His quick mastery of quantum mechanics earned him a place at Los Alamos working on the Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer, where the giddy young man held his own among the nation’s greatest minds. There, Feynman turned theory into practice, culminating in the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945, when the Atomic Age was born. He was only twenty-seven. And he was just getting started. In this sweeping biography, James Gleick captures the forceful personality of a great man, integrating Feynman’s work and life in a way that is accessible to laymen and fascinating for the scientists who follow in his footsteps.

    Writing with dazzling elegance and clarity, he retraces the steps that have led modern scientists from relativity and quantum mechanics to the notion of superstrings and the idea that our universe may coexist with others.But Weinberg asks as many questions as he answers, among them: Why does each explanation of the way nature works point to the other, deeper explanations? Why are the best theories not only logical but beautiful? And what implications will a final theory have for our philosophy and religious faith?Intellectually daring, rich in anecdote and aphorism, Dreams of a Final Theory launches us into a new cosmos and helps us make sense of what we find there.“This splendid book is as good reading about physics and physicists as this reviewer can name…clear, honest, and brilliantly instructive.”—Philip Morrison, Scientific American

    Emphasizing understanding and clarity rather than technical manipulation, these lectures de-mystify the subject and show precisely "how things work." Goldenfeld keeps in mind a reader who wants to understand why things are done, what the results are, and what in principle can go wrong. The book reaches both experimentalists and theorists, students and even active researchers, and assumes only a prior knowledge of statistical mechanics at the introductory graduate level.Advanced, never-before-printed topics on the applications of renormalization group far from equilibrium and to partial differential equations add to the uniqueness of this book.

    The book begins with a brief overview of observational cosmology and general relativity, and goes on to discuss Friedmann models, the Hubble constant, models with a cosmological constant, singularities, the early universe, inflation and quantum cosmology. This book is rounded off with a chapter on the distant future of the universe. The book is written as a textbook for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students. It will also be of interest to cosmologists, astrophysicists, astronomers, applied mathematicians and mathematical physicists.

    

    

    Textual examples include discussions of how the heart pumps blood, lunar landings, and metal detectors at airports. Computer spreadsheet problems are included, marked with a special icon. Other features include: step-by-step procedures for solving physics problems; colour-coded diagrams; a mini-glossary at the end of each chapter; and detailed mathematical derivations to assist students in mastering the necessary mathematics. A supplementary diskette spreadsheet program is available which allows students to become more familiar with the computer while helping them calculate and graphically plot physics problems.

    Building on the foundations laid in his Introduction to Superstrings and M Theory, Professor Kaku discusses such topics as the classification of conformal string theories, knot theory, the Yang-Baxter relation, quantum groups, and the insights into 11-dimensional strings recently obtained from M-theory. New chapters discuss such topics as Seiberg- Witten theory, M theory and duality., and D-branes. Several chapters review the fundamentals of string theory, making the presentation of the material self-contained while keeping overlap with the earlier book to a minimum. This book conveys the vitality of the current research and places readers at its forefront.

    The historical development of the theory is traced from the turn of the century through to the 1930s, and the famous debate between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein. The book examines in detail the arguments that quantum theory is incomplete, as made by Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen; the development of Bell's theorem; and crucial experimental tests performed in the early 1980s. Alternative interpretations -- pilot waves, quantum gravity, consciousness, and many worlds -- are described in the closing chapter.

    Cameron, James G. Skofronick, Roderick M. Grant, Cameron, John R.

    Its applications are so widespread that a description of all aspects cannot be done with sufficient depth within a single volume. In this book the emphasis is on the role of the Dirac equation in the relativistic quantum mechanics of spin-1/2 particles. We cover the range from the description of a single free particle to the external field problem in quantum electrodynamics. Relativistic quantum mechanics is the historical origin of the Dirac equation and has become a fixed part of the education of theoretical physicists. There are some famous textbooks covering this area. Since the appearance of these standard texts many books (both physical and mathematical) on the non relativistic Schrodinger equation have been published, but only very few on the Dirac equation. I wrote this book because I felt that a modern, comprehensive presentation of Dirac's electron theory satisfying some basic requirements of mathematical rigor was still missing."

    The goal of this book is to bring together quantum mechanics, the quantum theory of solids, semiconductor material physics, and semiconductor device physics in a clear and understandable way.

    The lecturer was Robert Serber, J. Robert Oppenheimer's protégé, and they learned that their job was to invent the world's first atomic bomb.Serber's lecture notes, nicknamed the "Los Alamos Primer," were mimeographed and passed from hand to hand, remaining classified for many years. They are published here for the first time, and now contemporary readers can see just how much was known and how terrifyingly much was unknown when the Manhattan Project began. Could this "gadget," based on the newly discovered principles of nuclear fission, really be designed and built? Could it be small enough and light enough for an airplane to carry? If it could be built, could it be controlled?Working with Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of the development of the atomic bomb, Professor Serber has annotated original lecture notes with explanations of the physics terms for the nonspecialist. His preface, an informal memoir, vividly conveys the mingled excitement, uncertainty, and intensity felt by the Manhattan Project scientists. Rhodes's introduction provides a brief history of the development of atomic physics up to the day that Serber stood before his blackboard at Los Alamos. In this edition, The Los Alamos Primer finally emerges from the archives to give a new understanding of the very beginning of nuclear weapons. No seminar anywhere has had greater historical consequences.

    

    I. G. Hughes offers the first detailed and accessible analysis of the Hilbert-space models used in quantum theory and explains why they are so successful. He goes on to show how the very suitability of Hilbert spaces for modeling the quantum world gives rise to deep problems of interpretation, and makes suggestions about how they can be overcome.

    It starts with Dirac's analysis showing that gauge theories are constrained Hamiltonian systems. The classical foundations of BRST theory are then laid out with a review of the necessary concepts from homological algebra. Reducible gauge systems are discussed, and the relationship between BRST cohomology and gauge invariance is carefully explained. The authors then proceed to the canonical quantization of gauge systems, first without ghosts (reduced phase space quantization, Dirac method) and second in the BRST context (quantum BRST cohomology). The path integral is discussed next. The analysis covers indefinite metric systems, operator insertions, and Ward identities. The antifield formalism is also studied and its equivalence with canonical methods is derived. The examples of electromagnetism and abelian 2-form gauge fields are treated in detail.The book gives a general and unified treatment of the subject in a self-contained manner. Exercises are provided at the end of each chapter, and pedagogical examples are covered in the text.

    Like the first edition, it focuses on what distinguishes nuclear engineering from the other engineering disciplines. However, this edition includes reorganization and overall update of descriptions of reactor designs and fuel-cycle steps, and more emphasis on reactor safety, especially related to technical and management lessons learned from the TMI-2 and Chernobyl - 4 accidents.

    It can be read as a broadly based introduction to modern techniques in differential geometry.

    The central theme is the use of random-walk representations as a tool to derive correlation inequalities. The consequences of these inequalities for critical-exponent theory and the triviality question in quantum field theory are expounded in detail. The book contains some previously unpublished results. It addresses both the researcher and the graduate student in modern statistical mechanics and quantum field theory.

    Along with X-ray, they are among the most important clinical diagnostic tools in medicine today. Additionally, the digital revolution has played a major role in the growth, with advances in computer and digital technology and in electronics making fast data acquisition and mass data storage possible. This text provides an introduction to the physics and instrumentation of the four most often used medical imaging techniques: x-ray imaging, including CT and digital radiography, radionuclide imaging, including SPECT and PET, ultrasound imaging, magnetic resonance imaging.

    The third edition includes new pedagogical elements which emphasize conceptual understanding. These elements include conceptual examples, Think About This sections, and worked examples. Twenty-five percent of the end-of-chapter problems are new or revised.

    The text covers all the traditional topics of physics with greater emphasis on the conservation laws, the concepts of field and waves and the atomic view of matter.Table of Contents1. Introduction.2. The structure of matter.3. Measurement and units.4. Rectilinear motion.5. Curvilinear motion.6. Circulation motion.7. Force and momentum.8. Application of the laws of motion.9. Torque and angular momentum.10. Work and energy.11. Oscillatory motion.12. Gravitational interaction.13. Space exploration.14. Systems of particles I: Linear and angular motion.15. Systems of particles II: Energy.16. Gases.17. Thermodynamics.18 Statistical mechanics.19. Transport phenomena.20. The principle of relativity.21. High energy processes.22. Electric interaction.23. Magnetic interaction.24. Electric structure of matter.25. Electric currents.26. The electric field.27. The magnetic field.28. The electromagnetic field.29. Wave motion.30. Electromagnetic waves.31. Interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter: Photons.32. Radiative transitions.33. Reflection, refraction and polarization.34. Wave geometry.35. Interference.36. Diffraction.37. Quantum mechanics.38. Quantum mechanics: applications.39. Atoms, molecules and solids.40. Nuclear structure.41. Nuclear processes.42. The ultimate structure of matter.

    In addition, a new section on basic aerodynamics, aircraft configuration, and static stability makes this complex material more accessible to beginners. This comprehensive guide discusses the fundamental principles and theory of aircraft control and simulation. It also covers modeling and dynamic analysis, stability evaluation, multivariable control theory, and computer-aided design techniques. The inclusion of topics from geodesy and gravitation lays the groundwork for a discussion of the theory for suborbital aircraft now under development. Special features of this new edition include: * New and updated computer calculations using MATLAB(r) * A new section on basic aerodynamics, aircraft configurations, and static stability * Coverage of new MIMO design techniques, robustness theory, and nonlinear design Complete with examples of actual designs from the aircraft industry plus exercise problems, Aircraft Control and Simulation, Second Edition is an excellent reference for anyone involved in the design and modeling of aerospace vehicles and an outstanding text for both undergraduates and graduate students.

    Explanations and descriptions have been expanded, and additional information has been added on high Tc superconductors, diamond films, buckminsterfullerenes, and thin magnetic materials. Adopted by many colleges and universities, this text has proven to be a solid introduction to the electrical, optical and magnetic properties of materials.

    My first introduction to the subject was in response to a need for information about a specific problem in Tribology. As a practising engineer with a background only in elementary Strength of Materials, I approached that problem initially using the con- cepts of concentrated forces and superposition. Today, with a rather more extensive knowledge of analytical techniques in Elasticity, I still find it helpful to go back to these roots in the elementary theory and think through a problem physically as well as mathematically, whenever some new and unexpected feature presents difficulties in research. This way of thinking will be found to permeate this book. My engineering background will also reveal itself in a tendency to work examples through to final expressions for stresses and displacements, rather than leave the derivation at a point where the remaining manipulations would be routine. With the practical engineering reader in mind, I have endeavoured to keep to a minimum any dependence on previous knowledge of Solid Mechanics, Continuum Mechanics or Mathematics.

    This new edition has been revised and enlarged with chapters on the action principle in classical electrodynamics, on the functional derivative approach, and on computing traces.

    These accounts constitute the point at which the metaphysical doctrines on God, the soul, and body, developed in writings like the Meditations, give rise to physical conclusions regarding atoms, vacua, and the laws that matter in motion must obey. Garber achieves a philosophically rigorous reading of Descartes that is sensitive to the historical and intellectual context in which he wrote. What emerges is a novel view of this familiar figure, at once unexpected and truer to the historical Descartes. The book begins with a discussion of Descartes' intellectual development and the larger project that frames his natural philosophy, the complete reform of all the sciences. After this introduction Garber thoroughly examines various aspects of Descartes' physics: the notion of body and its identification with extension; Descartes' rejection of the substantial forms of the scholastics; his relation to the atomistic tradition of atoms and the void; the concept of motion and the laws of motion, including Descartes' conservation principle, his laws of the persistence of motion, and his collision law; and the grounding of his laws in God.

    Despite this dramatic growth, however, the EM community lacked a comprehensive text on the computational techniques used to solve EM problems. The first edition of Numerical Techniques in Electromagnetics filled that gap and became the reference of choice for thousands of engineers, researchers, and students.The Second Edition of this bestselling text reflects the continuing increase in awareness and use of numerical techniques and incorporates advances and refinements made in recent years. Most notable among these are the improvements made to the standard algorithm for the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method and treatment of absorbing boundary conditions in FDTD, finite element, and transmission-line-matrix methods. The author also added a chapter on the method of lines.Numerical Techniques in Electromagnetics continues to teach readers how to pose, numerically analyze, and solve EM problems, give them the ability to expand their problem-solving skills using a variety of methods, and prepare them for research in electromagnetism. Now the Second Edition goes even further toward providing a comprehensive resource that addresses all of the most useful computation methods for EM problems.