The Infancy Of Atomic Physics

This compelling history portrays the human faces and lives behind the beginnings of atomic science, from experiments in the 1880s to the era just after the First World War.

The concept of the atom is very close to scientific bedrock, the deepest and most fundamental fact about the nature of reality. This book presents the whole panorama of the atomic hypothesis, and its place in Western civilization, from its origins in early Greek philosophy 2500 years ago to the definitive proof through direct microscopic imaging of since atoms, about ten years ago.

This book presents the life and work of Professor Evan James Williams, described as one of Wales’s most eminent scientists. Williams played a prominent part in the early twentieth-century revolution in physics with the emergence of quantum science, and was an able experimentalist and accomplished theoretician who made notable contributions in atomic physics and the discovery of a new elementary particle. From humble beginnings in rural Cardiganshire, his stellar career is charted in this book as he climbed the academic ladder at a number of universities, culminating in his appointment as Professor of Physics at Aberystwyth, and election to a Fellowship of the Royal Society. During the Second World War, Williams was instrumental in applying Operational Research to thwart the threat of German submarines in the Atlantic; his career was cut short, however, by his early death in 1945.

Atomic Age America looks at the broad influence of atomic energy¿focusing particularly on nuclear weapons and nuclear power¿on the lives of Americans within a world context. The text examines the social, political, diplomatic, environmental, and technical impacts of atomic energy on the 20th and 21st centuries, with a look back to the origins of atomic theory.

Using the quantum approach to the subject of atomic physics, this text keeps the mathematics to the minimum needed for a clear and comprehensive understanding of the material. Beginning with an introduction and treatment of atomic structure, the book goes on to deal with quantum mechanics, atomic spectra and the theory of interaction between atoms and radiation. Continuing to more complex atoms and atomic structure in general, the book concludes with a treatment of quantum optics. Appendices deal with Rutherford scattering, calculation of spin-orbit energy, derivation of the Einstein B coefficient, the Pauli Exclusion Principle and the derivation of eigenstates in helium. The book should be of interest to undergraduate physics students at intermediate and advanced level and also to those on materials science and chemistry courses.

Work on Atomic Physics (1912 - 1917)

ATOMIC PHYSICS 4 extends the series of books containing the invited papers presented at each "International Conference on Atomic Physics." FICAP, the fourth conference of this type since its foun dation in 1968, was held at the University of Heidelberg. The goal of these conferences, to cover the field of atomic physics with all its different branches, to review the present status of research, to revive the fundamental basis of atomic physics and to emphasize future developments of this field as well as its applications was met by more than thirty invited speakers, leaders in the field of atomic physics. Their talks were supplemented by more than two hundred contributed papers contained in the FICAP Book of Abstracts. This volume begins with papers given in honour and memory of E. U. Condon, to whom this conference was dedicated. It continues with articles on fundamental interactions in atoms and Quantum electrodynamics, on the fast progressing field of high energy heavy ion collisions and Quasi-molecules, on electronic and atomic collisions and the structure of electronic and ~-mesic atoms. The volume closes with contributions concerning the application of la sers in atomic physics, a new field of vastly increasing importance to fundamental experiments as well as applications. We feel that this book contains a very stimulating account of the present main streams of research in atomic physics and its possible future di rections.