What is superstring theory and why is it important? This revolutionary breakthrough may well be the fulfillment of  Albert Einstein's lifelong dream of a Theory of Everything, uniting the laws of physics into a single description explaining all the known forces in the universe. Co-authored by one of the leading pioneers in superstrings, Michio Kaku, and completely revised and updated with the newest groundbreaking research, the book approaches scientific questions with the excitement of a detective story, offering a fascinating look at the new science that may make the impossible possible.

    It is also aimed at graduate students, either as a primary text or as preparation for a more sophisticated treatment.

    This work has played a major role in the development of our current understanding of the profound nature of quantum concepts and of the fundamental limitations they impose on the applicability of the classical ideas of space, time and locality. This book contains all of John Bell's published and unpublished papers on the conceptual and philosophical problems of quantum mechanics.

    "Explaining Physics" emphasizes the applications and social effects of physics, and extends its treatment of energy and electronics. The features are: introductory page to each unit to bring out the relevance of the material to everyday life; simple questions at the end of each unit to consolidate learning; and helpful revision summary.

    David Peat argue that science has lost its way in recent years and needs to go beyond a narrow and fragmented view of nature and embrace a wider holistic view that restores the importance of creativity and communication for all humanity - not just scientists. The result of a close collaboration by one of the 20th century's greatest physicists and thinkers, David Bohm, with leading science writer F. David Peat, provides a rare combination of profound reflection and clear exposition that can be appreciated by anyone concerned with science and its importance in our lives. This new edition includes a new preface and an extended additional chapter by Peat which draws upon further discussions with David Bohm before the latter's death in 1992. A fascinating diagnosis and considered proposal for a cure for science's ills, it is also very accessible entry point to the work of David Bohm. Bohm and Peat contend that science has lost its bearings in the last century in favour of a narrow, abstracted, fragmented approach to nature and reality. Tracing the history of science, Bohm and Peat offer intriguing new insights into how scientific theories come into being, how to eliminate blocks of creativity and how science can lead to a deeper understanding of society, the human condition and the human mind itself.

    Jean-Pierre Luminet makes the subject of black holes accessible to any interested reader, who will need no mathematical background. The reader of this book will feel that the developments in modern astrophysics are as fascinating to discover and digest as the most fantastic science fiction novels. While answering such questions, the author takes us on a fabulous journey through space and time. We travel into the realms of supernovae, X-ray stars and quasars--a journey to the very edge of the universe and to the limits of contemporary physics.

    While emphasizing both the astronomical concepts and the underlying physical principles, the text provides a sound basis for more profound studies in the astronomical sciences. The fourth edition of this successful calculus-based textbook and reference includes a wealth of new information and several chapters are restructured for clarity and improved organization. The chapters on radiation mechanisms and temperatures have been combined, and some of the material from the appendices has been redistributed to appropriate places throughout the text. In addition, the chapters on the solar system and cosmology are rewritten to reflect new understanding and tables in the appendix on the theory of relativity have been updated. Long considered a standard text for physical science majors, Fundamental Astronomy is also an excellent reference and entrA(c)e for dedicated amateur astronomers.

    It has an algebra and trigonometry prerequisite, but calculus is preferred.

    Indispensable reference for graduates and undergraduates.

    The resulting volume reflects the significant and exciting advances that have been made in these fields since the editors' acclaimed volume, General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey (CUP 1979). Newton's immense contribution to the physical sciences is assessed, and its relevance to today's physics made clear. The international group of contributors then chart the major developments in the study of gravitation, from Newtonian gravity to black hole physics. In the fields of galaxy formation, inflationary and quantum cosmology, and superstring unification, the book provides important overviews written by workers involved in the many advances described. By shaping such a wide-ranging and scholarly series of articles into a cohesive whole, the editors have created a fitting and lasting memorial to the man who continues to inspire scientists the world over.

    Multi-terminal active devices are thoroughly covered. The text provides general background for computer-aided circuit analysis and pertinent treatment of simple nonlinear phenomena.

    Polyakov, one of the world's foremost leaders on the subject of field theory, has created a book from his own scientific diary, synthesizing the most promising approaches and ideals in field theory today. Polyakov presents such subjects as statistical mechanics, quantum field theory and their interrelation, continuous global symmetry, non-Abelian gauge fields, instantons and the quantum theory of loops, and quantum strings and random surfaces. This book is ideally suited for postgraduate students studying field theory and statistical mechanics and for research workers in continuous global theory.BR

    Problems that have seemed insuperable in previous approaches take on a totally new character in the context of superstring theory, and some of them have been overcome. Interest in the subject has greatly increased following a succession of exciting recent developments. This two-volume book attempts to meet the need for a systematic exposition of superstring theory and its applications accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

    This translation does not include notes or annotation of the documentary volume and is not intended for use without the original language documentary edition which provides the extensive editorial commentary necessary for a full historical and scientific understanding of the documents.

    Hawking's Cambridge lectures, exploring the most complex theories of physics, both past and present, remain the most important scientific theories known of time, space, and the nature of the cosmos. This 30th Anniversary remastered edition of The Cambridge Lectures offers listeners a unique opportunity to hear the full series of seven famed lectures exactly as Professor Hawking presented them during his tenure as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University.

    The engrossing account of how a boy who grew up more interested in jazz than science became obsessed with physics and relativity during his first year at Harvard.

    This wide-ranging, learned, and accessible book surveys the enormous variety of our understandings of time, both in the everyday world and in the specialized realms of the sciences and humanities. From the majestic visions of time and the timeless in major religions, derived from ordinary activity, J.T.Fraser offers the general reader a history of the idea and experience of time.

    Brought together for the first time in one volume are important source readings on 25 epochal discoveries that changed man's understanding of the physical world. The accounts, written by the physicists who made them, include:Isaac Newton: The Laws of MotionHenry Cavendish: The Law of GravitationAugustin Fresnel: The Diffraction of LightHans Christian Oersted: ElecromagnetismHeinrich Hertz: ElectromagneticJames Chadwick: The NeutronNiels Bohr: The Hydrogen Atom, and 17 more.Morris H. Shamos, Professor Emeritus of Physics at New York University, has selected and edited the first published accounts of these important experiments and has also added numerous marginal notes that amplify and clarify the original documents. Moreover, the first 19 experiments can be readily re-created by students in a first-year physics course, making the book ideal for classroom and laboratory work as well as individual reference and study.Finally, Dr. Shamos has provided revealing biographical sketches of the scientists and illuminating references to the political and cultural milieu in which the discoveries are made. The result is a superbly readable presentation — accessible to lay readers — of the crucial theoretical and empirical breakthroughs that altered the course of modern science.

    Most attempts to explain physics to general readers are either obscured by masses of mathematics or gross oversimplifications written by laymen. Here at last is a comprehensive--and comprehensible--account of particles, fields and cosmology written by a working physicist not burdened by the weight of ponderous scientific notation. Robert K. Adair gives us a feel for how physicists think about problems: what assumptions must be made to simplify impossibly complex relationships between objects, on what scale the problem needs to be treated, how measurements are made, and what the interplay between theory and experiment is. Adair gently guides the reader through the ideas of particles, fields, relativity, and quantum mechanics. He explains the great discoveries of this century, which have caused a revolution in how we view the universe, in logical, simple terms not requiring anything beyond high school algebra to comprehend. He has performed the difficult task of predigesting complex concepts to permit the layman access to what appears to be an arcane discipline. He captures the flavor of the joy of discovery at the heart of research.

    At some time or another your body has contained atoms that were once part of Moses or Isaac Newton. So begins this spectacular illustrated tour of the subatomic world, the science of particle physics and its attempts to understand the very nature of matter and energy. The Particle Explosion is the first book to describe to the general reader how the study of basic particles by scientists over the last hundred years has led us closer to an understanding of the origins of the Universe. Particle physicists are attempting to answer such questions as: How did theUniverse begin? Why does it have the form it does? Will it continue expanding forever or will it eventually begin to contract? With over 300 illustrations, the book brings together many fascinating historical pictures of leading scientists in the field and the actual images in which the particles were first identified. There are photographs of the increasingly vast and complex equipment they use (bubble chambers, accelerators and modern electronic detectors) as well as some of the most striking images of particle tracks that they have recorded. This journey to the heart of matter opens with an introduction to the basic particles (the subatomic zoo that includes quarks, electrons, leptons, 'strange' particles and 'charmed' particles) and of the methods used to create and investigate them. The even-numbered chapters tell the story oftheir discovery, from the first experiments with X-rays and the elucidation of the nature of the atom, to the great machines that today smash particles together at enormous energies and the underground caverns where physicists are seeking confirmation of a Grand Unified Theory. The odd-numberedchapters describe the major particles in more detail. The book ends with an explanation of how some of the particles have been put to work in the service of medicine, industry, and even the detection of art forgerie

    Advanced undergraduate and graduate students in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and solid state physics, as well as researchers in physics, mathematics, chemistry, and materials science, will welcome this paperback edition of Stanley's acclaimed text.

    For example, they show that even the most exotic theories always confirm that physical laws are precisely the same throughout the universe, and they explain how we have learned that the most massive molten stars and the tiniest frozen particles are in physical harmony. In their descriptions of the workings of the half-known universe, Wilczek and Devine bring all of us face to face with the beauty of eternal order and the inevitability of rational ends and beginnings.

    For so long the province of mathematicians and physicists alone, the beauty and significance of quantum mechanics has remained hidden to the nonspecialist. Yet its impact on technology has been enormous. The modern electronics industry with the silicon chip that has revolutionised so many aspects of modern life owes its existence to an understanding of the quantum nature of semiconductors. The text explains exactly what quantum mechanics is in a simple nonmathematical way, and is complemented throughout by many superb colour and black-and-white photographs illustrating the varied facets of quantum phenomena. The Quantum Universe will provide a fascinating and accessible introduction to one of the most important scientific disciplines of the twentieth century. Final-year students at school, general readers with an interest in science, and undergraduates in science subjects will all be able to enjoy and benefit from this novel exposition.

    This updated and expanded volume examines gauge theories and their symmetries with an emphasis on their physical and technical aspects. A new introductory chapter gives a systematic overview to classical field theories and a short discussion of their canonical quantization and the discrete symmetries C, P and T. Coverage provides a brief exposition of perturbation theory, the renormalization program, and the use of the renormalization group equation. It then explores topics of current research interest including chiral symmetry and its breaking, anomalies, and low energy effective Lagrangians and some basics of supersymmetry. A chapter on the basics of the electroweak theory is also new to this edition, as well as an appendix that contains a complete set of Feynman rules for the Standard Model. This volume will be ideal for graduate students and researchers in theoretical physics, condensed matter physics, and applied mathematics.

    The roles of symmetry, bifurcation, and Hamiltonian systems in diverse applications are explored.

    . . . it is difficult to imagine a more carefully documented and sensibly reasoned account of the way in which ideas on impact theory evolved. . . . of considerable, and probably lasting, value.—Nature "This meticulously prepared and lucidly written work will surely prove the definitive account of one of the most stimulating intellectual confrontations in the whole history of the earth and planetary sciences. I can recommend it without reservation."—William A. S. Sarjeant,Geoscience Canada "An important book by an extraordinary author, of interest to anyone fascinated by the ways in which unorthodox science becomes part of conventional wisdom."—Earth Sciences History

    Acquaints the specialist in relativity theory with some global techniques for the treatment of space-times and will provide the pure mathematician with a way into the subject of general relativity.

    Several colorful personalities are introduced--the Italian physicist Carlo Rubbia chief among them.

    Problems that have seemed insuperable in previous approaches take on a totally new character in the context of superstring theory, and some of them have been overcome. Interest in the subject has greatly increased following a succession of exciting recent developments. This two-volume book attempts to meet the need for a systematic exposition of superstring theory and its applications accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

    In the context of Riemannian manifolds, an independent mathematical theory has developed around them. Recently, it has produced several striking results, which have been of great interest also to physicists. This Ergebnisse volume is the first book which presents an up-to-date overview of the state of the art in this field. "Einstein Manifold"s is a successful attempt to organize the abundant literature, with emphasis on examples. Parts of it can be used separately as introduction to modern Riemannian geometry through topics like homogeneous spaces, submersions, or Riemannian functionals.

    This is not a long period. Yet the rapid pace of scientific and technological development today is such that any book on experimental technique must be wary of becoming ob solete in some way or another even in such a short span of time. Thus, when the publisher Springer-Verlag informed me of the need for a new printing of this book, I decided it was an opportune moment to update some of the chapters as well as to include some new material. The result is this second edition. The most notable changes have been in Chapters 2 and 3. In the latter, which con cerns radiation protection, most of the sections have been rewritten to take into account the new recommendations from the International Commission on Radiation Protection, the most important of which are the new dose limits for exposure to ionizing radiation. In addition, emphasis has now been put on the use of SI units in dosimetry, i.e., the Gray and Sievert, which have now become standard."

    Beginning with the elementary quantum theory and classical electrodynamics, the book then develops the theory of low-energy interactions between matter and radiation, including the necessary mathematics. It provides a fundamental framework for the dynamics of the electromagnetic field and nonrelativistic charged particles, and presents the physical content of the theory and various formulations of the theory. This work bridges the gap between the short treatments of QED offered in laser optics texts and advanced works for field theorists.