesis on "Making Theory: Producing Physics and Physicists in Postwar America."^[1]

Kaiser's physics research mostly focuses on early-universe cosmology, including topics such as cosmic inflation,^[9][10] post-inflation reheating,^[11][12][13] and primordial black holes.^[14][15][16] He has also helped to design and conduct novel experimental tests of quantum theory, including the "Cosmic Bell" experiments^[17][18][19] that Kaiser worked on with Nobel laureate Anton Zeilinger,^[20] and which were featured in the PBS Nova documentary film Einstein's Quantum Riddle (2019).^[21]

Kaiser's historical research focuses on intersections among modern natural sciences, geopolitics, and the history of higher education during the Cold War. His MIT course on "Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman: Physics in the Twentieth Century" is available via MIT OpenCourseWare.

In addition to his scholarly writing, Kaiser's work has appeared in The New York Times,^{[22][23][24][25]} the New Yorker magazine,^[26][27][28] and in several PBS Nova television programs.^[29] He also serves as Chair of the Editorial Board of the MIT Press and as Editor of the MIT Case Studies Series on Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing.

• (2005). Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics. University of Chicago Press.
• (2005). (ed.) Pedagogy and the Practice of Science: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. MIT Press.
• (2010). (ed.) Becoming MIT: Moments of Decision. MIT Press.
• (2011). How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. W. W. Norton, ISBN 0393076369.
• with Sally Gregory Kohlstedt: (2013). (eds.) Science and the American Century. University of Chicago Press.
• with W. Patrick McCray: (2016). (eds.) Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture. University of Chicago Press.
• (2020). Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World. University of Chicago Press.
• with Aaron S. Wright and Diana Coleman: (2022). (eds.) Theoretical Physics in Your Face: Selected Correspondence of Sidney Coleman. World Scientific.
• (2022). (ed.) 'Well, Doc, You're In': Freeman Dyson's Journey through the Universe. MIT Press.
• (forth coming). American Physics and the Cold War. University of Chicago Press.

• Faculty website, MIT, accessed January 13, 2023.
• MIT Physics Department faculty page, MIT, accessed January 13, 2023.
• Kaiser, David. "Quasars to the Rescue! A Cosmic Test for Quantum Entanglement", Boston Museum of Science, 2019.
• Kelly, Cynthia C. Video interview with David Kaiser, Voices of the Manhattan Project, 2014.
• Kaiser, David. "Short Cuts", The London Review of Books, 33(16), August 25, 2011.
• Wilkinson, Todd. "How the Hippies Saved Physics, by David Kaiser", The Christian Science Monitor, July 19, 2011.
• Wisnioski, Matthew. "Let's Be Fysiksists Again", Science, 332 (6037), June 24, 2011.

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