The Harvest Of A Century Discoveries Of Modern Physics In 100 Episodes

Physics was the leading science of the twentieth century and the book retraces important discoveries, made between 1895 and 2001, in 100 self-contained Episodes. Each is a short story of the scientists involved, their time and their work. The book is richly illustrated by about 600 portraits, photographs and figures.

Facts and figures have been thoroughly updated and the work includes a comprehensive Guide to Resources, incorporating the major published literature along with a vetted list of websites and Internet resources for students and lay readers.

The Big Ideas in Physics and How to Teach Them provides all of the knowledge and skills you need to teach physics effectively at secondary level. Each chapter provides the historical narrative behind a Big Idea, explaining its significance, the key figures behind it, and its place in scientific history. Accompanied by detailed ready-to-use lesson plans and classroom activities, the book expertly fuses the ‘what to teach’ and the ‘how to teach it', creating an invaluable resource which contains not only a thorough explanation of physics, but also the applied pedagogy to ensure its effective translation to students in the classroom. Including a wide range of teaching strategies, archetypal assessment questions and model answers, the book tackles misconceptions and offers succinct and simple explanations of complex topics. Each of the five big ideas in physics are covered in detail: electricity forces energy particles the universe. Aimed at new and trainee physics teachers, particularly non-specialists, this book provides the knowledge and skills you need to teach physics successfully at secondary level, and will inject new life into your physics teaching.

This revised edition continues to provide the most approachable introduction to the structure, characteristics, and everyday applications of soft matter. It begins with a substantially revised overview of the underlying physics and chemistry common to soft materials. Subsequent chapters comprehensively address the different classes of soft materials, from liquid crystals to surfactants, polymers, colloids, and biomaterials, with vivid, full-color illustrations throughout. There are new worked examples throughout, new problems, some deeper mathematical treatment, and new sections on key topics such as diffusion, active matter, liquid crystal defects, surfactant phases and more. • Introduces the science of soft materials, experimental methods used in their study, and wide-ranging applications in everyday life. • Provides brand new worked examples throughout, in addition to expanded chapter problem sets and an updated glossary. • Includes expanded mathematical content and substantially revised introductory chapters. This book will provide a comprehensive introductory resource to both undergraduate and graduate students discovering soft materials for the first time and is aimed at students with an introductory college background in physics, chemistry or materials science.

This journal is devoted to the latest research on physics, publishing articles on everything from elementary particle behavior to black holes and the history of the universe.

This is the absorbing account of one of the twentieth century’s most revolutionary discoveries — our first encounter with an essential mystery of the universe. Told by an active participant in this discovery, it is the saga of the search for quarks, the elementary particles lurking within the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei, which constitute the fundamental basis of matter. Michael Riordan, physicist and author, was present at the key moments in this story. He brings to life the personalities, triumphs and failures of this true-life scientific detective story, vividly portraying the soaring ambitions and clashing egos of modern physicists at work, vying for the coveted Nobel Prize. The Hunting of the Quark gives readers an insider’s perspective on how frontier science actually occurs — the great leaps of imagination, the blind alleys followed, and the final resolution of the mysteries that had to be overcome on the road to unity. Like James Watson’s famous accountThe Double Helix, it has the immediacy and excitement of being on the trail of a monumental discovery — leading to a striking new scientific paradigm, the Standard Model of particle physics. “Many books on the 20th-century revolution in particle physics focus on the startling new notions introduced. Not as much attention is paid to those who dirtied their hands, nursing crotchety accelerator instruments, in order to prove the conjectures. Mr. Riordan, a physicist affiliated with the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, presents an authoritative account of this less-told tale. A veteran quark-stalker himself, he deftly combines his technical expertise with a journalistic flair, personally acquainting us with many of the men and women who joined in the hunt... Mr. Riordan enables us to behold exactly how physicists work and the tortuous paths that experimentalists must travel to gain just a scrap of insight into the puzzling laws of nature.” — Marcia Bartusiak, The New York Times “A great book that I couldn’t put down even though I knew the plot.” — Sheldon Glashow, Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Harvard University, Nobel prize in physics (1979) “Machines two miles long, pieces of matter elusive as lost souls, the likes of Richard Feynman ‘snooping around,’ reputations made and lost on the contumacious front lines of science — what a wonderful mix for a book. Particle physics has seemed arcane, the quark business most of all. Michael Riordan, who lives the story he tells, makes it lively, literate and accessible.” — Richard Rhodes, author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb “Mr. Riordan... understands the physics, but he also has an eye for the human comedy associated with the work. The result is a fine book on elementary particle physics.” — Jeremy Bernstein, The New Yorker “Riordan was an active participant in the search for the enigmatic quark, and his story reflects the excitement, passion and revelation of peeking into nature’s most elusive realm.” — Rudy Rucker, San Francisco Chronicle “An enjoyable book with enough good explanations and clear discussions to make it well worth reading both for the expert in modern high-energy physics and for the general reader.” — Alexander Firestone, Physics Today “A physicist with first-hand experience chasing quarks at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) relates the high points of the search for those elusive subatomic particles... Riordan builds a suspenseful tale around the neck-and-neck race between MIT/Brookhaven (Sam Ting) and Stanford (Burton Richter) in discovering the J/psi particle... Riordan’s epilogue is eloquent... Readers will... turn to Riordan for a close-in view and astute commentary on a pivotal period in 20th-century physics.” —Kirkus

The Second Creation is a dramatic--and human--chronicle of scientific investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. Robert Crease and Charles Mann take the reader on a fascinating journey in search of "unification" with brilliant scientists such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg, and many others. They provide the definitive and highly entertaining story of the development of modern physics, and the human story of the physicists who set out to find the "theory of everything."

In 1938, at the age of 37, Enrico Fermi was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. That same year he emigrated from Italy to the United States and, in the course of his experiments, discovered nuclear fission--a process which forms the basis of nuclear power and atomic bombs. Soon the brilliant physicist was involved in the top secret race to produce the deadliest weapon on Earth. He created the first self-sustaining chain reaction, devised new methods for purifying plutonium, and eventually participated in the first atomic test. This compelling biography traces Fermi's education in Italy, his meteoric career in the scientific world, his escape from fascism to America, and the ingenious experiments he devised and conducted at the University of Rome, Columbia University, and the Los Alamos laboratory. The book also presents a mini-course in quantum and nuclear physics in an accessible, fast-paced narrative that invokes all the dizzying passion of Fermis brilliant discoveries.

Our lives have benefited immensely from the scientific evolution over the years. This book provides an overview of the lives of three great scientists, Newton, Faraday and Einstein, who made the most significant contributions to physics.Newton and Faraday laid the foundation of Newtonian mechanics and electro-magnetic theory, respectively, that constituted the two greatest contributions to classical physics. Newton elucidated the motion of celestial bodies with the three laws of motion, while Faraday researched electro-magnetic phenomena and discovered electro-magnetic induction, magneto-optical effect, etc.Furthermore, Einstein contributed to the foundation of quantum mechanics and relativity theory which comprise the two greatest theories in modern physics. By elucidating photoelectric effect, Einstein proved the correctness of the concept of quantum proposed by Planck which resulted in quantum mechanics being considered as an epoch-making mechanics following Newtonian mechanics. Einstein renovated the concept of time-space and derived the Lorentz transformation supporting relativity principle.This book will take the readers on a journey to understand the progress from classical physics to modern physics.