Field and Wave Electromagnetics


David K. Cheng - 1982
    These include applications drawn from important new areas of technology such as optical fibers, radome design, satellite communication, and microstrip lines. There is also added coverage of several new topics, including Hall effect, radar equation and scattering cross section, transients in transmission lines, waveguides and circular cavity resonators, wave propagation in the ionosphere, and helical antennas. New exercises, new problems, and many worked-out examples make this complex material more accessible to students.

Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World


David Berlinski - 2000
    Despite this, he has remained inaccessible to most modern readers, indisputably great but undeniably remote. In this witty, engaging, and often moving examination of Newton's life, David Berlinski recovers the man behind the mathematical breakthroughs. The story carries the reader from Newton's unremarkable childhood to his awkward undergraduate days at Cambridge through the astonishing year in which, working alone, he laid the foundation for his system of the world, his Principia Mathematica, and to the subsequent monumental feuds that poisoned his soul and wearied his supporters. An edifying appreciation of Newton's greatest accomplishment, Newton's Gift is also a touching celebration of a transcendent man.

Chance and Chaos


David Ruelle - 1991
    How do scientists look at chance, or randomness, and chaos in physical systems? In answering this question for a general audience, Ruelle writes in the best French tradition: he has produced an authoritative and elegant book--a model of clarity, succinctness, and a humor bordering at times on the sardonic.

13 Journeys Through Space and Time: Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution


Colin Stuart - 2016
    With a foreword by ESA astronaut Tim Peake.Started at the Royal Institution (RI) in 1825 by Michael Faraday, the Christmas Lectures have been broadcast on television since the 1960s and have formed part of the British Christmas tradition for generations. First devised to attract young people to the magic of science through spectacular demonstrations, they are now watched by millions of people around the world every year.Drawing on the incredible archive at the RI, which is packed full of handwritten notebooks, photographs and transcripts, this book will focus on thirteen of the most captivating Lectures given at the RI on space and time, taking a look at what we thought we knew then and what has been discovered since.

Quantum Mechanics


Jim Al-Khalili - 2017
    You'll discover how the sun shines, why light is both a wave and a particle, the certainty of the Uncertainty Principle, Schrodinger's Cat, Einstein's spooky action, how to build a quantum computer, and why quantum mechanics drives even its experts completely crazy. 'Jim Al-Khalili has done an admirable job of condensing the ideas of quantum physics from Max Planck to the possibilities of quantum computers into brisk, straightforward English' The Times

A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Notes Towards a Very Gentle Introduction to the Mathematics of Relativity


Peter Collier - 2012
    This user-friendly self-study guide is aimed at the general reader who is motivated to tackle that not insignificant challenge. The book is written using straightforward and accessible language, with clear derivations and explanations as well as numerous fully solved problems. For those with minimal mathematical background, the first chapter provides a crash course in foundation mathematics. The reader is then taken gently by the hand and guided through a wide range of fundamental topics, including Newtonian mechanics; the Lorentz transformations; tensor calculus; the Einstein field equations; the Schwarzschild solution (which gives a good approximation of the spacetime of our Solar System); simple black holes and relativistic cosmology. Following the historic 2015 LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) detection, there is now an additional chapter on gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime that potentially provide a revolutionary new way to study the universe. Special relativity helps explain a huge range of non-gravitational physical phenomena and has some strangely counter-intuitive consequences. These include time dilation, length contraction, the relativity of simultaneity, mass-energy equivalence and an absolute speed limit. General relativity, the leading theory of gravity, is at the heart of our understanding of cosmology and black holes.Understand even the basics of Einstein's amazing theory and the world will never seem the same again. ContentsPrefaceIntroduction1 Foundation mathematics2 Newtonian mechanics3 Special relativity4 Introducing the manifold5 Scalars, vectors, one-forms and tensors6 More on curvature7 General relativity8 The Newtonian limit9 The Schwarzschild metric10 Schwarzschild black holes11 Cosmology12 Gravitational wavesAppendix: The Riemann curvature tensorBibliographyAcknowledgementsJanuary 2019. This third edition has been revised to make the material even more accessible to the enthusiastic general reader who seeks to understand the mathematics of relativity.

Archimedes' Revenge: The Joys and Perils of Mathematics


Paul Hoffman - 1988
    An extremely clever account.--The New Yorker.

Quantum Computing Since Democritus


Scott Aaronson - 2013
    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.

Math Hysteria: Fun and Games with Mathematics


Ian Stewart - 2004
    Ian Stewart presents us with a wealth of magical puzzles, each one spun around an amazing tale, including Counting the Cattle of the Sun, The Great Drain Robbery, and Preposterous Piratical Predicaments. Fully illustrated with explanatory diagrams, each tale is told with engaging wit, sure to amuse everyone with an interest in puzzles and mathematics. Along the way, we also meet many curious characters. Containing twenty specially-commissioned cartoons, this book will delight all who are familiar with Stewart's many other books, such as What Shape is a Snowflake? and Flatterland and anyone interested in mathematical problems. In short, these stories are engaging, challenging, and lots of fun!

Gamma: Exploring Euler's Constant


Julian Havil - 2003
    Following closely behind is y, or gamma, a constant that arises in many mathematical areas yet maintains a profound sense of mystery. In a tantalizing blend of history and mathematics, Julian Havil takes the reader on a journey through logarithms and the harmonic series, the two defining elements of gamma, toward the first account of gamma's place in mathematics. Introduced by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), who figures prominently in this book, gamma is defined as the limit of the sum of 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + . . . Up to 1/n, minus the natural logarithm of n--the numerical value being 0.5772156. . . . But unlike its more celebrated colleagues π and e, the exact nature of gamma remains a mystery--we don't even know if gamma can be expressed as a fraction. Among the numerous topics that arise during this historical odyssey into fundamental mathematical ideas are the Prime Number Theorem and the most important open problem in mathematics today--the Riemann Hypothesis (though no proof of either is offered!). Sure to be popular with not only students and instructors but all math aficionados, Gamma takes us through countries, centuries, lives, and works, unfolding along the way the stories of some remarkable mathematics from some remarkable mathematicians.-- "Notices of the American Mathematical Society"

The Calculus Wars: Newton, Leibniz, and the Greatest Mathematical Clash of All Time


Jason Socrates Bardi - 2006
    But a dispute over its discovery sowed the seeds of discontent between two of the greatest scientific giants of all time - Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz." "Today Newton and Leibniz are generally considered the twin independent inventors of calculus. They are both credited with giving mathematics its greatest push forward since the time of the Greeks. Had they known each other under different circumstances, they might have been friends. But in their own lifetimes, the joint glory of calculus was not enough for either and each declared war against the other, openly and in secret." This long and bitter dispute has been swept under the carpet by historians - perhaps because it reveals Newton and Leibniz in their worst light - but The Calculus Wars tells the full story in narrative form for the first time. This history ultimately exposes how these twin mathematical giants were brilliant, proud, at times mad, and in the end completely human.

The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number


Mario Livio - 2002
    In this fascinating book, Mario Livio tells the tale of a number at the heart of that mystery: phi, or 1.6180339887...This curious mathematical relationship, widely known as "The Golden Ratio," was discovered by Euclid more than two thousand years ago because of its crucial role in the construction of the pentagram, to which magical properties had been attributed. Since then it has shown a propensity to appear in the most astonishing variety of places, from mollusk shells, sunflower florets, and rose petals to the shape of the galaxy. Psychological studies have investigated whether the Golden Ratio is the most aesthetically pleasing proportion extant, and it has been asserted that the creators of the Pyramids and the Parthenon employed it. It is believed to feature in works of art from Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa to Salvador Dali's The Sacrament of the Last Supper, and poets and composers have used it in their works. It has even been found to be connected to the behavior of the stock market!The Golden Ratio is a captivating journey through art and architecture, botany and biology, physics and mathematics. It tells the human story of numerous phi-fixated individuals, including the followers of Pythagoras who believed that this proportion revealed the hand of God; astronomer Johannes Kepler, who saw phi as the greatest treasure of geometry; such Renaissance thinkers as mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa; and such masters of the modern world as Goethe, Cezanne, Bartok, and physicist Roger Penrose. Wherever his quest for the meaning of phi takes him, Mario Livio reveals the world as a place where order, beauty, and eternal mystery will always coexist.From the Hardcover edition.

The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook


Michael Brooks - 2017
    It resurrects from the vaults of neglect the polymath Jerome Cardano, a Milanese of the sixteenth century. Who is he? A gambler and blasphemer, inventor and chancer, plagued by demons and anxieties, astrologer to kings, emperors and popes. This stubborn and unworldly man was the son of a lawyer and a brothel keeper, but also a gifted physician and the unacknowledged discoverer of the mathematical foundations of quantum physics. That is the argument of this charming and intoxicatingly clever book, which is truly original in its style, and in the manner of the modernists embodies in its very form its theories about the world.'The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook' is a science book with the panache of a novel, for readers of Carlo Rovelli or Umberto Eco. It is a work of and about genius.

Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics


Frederick Reif - 1965
    The presentation develops physical insight by stressing the microscopic content of the theory.

The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics: A Math-Free Exploration of the Science that Made Our World


James Kakalios - 2010
    Using illustrations and examples from science fiction pulp magazines and comic books, The Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics explains the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics that underlie the world we live in.Watch a Video