Every year, the Department of Physics and Astronomy is allocated funds to purchase materials for the library. This is a list of our recent orders and a blurb about each. Occasionally, a faculty member or student who reads one of these books has some interesting things to say about it. If so, click on the review link next to the to read more about the book or video. To check to see if the item is available, you can use the McIntyre Library's Voyager Catalog. If you have any ideas for materials that the library does not have, contact Lyle Ford.
Acoustics
Applications of Physics to
Other Fields
Astronomy, Astrophysics, & Planetary Science
Condensed Matter Physics
Education
General Physics
Numerical Methods
History of Science
Particle Physics & Quantum
Mechanics
Philosophy & Science
Relativity
See orders from 2002-3, 2003-4, or 2004-5.
Science of Percussion Instruments, Thomas D. Rossing
Book Description: Percussion instruments may be our oldest musical instruments, but only recently have they become the subject of extensive scientific study. This book focuses on how percussion instruments vibrate and produce sound and how these sounds are perceived by listeners.
Quantitative Finance and Risk Management: A Physicist's Approach, Jan W. Dash
Book Description: Written by a physicist with over 15 years of experience as a quant on Wall Street, this book treats a wide variety of topics. Presenting the theory and practice of quantitative finance and risk, it delves into the “how to” and “what it’s like” aspects not covered in textbooks or research papers. Both standard and new results are presented. A “Technical Index” indicates the mathematical level — from zero to PhD — for each chapter. The finance in each chapter is self-contained. Real-life comments on “life as a quant” are included.
Physics in Molecular Biology, Kim Sneppen & Giovanni Zocchi
Book Description: Tools developed by statistical physicists are of increasing importance in the analysis of complex biological systems. Physics in Molecular Biology discusses how physics can be used in modeling life. It begins by summarizing important biological concepts, emphasizing how they differ from the systems normally studied in physics. A variety of topics, ranging from the properties of single molecules to the dynamics of macro-evolution, are studied in terms of simple mathematical models. The main focus of the book is on genes and proteins and how they build systems that compute and respond. The discussion develops from simple to complex systems, and from small-scale to large-scale phenomena. This book will inspire advanced undergraduates and graduate students in physics to approach biological subjects from a physicist’s point of view. It is self-contained, requiring no background knowledge of biology, and only familiarity with basic concepts from physics, such as forces, energy, and entropy.
The Violent Universe: Joyrides through the X-ray Cosmos, Kimberly Weaver
Book Description: The universe is filled with extreme events: galactic collisions, supernovae eruptions, and stellar implosions. Although not always visible through optical telescopes, these processes generate x-rays, high-energy particles that travel at the speed of light. The Violent Universe reveals how astronomers use color to understand the energy and intensity of these x-rays—in the process transforming invisible particles into gorgeous images of the cosmos—and how these scientists discover more about the exotic objects that produce them. Kimberly Weaver traces the development of x-ray astronomy from the 1950s, when the first artificial satellites began transmitting information from deep space. By juxtaposing a selection of images from optical telescopes with those of cutting-edge x-ray telescopes, she illustrates the way x-ray astronomy captures energy and activity that cannot be seen in visible light. The book is illustrated with stunning four-color images of galaxies, quasars, pulsars, and black holes captured by Chandra, an enormous x-ray satellite that orbits Earth from a distance 200 times higher than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. The Violent Universe makes plain the amazing new astronomy that has unmasked the thunderous cosmos—a dynamic science that daily creates breathtaking art.
Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe, Michael Dopita & Ralph Sutherland
Book Description: The book is designed as an astrophysics textbook that provides a comprehensive introduction to the physics of Interstellar Matter. It is aimed primarily at those undertaking postgraduate courses, or those doing advanced projects as part of honors undergraduate courses in physics or astrophysics. It should also provide a handy reference to the field for astrophysics faculty and other researchers who are not necessarily experts in this particular subdiscipline. The objective of Astrophysics of the Diffuse Universe is to show how physics can be applied to the understanding and diagnosis of the phase structure, the physical conditions, and the chemical make-up and evolution of the interstellar medium. Consistent with the authors' lecture and course experience, here a systematic approach has been adopted to assist the development of the reader's insight into the physics underlying the subject.
Advances in Astronomy: From the Big Bang to the Solar System, J. M. T. Thompson
Book Description: In this highly accessible book, leading scientists from around the world give a general overview of research advances in their subject areas within the field of Astronomy. They describe some of their own cutting-edge research and give their visions of the future. Re-written in a popular and well-illustrated style, the articles are mainly derived from scholarly and authoritative papers published in special issues of the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, the world’s longest running scientific journal. Carefully selected by the journal’s editor, topics include the Big Bang creation of the universe, the formation and evolution of the stars and galaxies, cold dark matter, explosive sun-spot events, and humankind’s exploration of the solar system. The book conveys the excitement and enthusiasm of the authors for their work at the frontiers of astronomy. All are definitive reviews for people with a general interest in the future directions of science.
Astronomically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations on Astronomy and Physics, Carl C. Gaither & Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither
Book Description: Astronomically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations on Astronomy, Mathematics and Physics is the largest compilation of astronomy quotations published to date: it contains around 1550 quotations. There are many books of quotations, some of which have small sections about astronomy and astronomy-related topics but Astronomically Speaking is devoted to the topic of astronomy and closely related areas of mathematics and physics. To understand the history, accomplishments and failures, and the meanings of astronomy requires a knowledge of what has been said by the authoritative and the not-so-authoritative philosophers, novelists, playwrights, poets, scientists and laymen about astronomy. Nowdays it is virtually impossible to keep abreast of the literature outside of one's own particular specialization. With this in mind, Astronomically Speaking assumes a particularly important role as a guide to what has been said in the past through to the present about astronomy. Astronomically Speaking is designed as an aid for the general reader who has an interest in astronomical topics as well as for the experienced scientist. The general reader with no knowledge of astronomy can form a pretty accurate picture of what astronomy is. Students can use the book to increase their understanding of the complexity and richness that exists in scientific disciplines. Finally, the experienced scientist will find Astronomically Speaking useful as a source of quotes for use in the classroom, in papers and in presentations. A quick glance through the table of contents will show the variety of topics discussed. Readers can access the wit and wisdom that exists easily and quickly using the comprehensive indexes.
Book Description: The fourth edition of Professor Kitchin's popular Astrophysical Techniques retains the aims of the earlier edition in providing a comprehensive and clearly understandable account of the instruments and techniques used in modern astronomy and astrophysics. Many new instruments and techniques are included for the first time, and some topics have been eliminated on the grounds that they have not been used by either professional or amateur astronomers for many years. Drawing together an ever-diverging array of observational techniques, using the common thread of detection-imaging-ancillary instruments pattern, the author provides readers with a unified view of contemporary astrophysical investigation. This fully illustrated text starts from first principles and explains each method up to the point at which the reader can begin practical work and even start designing it. Exercises with answers are used to reinforce the ideas presented in each chapter. There is also an extensive bibliography to enable further study, appendices of tables of astrophysical data and a new section on web sites and on-line resources. The treatment of the topics is at a level appropriate to a science-based undergraduate degree. As far as possible the mathematics and physics background that may be needed for a topic is developed or given within that section. Science undergraduates taking an astronomy option will find Astrophysical Techniques an essential study aid. Amateur astronomers of any level will find this book to be of immense value. Professional astronomers should use this book as a source of information on areas unfamiliar to them.
Book Description: With stunning regularity, the search for our cosmic roots has been yielding remarkable new discoveries about the universe and our place in it. In this compelling book, veteran science journalist Tom Yulsman joins the men and women engaged in this quest, chronicling their latest discoveries and describing in clear and engaging terms what they mean. From the interior of protons to the outer reaches of the universe, and from the control room of one of the world's most powerful particle accelerators to an observatory atop the tallest mountain in the Pacific basin, Yulsman takes readers on a fantastic voyage at the cutting edge of science. How could the universe have sprouted from absolute nothingness? What is the origin of galaxies? How do stars and planets form? And despite what now seem to be incredible odds, how did Earth come to be a rich oasis of biodiversity - one that has given rise to a species intelligent enough to ask these questions? In laying out the answers, Origins addresses some of the most profound issues humans have ever confronted.
Book Description: This book is concerned with structure of planets and the stars they orbit and the interactions between them. There are many planetary systems other than our own, but it is only through a detailed understanding of the relatively accessible bodies in our solar system that a thorough appreciation of planetary science can be gained. This is particularly pertinent with the recent discovery of extra-solar planets and the desire to understand their formation and the prospect of life on other worlds. Planetary science courses require an understanding of aspects from a wide range of subjects, including astronomy, astrophysics, geophysics, geology and mineralogy. This text addresses needs of these wide ranging interests and courses, as it assumes no prior knowledge of astrophysics or geophysics. Suitable for students meeting planetary science for the first time The book is written in two parts, making it suitable for students at different levels from and approaching planetary science from differing backgrounds. Twelve independent descriptive chapters reveal our solar system and the diverse bodies it contains including satellites, planetary rings, asteroids, comets, meteorites and interstellar dust. These chapters are accompanied by 42 detailed topics that discuss specialised subjects in a quantitative manner and will be essential reading for those in higher level courses. These include mineralogy, stellar formation and evolution, solar system dynamics, atmospheric physics, planetary interiors, thermodynamics, planetary astrophysics and exobiology. Problems and answers are also included.
Book Description: Energy, chemistry, solvents, and habitats - the basic elements of living systems - define the opportunities and limitations for life on other worlds. This study examines each of these parameters in crucial depth and makes the argument that life forms we would recognize may be more common in our solar system than many assume. It also considers, however, exotic forms of life that would not have to rely on carbon as the basic chemical element, solar energy as the main energy source, or water as the primary solvent. Finally the question of detecting bio- and geosignature of such life forms is discussed, ranging from earth environments to deep space. While speculative considerations in this emerging field of science cannot be avoided, the authors have tried to present their study with the breadth and seriousness that a scientific approach to this issue requires. They seek an operational definition of life and investigate the realm of possibilities that nature offers to realize this very special state of matter and avoid scientific jargon wherever possible to make this intrinsically interdisciplinary subject understandable to a broad range of readers.
Book Description: Origins: Genesis, Evolution and Biodiversity of Microbial Life in the Universe is the sixth unit of the book series Cellular Origins, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology (COLE) edited by Joseph Seckbach. In this book forty eminent scientists review their studies in the fields of Life from the beginning to the "Fact of Life". The history of Origin of Life and Astrobiology is well covered by these authors. Reviews cover the standard and alternative scenarios of the genesis of Life, while the chapters of "The First Cells" leading to the biodiversity and extremophiles of microbial Life. Among these extremophiles are the microbes living in the Life's limits, such as in high temperature, psychrophilic, UV radiation, and halophilic environments. The origin and history of Martian water is discussed followed by the possible biogeochemistry inside Titan. This new field of Astrobiology has been presented, from comets as a source of materials and Life on earth to the space for last Frontiers.
Book Description: After three decades of intense research in X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, the time was ripe to summarize basic knowledge on X-ray and gamma-ray spectroscopy for interested students and researchers ready to become involved in new high-energy missions. This volume exposes both the scientific basics and modern methods of high-energy spectroscopic astrophysics. The emphasis is on physical principles and observing methods rather than a discussion of particular classes of high-energy objects, but many examples and new results are included in the three chapters as well.
Book Description: Exploring Ancient Skies uses modern science to examine ancient astronomy throughout the World, that is, to use the methods of archaeology and insights of modern astronomy explore how astronomy was practiced before the invention of the telescope. It thus reviews an enormous and growing body of literature on the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, the Far East, and the New World, particularly Mesoamerica, putting the ancient astronomical materials into their archaeological and cultural contexts. The book consists of two parts. The first emphasizes naked-eye astronomy: the motion of objects in the sky, the determination of time and calendars, corrections due to various factors such as parallax or atmospheric diffraction, and rare or transient phenomena such as eclipses, aurorae and comets. The second part begins with a discussion of the Paleolithic and Neolithic roots of astronomy. It then turns to the antecedents of the modern Western Astronomy: Mesopotamia, Greece, ancient and mediaeval Europe. Separate chapters deal with astronomy in ancient Egypt and Africa; India; China, Korea and Japan; the cultures of the Pacific; and the Americas, with particular emphasis on Mesoamerica, since this is one of the few areas for which written evidence is linked to astronomical alignments. Throughout, the discussion emphasizes the main purposes of ancient astronomy, many of which it shares with modern astronomy: astrology, navigation, calendar regulation, and understanding of our place and role in the universe. Exploring Ancient Skies provides a comprehensive review and reference for scholars and students in both astronomy and archaeology.
Book Description: How did life begin on Earth? Is it confined to our planet? Will humans one day be able to travel long distances in space in search of other life forms? Written by three experts in the space arena, Looking for Life, Searching the Solar System aims to answer these and other intriguing questions. Beginning with what we understand of life on Earth, it describes the latest ideas about the chemical basis of life as we know it, and how they are influencing strategies to search for life elsewhere. It considers the ability of life, from microbes to humans, to survive in space, on the surface of other planets, and be transported from one planet to another. It looks at the latest plans for missions to search for life in the Solar System, and how these are being influenced by new technologies, and current thinking about life on Earth.
Book Description: Including results from the Cassini space mission to Saturn, this summary of current knowledge of planetary rings covers all aspects of the subject with particular emphasis on ring history and evolution. Basic physical processes and simple mathematical approaches are supported by many images and diagrams that display the spectacular phenomena seen in these fascinating structures. Highlighted topics include Saturn's F ring, Neptune's rings, Jupiter's rings, stochastic models, ring age and evolution, and Cassini results. The text is supported by a glossary of terms and an extensive bibliography directs the reader to original references and resources.
Video Description: This video reveals the immensity of space by showing how its vast distances are measured and by examining the strange effects of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity on space travel. Topics include the units of measure in astronomy; how scientists estimate distances through parallax calculations, the inverse square law of light brightness, and the Cepheid variable, Doppler shift, and supernova methods; and time dilation, space dilation, and the distorting effect of gravity on the space-time continuum—all things to take into account as we study the universe. A Cambridge Educational Production.
Video Description: What are the odds that life exists elsewhere in the universe, and what are we doing to find out? Topics in this video range from the meaning of the Drake Equation and assumptions being used to narrow the vast field of stars in which scientists are searching, to the Doppler and transit methods of discovering extrasolar planets, to three initiatives that will help pinpoint probable life-supporting worlds: the Kepler mission, the spectroscopic Life Finder mission, and the Terrestrial Planet Finder observatories. A Cambridge Educational Production.
Video Description: Not all stellar nurseries occur near hypernovas, yet it appears that hypernovas only occur in stellar nurseries. What is the connection between them? This program illustrates how a scientific quest to understand massive intergalactic gamma ray bursts revealed to Stanford Woosley, of the University of California, Santa Cruz; the University of Cambridge’s Sir Martin Rees; Princeton University’s Bohdan Paczynski; and Dale Frail, of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the nature of massive stars—and the possibility that they will point the way to the place where the very first stars were born. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Death Star.
The Theory of Magnetism Made Simple, D. C. Mattis
Book Description: The original edition of The Theory of Magnetism was the first book to develop the various relevant topics using modern methods adapted for the many-body problem and thus it became popular (reportedly the "most-stolen" book from the exhibition stalls at the March meeting of the American Physical Society!). It presented and taught the fermionic field theory central to Onsager's analysis of the statistical mechanics of the two-dimensional Ising model of magnetism. In its pages the Lieb–Mattis theorems on magnetic ordering of electronic energy levels and on the absence of ferromagnetism in one dimension were restated and proved in a form accessible to students. The exchange mechanism in insulators and the Ruderman–Kittel interaction in metals were some of the innovative topics presented to the reader. Spin waves and their interactions were analyzed in some detail. The first chapter, on the history of physics as seen through the prism of research in magnetism, co-authored with Dr Noémi Mattis, proved especially popular. In this new edition, while retaining much of the material in earlier editions, especially the first chapter, the author has eliminated some of the bulk (the most recent edition was in two volumes) and added a number of new subjects. Among these are the effects of lowering the dimensionality (exact solutions of some important models in zero and one dimension are exhibited and contrasted with the three-dimensional versions) and the importance of the two-body Coulomb interactions. The reader is introduced to the topic of critical exponents, which has been so marvelously worked out in recent decades. Quoting a novel theorem by Lieb and exotic band structures, the author re-examines the origins of ferromagnetism. In the presentation, physical principles come first, the mathematics second. Developing the reader's intuition and mastery of the subject takes precedence. Because of this the book was not renamed "bigger and better," just — made simple.
Superconductivity, V. L. Ginzburg & E. A. Andryushin
Book Description: What is superconductivity? How was it discovered? What are the properties of superconductors, how are they applied now, and how are they likely to become widely used in the near future? These are just some of the questions which this important book sets out to answer. Starting with the discovery of superconductivity over ninety years ago, the book guides the readers through the many years of subsequent exploration, right up to the latest sensational findings. Written in a lively, nontechnical style, this book makes ideal background reading for any school or college level study of superconductivity. The authors, who are leading authorities in the field, paint detailed pictures of the phenomena involved without mathematical formalism, appealing instead to physical intuition.
Solid-State Physics: Introduction to the Theory, J. D. Patterson & B. Bailey
Book Description: Learning solid state physics involves a certain degree of maturity, since it involves tying together diverse concepts from many areas of physics. The objective is to understand, in a basic way, how solid materials behave. To do this one needs both a good physical and mathematical background. One definition of solid state physics is that it is the study of the physical (e.g. the electrical, dielectric, magnetic, elastic, and thermal) properties of solids in terms of basic physical laws. In one sense, solid state physics is more like chemistry than some other branches of physics because it focuses on common properties of large classes of materials. It is typical that solid state physics emphasizes how physics properties link to electronic structure. We have retained the term solid state physics, even though condensed matter physics is more commonly used. Condensed matter physics includes liquids and non-crystalline solids such as glass, which we shall not discuss in detail. Modern solid state physics came of age in the late thirties and forties, and had its most extensive expansion with the development of the transistor, integrated circuits, and microelectronics. Most of microelectronics, however, is limited to the properties of inhomogeneously doped semiconductors. Solid state physics includes many other areas of course; among the largest of these are ferromagnetic materials, and superconductors. Just a little less than half of all working physicists are in condensed matter.
Principles of Nanotechnology: Molecular-Based Study of Condensed Matter in Small Systems, G. Ali Mansoori
Book Description: This invaluable book provides a pointed introduction to the fascinating subject of bottom-up nanotechnology with emphasis on the molecular-based study of condensed matter in small systems. Nanotechnology has its roots in the landmark lecture delivered by the famous Nobel Laureate physicist, Richard Feynman, on 29 December 1959 entitled “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom.” By the mid-1980s, it had gained real momentum with the invention of scanning probe microscopes. Today, nanotechnology promises to have a revolutionary impact on the way things are designed and manufactured in the future. Principles of Nanotechnology is self-contained and unified in presentation. It may be used as a textbook by graduate students and even ambitious undergraduates in engineering, and the biological and physical sciences who already have some familiarity with quantum and statistical mechanics. It is also suitable for experts in related fields who require an overview of the fundamental topics in nanotechnology. The explanations in the book are detailed enough to capture the interest of the curious reader, and complete enough to provide the necessary background material needed to go further into the subject and explore the research literature. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of nanotechnology, a comprehensive glossary is included detailing abbreviations, chemical formulae, concepts, definitions, equations and theories.
Teaching and Learning of Astronomy: Strategies for Educators Worldwide, Jay Pasachoff & John Percy
Book Description: Astronomy is taught in schools worldwide, but few schoolteachers have any background in astronomy or astronomy teaching, and available resources may be insufficient or non-existent. This volume highlights the many places for astronomy in the curriculum; relevant education research and ‘best practice’; strategies for pre-service and in-service teacher education; the use of the Internet and other technologies; and the role that planetariums, observatories, science centers, and organizations of professional and amateur astronomers can play. The special needs of developing countries, and other under-resourced areas are also highlighted. The book concludes by addressing how the teaching and learning of astronomy can be improved world-wide. This valuable overview is based on papers and posters presented by experts at a Special Session of the International Astronomical Union.
The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid, M. Alley
Book Description: The Craft of Scientific Presentations provides a score of examples from contemporary and historical scientific presentations to show clearly what makes an oral presentation effective. It considers presentations made to persuade an audience to adopt some course of action (such as funding a proposal) as well as presentations made to communicate information, and it considers these from four perspectives: speech, structure, visual aids, and delivery. In keeping with technological innovations, it discusses computer-based projections and slide shows as well as overhead projections. In particular, it discusses ways of organizing graphics and text in projected images and of using layout and design to present the information efficiently and effectively. Unlike other books that discuss technical presentations, this book anchors its advice in the experiences of scientists and engineers, including such successful presenters as Robert Oppenheimer, Richard Feynman, Niels Bohr, and Rita Levi-Montalcini, as well as currently active laboratory directors, scientists, and engineers. In addition to examining successful presentations, Alley also discusses the errors that cause many scientific presentations to flounder, providing a list of ten critical errors to avoid. The insights and tools in this book will guide readers to deliver outstanding presentations.
Insights into the Universe, Timothy F. Slater & Michael Zeilik (eds.)
Book Description: This book is a collection of AstroNotes columns and related articles from The Physics Teacher. AstroNotes was started to give physics and astronomy teachers insightful approaches to engage their students. This book continues that tradition. Timeless ideas and classroom-proven strategies will help the novice teacher and the seasoned pro find more effective ways to teach astronomy. Many of the articles focus on a single concept. Nearly all embody a new slant on teaching a topic. Use this book to help invigorate your astronomy class.
Demonstration Experiments in Physics, Richard Manliffe Sutton
Book Description: A reprint of the classic work by Richard Manliffe Sutton, this book is a must-have for anyone who does physics demonstrations. Illustrations and explanations of each demonstration are done in an easy-to-understand format. Each can be adapted to be used as a demonstration or as a hands-on experiment. Most are easily upgraded to modern equipment and uses. This is a great reference for teachers, professors and demonstrations/lab personnel. This is a "cookbook" for teachers of physics, a book of recipes for the preparation of demonstration experiments to illustrate the principles that make the subject of physics so fascinating.
A Potpourri of Physics Teaching Ideas, Donna Berry Conner (ed.)
Book Description: From the pages of The Physics Teacher comes this collection of articles on apparatus and ideas for teaching physics. Articles concerning mechanics, fluids, and heat; electromagnetism; optics and waves; sound; toys; and others are reproduced. An additional 71 articles describe how to stow-it, do-it, make-it, show-it, and adapt-it.
Teaching About D.C. Electric Circuits, Earl R. Feltyberger, et al.
Book Description: From mapping electric fields to investigating an integrated timer circuit, this AAPT/PTRA manual gives students and teachers a chance to explore the behavior of devices that form the basis for modern electronic circuits. Several hands-on experiments are featured, some require computer equipment to collect and display data, some are qualitative, and some quantitative.
Teaching About Electrostatics, Robert A. Morse
Book Description: This AAPT/PTRA manual describes construction and use of reliable electrostatics equipment from inexpensive materials.
Teaching About Magnetism, Robert J. Reiland
Book Description: Magnetism is a physics topic often glossed over due to limited time in the school year. This AAPT/PTRA manual suggests creative, safe, inexpensive classroom materials to use in the laboratory. The enclosed activities encourage students to write down anticipated results and help boost students? curiosity before actually performing the laboratory activities. This collection of demonstrations and hands-on activities is an effective tool for displaying the basic concept of magnetism.
Teaching About Color and Color Vision, Bill Franklin
Book Description: This AAPT/PTRA manual deals with how the human eye perceives color and how that color perception is triggered by the light sources and objects of our world. The colors of soap bubbles and other thin films are treated in more than usual detail, and the approach used is extended to explain the colors of transparent materials sandwiched between polarizers. A tonic for lagging interest in the spring semester, the workshop incorporates many laboratory activities and demonstrations, including some new ones, commercially important applications, sample questions, and Physics Olympics events.
Book Description: The book in your hands develops the best traditions of the Russian scientific popular literature. Written in a clear and captivating manner by working theoretical physicists, who are, at the same time, dedicated popularizers of scientific knowledge, it brings to the reader the latest achievements in quantum solid-state physics, but along the way it also shows how the laws of physics reveal themselves even in seemingly trivial episodes concerning the natural phenomena around us. And most importantly, it shows that we live in the world, where scientists are capable of “proving harmony with algebra” — A. A. Abrikosov, 2003 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
Book Description: This book consists of essays that stand on their own but are also loosely connected. Part I documents how numbers and geometry arise in several cultural contexts and in nature: the ancient musical scale, proportion in architecture, ancient geometry, megalithic stone circles, the hidden pavements of the Laurentian library, the shapes of the Hebrew letters, and the shapes of biological forms. The focus is on how certain numbers, such as the golden and silver means, present themselves within these systems. Part II shows how many of the same numbers and number sequences are related to the modern mathematical study of numbers, dynamical systems, chaos, and fractals.
Book Description: Physicists use "back-of-the-envelope" estimates to check whether or not an idea could possibly be right. In many cases, the approximate solution is all that is needed. This compilation of 101 examples of back-of-the-envelope calculations celebrates a quantitative approach to solving physics problems. Drawing on a lifetime of physics research and nearly three decades as the editor of The Physics Teacher, Clifford Swartz provides simple, approximate solutions to physics problems that span a broad range of topics. What note do you get when you blow across the top of a Coke bottle? Could you lose weight on a diet of ice cubes? How can a fakir lie on a bed of nails without getting hurt? Does draining water in the northern hemisphere really swirl in a different direction than its counterpart below the equator? In each case, only a few lines of arithmetic and a few natural constants solve a problem to within a few percent. Covering such subjects as astronomy, magnetism, optics, sound, heat, mechanics, waves, and electricity, the book provides a rich source of material for teachers and anyone interested in the physics of everyday life.
Book Description: Can you walk over red-hot charcoal without burning your feet? Appear to stop the beating of your heart? Bend spoons using the power of your mind? In Debunked! Nobel Prize winner Georges Charpak and physics professor Henri Broch team up to show you the tricks of the trade and sleight of hand that keep astrologers, TV psychics, and spoon benders in business. Using only the simplest of science, the authors explore the effectiveness of horoscopes—the blander the better—and why, with a television audience in the millions, any strange, unlikely prediction is almost certain to come true. If such insider information does not impress your colleagues, why not pierce your tongue with a skewer or demonstrate your eerie powers by using telepathy and the telephone to get a distant friend to intuit the number and suit of a card picked at random. Charpak and Broch show you how. Not merely an expose of magic tricks, this book demonstrates how pseudoscientists use science, statistics, and psychology to bamboozle an audience—sometimes for fun, sometimes for profit. During the most scientifically advanced period in human history, belief in the paranormal and the supernatural is alarmingly common. Entertaining and enlightening, Debunked! is the antidote, vigorously asserting the virtues of doubt, skepticism, curiosity, and scientific knowledge. This lucid translation makes the arguments clear, understandable, and a pleasure to read.
Book Description: David E. Alexander's fascination with the many animals and plants that have harnessed the air is evident in Nature's Flyers: Birds, Insects, and the Biomechanics of Flight, a detailed account of our current scientific understanding of the primary aspects of flight in nature. Instead of relying on elaborate mathematical equations, Alexander explains the physical basis of flight with sharp prose and clear diagrams. Drawing upon bats, birds, insects, pterosaurs, and even winged seeds, he details the basic operating principles of wings and then moves progressively through more complex modes of animal flight, including gliding, flapping, and maneuvering. In addition to summarizing the latest thinking about flight's energy costs, Alexander presents a holistic view of flight and its ramifications as he explores the ecology and evolution of flying animals, addressing behaviorally important topics such as migration and navigation. With somewhat surprising answers, the author then concludes his study by examining the extent to which natural flight has been inspiring or instructive for the architects of human flight—airplane designers and engineers.
Book Description: You'll never view a football game in quite the same way again - the ultimate guide for the millions of impassioned fans who have turned football into America's most-watched sport. What effect does altitude have on the flight of a kicked ball? How do Newton's laws of motion apply to blocking and tackling? In this entertaining book, physics professor Dr. Timothy Gay makes science comprehensible and fun while deepening our appreciation for the strategic nuances of this deceptively simple game. The success of such well-received titles as The Physics of Baseball and The Physics of Golf has already demonstrated fans' fascination with the science underlying their favorite sport. Readers will relive the game's enthralling moments and legendary feats - Franco Harris's Immaculate Reception; Joe Montana's scrambling pass for The Catch; Dick Butkus's bone-crunching, game-saving tackles; and many more - as they gain new insight into the dynamics of blocking and tackling, open field running, kicking, passing, the line of scrimmage, and the role played by equipment, turf, and the decibels of sound in stadiums. Illustrated with classic black-and-white NFL action photos and engaging popular-science diagrams, the book is an outgrowth of Dr. Gay's playful, brilliant lectures that have been adapted by the NFL for the TV show Blast!, which airs in 190 countries.
Book Description: The fantastic reality that is modern physics is open for your exploration, guided by one of its primary architects and interpreters, Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek. Some jokes, some poems, and extracts from wife Betsy Devine’s sparkling chronicle of what it’s like to live through a Nobel Prize provide easy entertainment. There’s also some history, some philosophy, some exposition of frontier science, and some frontier science, for your lasting edification. 49 pieces, including many from Wilczek’s award-winning Reference Frame columns in Physics Today, and some never before published, are gathered by style and subject into a dozen chapters, each with a revealing, witty introduction. Profound ideas, presented with style: What could be better? Enjoy.
Book Description: This coffee-table book will delight and inform general readers curious about ideas of chaos, fractals, and nonlinear complex systems. Developed out of ten years of interdisciplinary seminars in chaos and complex systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it features multiple ways of knowing: Robin Chapman’s poems of everyday experience of change in a complex world, associated metaphorically with Julien Clinton Sprott’s full-color computer art generated from billions of versions of only three simple equations for strange attractors, Julia sets, and iterated function systems; his definitions of 39 key terms; a mathematical appendix; and even a multiple-choice quiz to test understanding. Accompanied by a CD-ROM of the poet reading 13 poems and 1,000 images of chaos art from which slide shows can be generated and 100 high-resolution posters created. With a foreword by Cliff Pickover, author of A Passion for Mathematics.
Book Description: Bored during Mass at the cathedral in Pisa, the seventeen-year-old Galileo regarded the chandelier swinging overhead--and remarked, to his great surprise, that the lamp took as many beats to complete an arc when hardly moving as when it was swinging widely. Galileo's Pendulum tells the story of what this observation meant, and of its profound consequences for science and technology. The principle of the pendulum's swing--a property called isochronism--marks a simple yet fundamental system in nature, one that ties the rhythm of time to the very existence of matter in the universe. Roger Newton sets the stage for Galileo's discovery with a look at biorhythms in living organisms and at early calendars and clocks--contrivances of nature and culture that, however adequate in their time, did not meet the precise requirements of seventeenth-century science and navigation. Galileo's Pendulum recounts the history of the newly evolving time pieces--from marine chronometers to atomic clocks--based on the pendulum as well as other mechanisms employing the same physical principles, and explains the Newtonian science underlying their function. The book ranges nimbly from the sciences of sound and light to the astonishing intersection of the pendulum's oscillations and quantum theory, resulting in new insight into the make-up of the material universe. Covering topics from the invention of time zones to Isaac Newton's equations of motion, from Pythagoras' theory of musical harmony to Michael Faraday's field theory and the development of quantum electrodynamics, Galileo's Pendulum is an authoritative and engaging tour through time of the most basic all-pervading system in the world.
Book Description: The 250 years from the second half of the 17th century saw the birth of modern physics and its growth into one of the most successful of the sciences. The reader will find here the lives of 55 of the most remarkable physicists from that era described in brief biographies. All the characters profiled have made important contributions to physics, either through their ideas, through their teaching or in other ways. The emphasis is on their varied life-stories, not on the details of their achievements, but when read in sequence the biographies, which are organised chronologically, convey in human terms something of the way in which physics was created. Scientific and mathematical detail is kept to a minimum, so the reader who is interested in physics, but perhaps lacks the background to follow technical accounts, will find this collection an inviting and easy path through the subject's modern development.
Book Description: Amusing, irreverent, sophisticated and highly accessible, Einstein for Beginners is the perfect introduction to Einstein’s life and thought. Reaching back as far as Babylon (for the origins of mathematics) and the Etruscans (who thought they could handle lightning), this book takes us through the revolutions in electrical communications and technology that made the theory of relativity possible. In the process, we meet scientific luminaries and personalities of imperial Germany, as well as Galileo, Faraday, and Newton; learn why moving clocks run slower than stationary ones, why nothing can go faster than the speed of light; and follow Albert's thought as he works his way toward E = mc2, the most famous equation of the twentieth century.
Book Description: Physics, once known as “natural philosophy,” is the most basic science, explaining the world we live in, from the largest scale down to the very, very, very smallest, and our understanding of it has changed over many centuries. In Black Bodies and Quantum Cats, science writer Jennifer Ouellette traces key developments in the field, setting descriptions of the fundamentals of physics in their historical context as well as against a broad cultural backdrop. Newton’s laws are illustrated via the film Addams Family Values, while Back to the Future demonstrates the finer points of special relativity. Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” serves to illuminate the mysterious nature of neutrinos, and Jeanette Winterson’s novel Gut Symmetries provides an elegant metaphorical framework for string theory. An enchanting and edifying read, Black Bodies and Quantum Cats shows that physics is not an arcane field of study but a profoundly human endeavor—and a fundamental part of our everyday world.
Book Description: Beginning on the 18th of March, 1905,at approximately eight week intervals, the noted German physics journal Annalen der Physik received three hand-written manuscripts from a relatively unknown patent examiner in Bern. The patent examiner was the twenty-six year old Albert Einstein and the three papers would set the agenda for twentieth century physics. A fourth short paper was received by the journal on the 27th of September. It contained Einstein's derivation of the formula E=mc2. These papers with their many technological ramifications changed our lives in the twentieth century and beyond. While to a professional physicist the mathematics in these papers is quite straight forward, the ideas behind the mathematics are not. In fact, none of Einstein's contemporaries fully understood what he had done. The goal of this book is to make these ideas accessible to a general reader with no more mathematics than one learns in high school.
Book Description: With the aid of unique photographs, first-hand interviews and historical resources, Rex Hall, Dave Shayler and Bert Vis explain, for the very first time, how Russian citizens have been selected and trained to fly in space, and how these procedures have changed during the past 40 years. The authors also describe the evolution of the often overlooked ground support infrastructure and how the role of cosmonauts has changed from the very earliest days of the Gagarin era, through the demise of the Soviet Union, to the era of international co-operation and collaboration on programs such as the International Space Station. The book will provide much important background information and insight to the operational Soviet/Russian manned space program, already covered in other Springer-Praxis titles, but revealing information and facts not covered elsewhere, and providing a unique reference source for all those who wish to understand the changing role of Russian cosmonauts in today’s global space program.
Book Description: In the 1960s and 1970s deep space missions were dispatched in pairs in case one was lost in launch or failed during its journey. Following the triumphs of the Viking landings on Mars in 1976 and both Voyagers spacecraft successfully surveying the outer giant planets of the Solar System, it was decided by NASA to cut costs and send out just a single probe. Although Magellan successfully mapped Venus by radar, it suffered from problems during the flight. Then came the loss of Mars Observer, whose engine exploded as it was preparing to enter Mars’ orbit because it was using technology designed for Earth’s satellites and the engine was not suited to spending several months in space. Later came the high-profile losses of Mars Climate Observer and Mars Polar Lander - a consequence of the faster, better, cheaper philosophy introduced by Dan Goldin in 1993. Even the highly successful Galileo mission suffered a major setback when its high-gain antenna (also based on satellite mission suffered a major setback when its high-gain antenna (also based on satellite communication technology) failed to deploy fully, greatly diminishing the craft’s radio transmission capabilities, forcing the ground crew to re-program the on-board computer to enable it to fulfill its mission and provide stunning images of Jupiter and its moons. In Space Systems Failures, David Harland (here working with co-author Ralph Lorenz) describes the many quite fascinating tales of woe involving failures of rockets, satellites and deep space missions in his inimitable style, providing a unique insight into the trials and tribulations of exploration at the high frontier.
Book Description: In October 2003 Yang Liwei made history as the first Chinese citizen in space, orbiting the globe 14 times in the Shenzhou 5. The Chinese space program has sometimes been called the last of the secret space programs. Although it is far less secretive now than formerly, fascinating revelations are still being made. Brian Harvey examines the history of the Chinese space program, from it's earliest times to the historic breakthrough of manned flight.
Book Description: Space exploration has developed from early, unmanned space probes through the pioneering years of the ‘Manned’ Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, to missions that now include women in the crew as a matter of course. Dave Shayler tells the story of the first woman balloonist in 1784 to their breakthrough as astronauts and cosmonauts in a range of professional roles. He covers the contribution women have made to space exploration and draws on interviews with Shuttle and Mir crew members who were women. These interviews detail the achievements of the first female Shuttle commander and the first female resident crew member of the International Space Station. These and many other events are presented in a detailed and highly readable account that recalls the difficult path to space exploration by women.
Book Description: Because of its rich object-oriented features, C++ is rapidly becoming the programming language of choice for science and engineering applications. This text leads beginning and intermediate programmers step-by-step through the difficult aspects of scientific coding, providing a comprehensive survey of object-oriented methods. Numerous aspects of modern programming practice are covered, including object-oriented analysis and design tools, numerical analysis, scientific graphics, software engineering, performance issues and legacy software reuse. Examples and problems are drawn from an extensive range of scientific and engineering applications. The book also includes a full set of free programming and scientific graphics tools that facilitate individual learning and reduce the time required to supervise code development in a classroom setting. This unique text will be invaluable both to students taking a first or second course in computational science and as a reference text for scientific programmers.
Book Description: This highly readable book uncovers the mysteries of the physics of elementary particles for a broad audience. From the familiar notions of atoms and molecules to the complex ideas of the grand unification of all the basic forces, this book allows the interested lay public to appreciate the fascinating building blocks of matter that make up our universe. Beginning with a description of the quantum nature of atoms and particles, readers are introduced to the elementary constituents of atomic nuclei: quarks. The book goes on to consider all of the important ideas in particle physics: quantum electrodynamics and quantum chromodynamics, the theory of strong interactions, the gauge theories of the weak and electromagnetic interactions, as well as the problem of mass generation. To conclude the book, the ideas of grand unification are described, and finally, some applications to astrophysics are discussed. Your guide to this exciting world is an author who, together with the originator of the idea of quarks, Murray Gell-Mann, has played an important role in the development of the theory of quantum chromodynamics and the concept of grand unification.
Book Description: Over the last decade the physics of black holes has been revolutionized by developments that grew out of Jacob Bekenstein’s realization that black holes have entropy. Stephen Hawking raised profound issues concerning the loss of information in black hole evaporation and the consistency of quantum mechanics in a world with gravity. For two decades these questions puzzled theoretical physicists and eventually led to a revolution in the way we think about space, time, matter and information. This revolution has culminated in a remarkable principle called “The Holographic Principle”, which is now a major focus of attention in gravitational research, quantum field theory and elementary particle physics. Leonard Susskind, one of the co-inventors of the Holographic Principle as well as one of the founders of String theory, develops and explains these concepts.
Book Description: This book presents the essential aspects of relativistic quantum field theory, with minimal use of mathematics. It covers the development of quantum field theory from the original quantization of electromagnetic field to the gauge field theory of interactions among quarks and leptons. Aimed at both scientists and non-specialists, it requires only some rudimentary knowledge of the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulation of Newtonian mechanics and a basic understanding of the special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Book Description: An accessible introduction to string theory, this book provides a detailed and self-contained demonstration of the main concepts involved. The first part deals with basic ideas, reviewing special relativity and electromagnetism while introducing the concept of extra dimensions. D-branes and the classical dynamics of relativistic strings are discussed next, and the quantization of open and closed bosonic strings in the light-cone gauge, along with a brief introduction to superstrings. The second part begins with a detailed study of D-branes followed by string thermodynamics. It discusses possible physical applications, and covers T-duality of open and closed strings, electromagnetic fields on D-branes, Born–Infeld electrodynamics, covariant string quantization and string interactions. Primarily aimed as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate courses, it will also be ideal for a wide range of scientists and mathematicians who are curious about string theory.
Book Description: Quantum mechanics is our most successful physical theory. However, it raises conceptual issues that have perplexed physicists and philosophers of science for decades. This book develops a new approach, based on the proposal that quantum theory is not a complete, final theory, but is in fact an emergent phenomenon arising from a deeper level of dynamics. The dynamics at this deeper level are taken to be an extension of classical dynamics to non-commuting matrix variables, with cyclic permutation inside a trace used as the basic calculational tool. With plausible assumptions, quantum theory is shown to emerge as the statistical thermodynamics of this underlying theory, with the canonical commutation/anticommutation relations derived from a generalized equipartition theorem. Brownian motion corrections to this thermodynamics are argued to lead to state vector reduction and to the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, making contact with recent phenomenological proposals for stochastic modifications to Schrödinger dynamics.
Book Description: The world you can feel and touch is built of atoms, the smallest identifiable chunks of matter. Yet the heart of each atom is itself a whole new world, a world populated by quarks: indivisible, vanishingly small, the ultimate building blocks of our universe. This inner world where quarks reign is subject to new and unfamiliar rules, the rules of the quantum world. Colossal particle accelerators enable physicists to bring this inner world into focus, and have helped them shape a theory respectful of quantum rules that explains how quarks feel one another’s presence. The Quantum Quark is the story of that theory: quantum chromodynamics.
Book Description: At last: the new edition of Brandt and Dahmen's master piece, for years available for PC or Mac, now again available in a Java edition for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux alltogether in one book with CD-ROM. Based on the interactive program INTERQUANTA (included on the CD-ROM) and its extensive 3D color graphic features, the book guides its readers through more than 250 class-tested interactive problems.
Book Description: The universe has its secrets. It may even hide extra dimensions, different from anything ever imagined. A whole raft of remarkable concepts now rides atop the scientific firmament, including parallel universes, warped geometry, and threedimensional sink-holes. We understand far more about the world than we did just a few short years ago -- and yet we are more uncertain about the true nature of the universe than ever before. Have we reached a point of scientific discovery so advanced that the laws of physics as we know them are simply not sufficient? Will we all soon have to accept explanations that previously remained in the realm of science fiction? Lisa Randall is herself making these extraordinary breakthroughs, pushing back the boundaries of science in her research to answer some of the most fundamental questions posed by Nature. For example, why is the gravitational field from the entire Earth so defenseless against the small tug of a tiny magnet? Searching for answers to such seemingly irresolvable questions has led physicists to postulate extra dimensions, the presence of which may lead to unimaginable gains in scientific understanding. Randall takes us into the incredible world of warped, hidden dimensions that underpin the universe we live in, describing how we might prove their existence, while examining the questions that they still leave unanswered. Warped Passages provides an exhilarating overview that tracks the arc of discovery from early twentieth-century physics to the razor's edge of today's particle physics and string theory, unweaving the current debates about relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity. In a highly readable style sure to entertain and elucidate, Lisa Randall demystifies the science and beguilingly unravels the mysteries of the myriad worlds that may exist just beyond the one we are only now beginning to know.
Book Description: Common sense tells us that matter doesn't vanish into thin air, a particle and a wave have little in common, and good knowledge leads to good prediction. Yet when we move beyond the range of everyday experience and into the world of quantum physics, things prove to be very different: particles of matter can be annihilated, waves and particles are two faces of matter, and the outcome of some experiments is completely unpredictable. As Kenneth W. Ford shows us in The Quantum World, the laws governing the very small and the very swift defy common sense and stretch our minds to the limit. Drawing on a deep familiarity with the discoveries of the twentieth century, Ford gives an appealing account of quantum physics that will help the serious reader make sense of a science that, for all its successes, remains mysterious. He tells a good story while depicting both the subatomic world and the world of physics research as lively places populated by highly interesting characters. At the core of this book are the "big ideas" of quantum physics, including granularity (matter and some of its properties, like energy, are "lumpy"), wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, the nature of bosons and fermions, and superposition and entanglement (an atom can be in two or more states of motion at once). With strikingly clear writing, and with engaging illustrations by Paul Hewitt, The Quantum World imparts a sense of wonder and a knowledge of the strange laws governing the atoms, nuclei, and fundamental particles that inhabit the quantum world.
Video Description: Project Poltergeist documents a 40-year endeavor to understand the neutrino, a fundamental particle in the structure of the present universe—and the early cosmos. After a concise introduction to Wolfgang Pauli’s neutrino theory, the program focuses on John Bahcall’s controversial struggle to detect accurate neutrino quantities and confirm the calculations of his colleague Ray Davis. Featuring the massive underground facilities used to measure neutrino influx, including the SNO laboratory at which the Davis/Bahcall collaboration triumphed, the program concludes with the cosmological implications of their findings. Original BBCW broadcast title: Project Poltergeist.
Video Description: In the world of subatomic particles, where mere observation of a system actually changes the system, intuitive logic—what seems to make sense—does not apply. This program provides an entertaining overview of physics at the microcosmic level: quantum mechanics. Demonstrations, experiments, and video graphics, along with commentary by Leon Lederman of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, elucidate such topics as Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity, the photoelectric effect, particle/wave duality, and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. The program brings the quantum physics discussion up to date by looking at David Bohm’s Seamless Whole Theory and the implications of Bell’s Theorem. A Discovery Channel Production.
Book Description: How do major scientific discoveries reshape their originators’, and our own, sense of reality and concept of the physical world? The Scientist as Philosopher explores the interaction between physics and philosophy. Clearly written and well illustrated, the book first places the scientist-philosophers in the limelight as we learn how their great scientific discoveries forced them to reconsider the time-honored notions with which science had described the natural world. Then, the book explains that what we understand by nature and science have undergone fundamental conceptual changes as a result of the discoveries of electromagnetism, thermodynamics and atomic structure. Even more dramatically, the quantum theory and special theory of relativity questioned traditional assumptions about causation and the passage of time. The author concludes that the dance between science and philosophy is an evolutionary process, which will keep them forever entwined.
Book Description: Even though mathematics and physics have been related for centuries and this relation appears to be unproblematic, there are many questions still open: Is mathematics really necessary for physics, or could physics exist without mathematics? Should we think physically and then add the mathematics apt to formalize our physical intuition, or should we think mathematically and then interpret physically the obtained results? Do we get mathematical objects by abstraction from real objects, or vice versa? Why is mathematics effective into physics? These are all relevant questions, whose answers are necessary to fully understand the status of physics, particularly of contemporary physics. The aim of this book is to offer plausible answers to such questions through both historical analyses of relevant cases, and philosophical analyses of the relations between mathematics and physics.
Book Description: Unusually gifted as both a physicist and a novelist, Alan Lightman has lived in the dual worlds of science and art for much of his life. In these brilliant essays, the two worlds meet. In A Sense of the Mysterious, Lightman records his personal struggles to reconcile certainty with uncertainty, logic with intuition, questions with answers and questions without. Lightman explores the emotional life of science, the power of metaphor and imagination in science, the creative moment, the different uses of language in science and literature, and the alternate ways in which scientists and humanists think about the world. Included are in-depth portraits of some of the great scientists of our time: Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, and astronomer Vera Rubin. Rather than finding a forbidding gulf between the two cultures, as did the physicist and novelist C. P. Snow fifty years ago, Lightman discovers complementary ways of looking at the world, both part of being human. Original, thoughtful, and beautifully written, A Sense of the Mysterious confirms Alan Lightman’s unique position at the crossroads of science and art.
Book Description: Physicists think they have discovered the top quark. Biologists believe in evolution. But what precisely constitutes evidence for such claims, and why? Scientists often disagree with one another over whether or to what extent some evidence counts in favor of a theory because they are operating with different concepts of scientific evidence. These concepts need to be critically explored. Peter Achinstein has gathered some prominent philosophers and historians of science for critical and lively discussions of both general questions about the meaning of evidence and specific ones about evidence for particular scientific theories.
Book Description: Is there a universal set of rules for discovering and testing scientific hypotheses? Since the birth of modern science, philosophers, scientists, and other thinkers have wrestled with this fundamental question of scientific practice. Efforts to devise rigorous methods for obtaining scientific knowledge include the twenty-one rules Descartes proposed in his Rules for the Direction of the Mind and the four rules of reasoning that begin the third book of Newton's Principia, and continue today in debates over the very possibility of such rules. Bringing together key primary sources spanning almost four centuries, Science Rules introduces readers to scientific methods that have played a prominent role in the history of scientific practice. Editor Peter Achinstein includes works by scientists and philosophers of science to offer a new perspective on the nature of scientific reasoning. For each of the methods discussed, he presents the original formulation of the method; selections written by a proponent of the method together with an application to a particular scientific example; and a critical analysis of the method that draws on historical and contemporary sources. The methods included in this volume are Cartesian rationalism with an application to Descartes' laws of motion; Newton's inductivism and the law of gravity; two versions of hypothetico-deductivism—those of William Whewell and Karl Popper—and the nineteenth-century wave theory of light; Paul Feyerabend's principle of proliferation and Thomas Kuhn's views on scientific values, both of which deny that there are universal rules of method, with an application to Galileo's tower argument. Included also is a famous nineteenth-century debate about scientific reasoning between the hypothetico-deductivist William Whewell and the inductivist John Stuart Mill; and an account of the realism-antirealism dispute about unobservables in science, with a consideration of Perrin's argument for the existence of molecules in the early twentieth century.
Book Description: This book is designed as a textbook for students who need to fulfill their science requirements. Part I explores classical physics from its beginnings with Descartes, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, to the relativity theories of Einstein. Special emphasis is given to the development of the objective, materialist, and deterministic worldview of classical physics. The influence of Newtonian physics on other fields of science and on society is emphasized. Finally, some of the problems with the worldview of classical physics are discussed and a preview of quantum physics is given.
Book Description: This book was designed as a textbook for students who need to fill their science requirement. The Quantum Revolution discusses how quantum theory overthrew the objective, materialist and determinist worldviews of classical physics. The text emphasizes how quantum physics may reestablish consciousness as a causal agent in science by delving into quantum non-locality and its implications to society.
Book Description: Our subjective inner life is what really matters to us as human beings--and yet we know relatively little about how it arises. Over a long and distinguished career Benjamin Libet has conducted experiments that have helped us see, in clear and concrete ways, how the brain produces conscious awareness. For the first time, Libet gives his own account of these experiments and their importance for our understanding of consciousness. Most notably, Libet's experiments reveal a substantial delay--the "mind time" of the title--before any awareness affects how we view our mental activities. If all conscious awarenesses are preceded by unconscious processes, as Libet observes, we are forced to conclude that unconscious processes initiate our conscious experiences. Freely voluntary acts are found to be initiated unconsciously before an awareness of wanting to act--a discovery with profound ramifications for our understanding of free will. How do the physical activities of billions of cerebral nerve cells give rise to an integrated conscious subjective awareness? How can the subjective mind affect or control voluntary actions? Libet considers these questions, as well as the implications of his discoveries for the nature of the soul, the identity of the person, and the relation of the non-physical subjective mind to the physical brain that produces it. Rendered in clear, accessible language, Libet's experiments and theories will allow interested amateurs and experts alike to share the experience of the extraordinary discoveries made in the practical study of consciousness.
Book Description: The rapidity with which knowledge changes makes much of past science obsolete, and often just wrong, from the present's point of view. We no longer think, for example, that heat is a material substance transferred from hot to cold bodies. But is wrong science always or even usually bad science? The essays in this volume argue by example that much of the past's rejected science, wrong in retrospect though it may be - and sometimes markedly so - was nevertheless sound and exemplary of enduring standards that transcend the particularities of culture and locale.
Video Description: This program provides a substantive overview of the theoretical dispute between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, a controversy that still resonates today. Bohr’s Copenhagen Interpretation—that measurement of phenomena creates a set of possible outcomes and that unobserved phenomena are meaningless—is thoroughly explained in conjunction with Einstein’s cause-and-effect approach. Using clever animation, archival footage, and interviews with leading physicists, the video illustrates Bohr’s double-slit experiment, the EPR paradox, and modern demonstrations of entanglement, composing an effective summary of quantum principles and the problematic friendship of two towering intellects.
Book Description: Thanks to Einstein's relativity theories, our notions of space and time underwent profound revisions about a 100 years ago. The resulting interplay between geometry and physics has dominated all of fundamental physics since then. This volume contains contributions from leading researchers, world-wide, who have thought deeply about the nature and consequences of this interplay. The articles take a long-range view of the subject and distill the most important advances in broad terms, making them easily accessible to non-specialists. The first part is devoted to a summary of how relativity theories were born and a critical analysis of their foundation (J Stachel). The second part discusses at length the most dramatic ramifications of general relativity, such as black holes (P Chrusciel and R Price), space-time singularities (A Rendall), gravitational waves (P Saulson), the large scale structure of the cosmos (T Padmanabhan); experimental status of this theory (C Will) as well as its practical application to the GPS system (N Ashby). The last part looks beyond Einstein and provides glimpses into what is in store for us in the 21st century. Contributions here include summaries of radical changes in the notions of space and time that are emerging from string theory (T Banks), loop quantum gravity (A Ashtekar), quantum cosmology (M Bojowald), discrete approaches (Dowker, Gambini and Pullin) and twistor theory (R Penrose).
Book Description: This book provides a thorough introduction to Einstein's special theory of relativity, suitable for anyone with a minimum of one year’s university physics with calculus. It is divided into fundamental and advanced topics. The first section starts by recalling the Pythagorean rule and its relation to the geometry of space, then covers every aspect of special relativity, including the history. The second section covers the impact of relativity in quantum theory, with an introduction to relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. It also goes over the group theory of the Lorentz group, a simple introduction to supersymmetry, and ends with cutting-edge topics such as general relativity, the standard model of elementary particles and its extensions, superstring theory, and a survey of important unsolved problems. Each chapter comes with a set of exercises. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM illustrating, through interactive animation, classic problems in relativity involving motion.
Book Description: The insights of relativity have illuminated a century of astronomical discovery, often going beyond the phenomena that Einstein lived to see. This book shows, in nonmathematical ways, how deeply these ways of viewing the Universe have informed our interpretations of it, and how many of the amazing discoveries of these decades have made sense only as part of Einstein's universe. The author brings together the ways in which we see the bizarre effects of relativity played out on a cosmic scale. None of this is particularly new to practicing astronomers, but much has yet to be seen outside technical journals. The presentation avoids mathematics (except for the most famous equation in all of physics!), and is designed to be accessible to the interested public. Gravitational lenses, the visible effects of light-travel delays, the search for black holes, the ways relativity in atomic nuclei makes stars shine, are all treated. In many cases, some of the principals are still alive and provided new commentary on the discoveries. Numerous illustrations are newly produced from data in the archives of such observatories as Hubble and Chandra.
Video Description: Introducing EinSteinchen, an animated techno-Einstein who has a genius for explaining physics. In section one of this DVD, this likable know-it-all elucidates 12 essential topics in 90-second segments that are perfect for launching lectures or illustrating concepts. Section two departs from EinSteinchen’s virtual world to show 12 cutting-edge applications or studies of Einsteinian physics in high-level mini-documentaries of two to five minutes in length.
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Lyle Ford
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Department of Physics and Astronomy
(715)836-5046
Last Updated: November 21, 2006