Generous support from a number of foundations provided the means for assembling and maintaining an experienced staff to co-operate with members of the Institute's Physics Department in the examination, improvement, and development of physics curriculum materials for students planning careers in the sciences. After careful analysis of objectives and the problems involved, preliminary versions of textbooks were prepared, tested through classroom use at M.I.T. and other institutions, re-evaluated, rewritten, and tried again. Only then were the final manuscripts undertaken.

    This behavior is very much different from what we humans are used to dealing with in our everyday lives, so naturally this subject is quite hard to comprehend for many. We believed that the best way to introduce the subject reliably is to start at the beginning, presenting the observations, thoughts and conclusions of each of the world’s greatest physicists through their eyes, one at a time. In this way we hope that the reader may take an enjoyable journey through the strange truths of quantum theory and understand why the conclusions of these great minds are what they are. This book starts with the most general view of the world and gradually leads readers to those new, unbelievable but real facts about the very nature of our universe.

    CONGRATULATIONS TO HERBERT KROEMER, 2000 NOBEL LAUREATE FOR PHYSICS For upper-division courses in thermodynamics or statistical mechanics, Kittel and Kroemer offers a modern approach to thermal physics that is based on the idea that all physical systems can be described in terms of their discrete quantum states, rather than drawing on 19th-century classical mechanics concepts.

    Raymond Serway, Robert Beichner, and contributing author John W. Jewett present a strong problem-solving approach that is further enhanced through increased realism in worked examples. Problem-solving strategies and hints allow students to develop a systematic approach to completing homework problems. The outstanding ancillary package includes full multimedia support, online homework, and a content-rich Web site that provides extensive support for instructors and students. The CAPA (Computer-assisted Personalized Approach), WebAssign, and University of Texas homework delivery systems give instructors flexibility in assigning online homework.

    Written by two of the field's true pioneers, Spacetime Physics can extend and enhance coverage of specialty relativity in the classroom. This thoroughly up-to-date, highly accessible overview covers microgravity, collider accelerators, satellite probes, neutron detectors, radioastronomy, and pulsars.  The chapter on general relativity with new material on gravity waves, black holes, and cosmology.

    It is so important that it provides the fundamental underpinning of all modern sciences. Without it, we'd have no nuclear power or nuclear bombs, no lasers, no TV, no computers, no science of molecular biology, no understanding of DNA, no genetic engineering—at all. John Gribbin tells the complete story of quantum mechanics, a truth far stranger than any fiction. He takes us step-by-step into an ever more bizarre and fascinating place—requiring only that we approach it with an open mind. He introduces the scientists who developed quantum theory. He investigates the atom, radiation, time travel, the birth of the universe, superconductors and life itself. And in a world full of its own delights, mysteries and surprises, he searches for Schrödinger's Cat—a search for quantum reality—as he brings every reader to a clear understanding of the most important area of scientific study today—quantum physics.

    This book gives a lucid, exciting, and accessible account of the surprising and counterintuitive ideas that shape our understanding of the sub-atomic world. It does not disguise the problems of interpretation that still remain unsettled 75 years after the initial discoveries. The main text makes no use of equations, but there is a Mathematical Appendix for those desiring stronger fare. Uncertainty, probabilistic physics, complementarity, the problematic character of measurement, and decoherence are among the many topics discussed. This volume offers the reader access to one of the greatest discoveries in the history of physics and one of the outstanding intellectual achievements of the twentieth century.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

    As well as lucid descriptions of all the topics and many worked examples, it contains over 800 exercises. New stand-alone chapters give a systematic account of the 'special functions' of physical science, cover an extended range of practical applications of complex variables, and give an introduction to quantum operators. Further tabulations, of relevance in statistics and numerical integration, have been added. In this edition, half of the exercises are provided with hints and answers and, in a separate manual available to both students and their teachers, complete worked solutions. The remaining exercises have no hints, answers or worked solutions and can be used for unaided homework; full solutions are available to instructors on a password-protected web site, www.cambridge.org/9780521679718.

    In those twelve months, Einstein shattered many cherished scientific beliefs with five extraordinary papers that would establish him as the world's leading physicist. This book brings those papers together in an accessible format. The best-known papers are the two that founded special relativity: On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies and Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content? In the former, Einstein showed that absolute time had to be replaced by a new absolute: the speed of light. In the second, he asserted the equivalence of mass and energy, which would lead to the famous formula E = mc2.The book also includes On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light, in which Einstein challenged the wave theory of light, suggesting that light could also be regarded as a collection of particles. This helped to open the door to a whole new world--that of quantum physics. For ideas in this paper, he won the Nobel Prize in 1921.The fourth paper also led to a Nobel Prize, although for another scientist, Jean Perrin. On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat concerns the Brownian motion of such particles. With profound insight, Einstein blended ideas from kinetic theory and classical hydrodynamics to derive an equation for the mean free path of such particles as a function of the time, which Perrin confirmed experimentally. The fifth paper, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions, was Einstein's doctoral dissertation, and remains among his most cited articles. It shows how to calculate Avogadro's number and the size of molecules.These papers, presented in a modern English translation, are essential reading for any physicist, mathematician, or astrophysicist. Far more than just a collection of scientific articles, this book presents work that is among the high points of human achievement and marks a watershed in the history of science. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the miraculous year, this new paperback edition includes an introduction by John Stachel, which focuses on the personal aspects of Einstein's youth that facilitated and led up to the miraculous year.

    Tipler and Llewellyn's acclaimed text for the intermediate-level course (not the third semester of the introductory course) guides students through the foundations and wide-ranging applications of modern physics with the utmost clarity--without sacrificing scientific integrity.

    David Peat explains the development and meaning of this Superstring Theory in a thoroughly readable, dramatic manner accessible to lay readers with no knowledge of mathematics. The consequences of the Superstring Theory are nothing less than astonishing.

    It may hide additional dimensions of space other than the familier three we recognize. There might even be another universe adjacent to ours, invisible and unattainable . . . for now.Warped Passages is a brilliantly readable and altogether exhilarating journey that tracks the arc of discovery from early twentieth-century physics to the razor's edge of modern scientific theory. One of the world's leading theoretical physicists, Lisa Randall provides astonishing scientific possibilities that, until recently, were restricted to the realm of science fiction. Unraveling the twisted threads of the most current debates on relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity, she explores some of the most fundamental questions posed by Nature—taking us into the warped, hidden dimensions underpinning the universe we live in, demystifying the science of the myriad worlds that may exist just beyond our own.

    Indeed, many physicists today believe that there are other dimensions beyond the four of our space-time, and that a unified vision of the various forces of nature can be achieved, if we consider that everything we see around us, from the trees to the stars are nothing but vibrations in hyperspace. Hyperspace theory - and its more recent derivation, superstring theory - is the eye of this revolution. In this book, Michio Kaku shows us a fascinating panorama, which completely changes our view of the cosmos, and takes us on a dazzling journey through new dimensions: wormholes connecting parallel universes, time machines, "baby universes" and more. Similar wonders are emerging in some pages in which everything is explained with elegant simplicity and where the mathematical formulation is replaced by imaginative illustrations that allow the problems to be visualized. The result is a very entertaining and surprising book, which even leaves behind the greatest fantasies of the old science fiction authors.

    Full of insights, arguments and philosophical perspectives, the book covers an amazing array of topics. Beginning in antiquity with Democritus, it progresses through logic and set theory, computability and complexity theory, quantum computing, cryptography, the information content of quantum states and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. There are also extended discussions about time travel, Newcomb's Paradox, the anthropic principle and the views of Roger Penrose. Aaronson's informal style makes this fascinating book accessible to readers with scientific backgrounds, as well as students and researchers working in physics, computer science, mathematics and philosophy.

    Even after more than three centuries and the revolutions of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, Newtonian physics continues to account for many of the phenomena of the observed world, and Newtonian celestial dynamics is used to determine the orbits of our space vehicles.This completely new translation, the first in 270 years, is based on the third (1726) edition, the final revised version approved by Newton; it includes extracts from the earlier editions, corrects errors found in earlier versions, and replaces archaic English with contemporary prose and up-to-date mathematical forms. Newton's principles describe acceleration, deceleration, and inertial movement; fluid dynamics; and the motions of the earth, moon, planets, and comets. A great work in itself, the Principia also revolutionized the methods of scientific investigation. It set forth the fundamental three laws of motion and the law of universal gravity, the physical principles that account for the Copernican system of the world as emended by Kepler, thus effectively ending controversy concerning the Copernican planetary system.The illuminating Guide to the Principia by I. Bernard Cohen, along with his and Anne Whitman's translation, will make this preeminent work truly accessible for today's scientists, scholars, and students.