Book picks similar to
Principles Of Modern Physics by Robert B. Leighton
physics
science-physics
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egr102
The Cosmic Cocktail: Three Parts Dark Matter
Katherine Freese - 2014
The rest is known as dark matter and dark energy, because their precise identities are unknown. "The Cosmic Cocktail" is the inside story of the epic quest to solve one of the most compelling enigmas of modern science--what is the universe made of?--told by one of today's foremost pioneers in the study of dark matter.Blending cutting-edge science with her own behind-the-scenes insights as a leading researcher in the field, acclaimed theoretical physicist Katherine Freese recounts the hunt for dark matter, from the discoveries of visionary scientists like Fritz Zwicky--the Swiss astronomer who coined the term "dark matter" in 1933--to the deluge of data today from underground laboratories, satellites in space, and the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists contend that dark matter consists of fundamental particles known as WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles. Billions of them pass through our bodies every second without us even realizing it, yet their gravitational pull is capable of whirling stars and gas at breakneck speeds around the centers of galaxies, and bending light from distant bright objects. Freese describes the larger-than-life characters and clashing personalities behind the race to identify these elusive particles.Many cosmologists believe we are on the verge of solving the mystery. "The Cosmic Cocktail" provides the foundation needed to fully fathom this epochal moment in humankind's quest to understand the universe.
The Physics of Climate Change
Lawrence M. Krauss - 2021
Here you’ll find the facts, the processes, the physics of our complex and changing climate, but delivered with eloquence and urgency. Lawrence Krauss writes with a clarity that transcends mere politics. Prose and poetry were never better bedfellows.” —Ian McEwan, Booker Prize-winning author of Solar and Machines Like Me “Lawrence Krauss has written the ideal book for anyone interested in understanding the science of global warming. It is at once elegant, rigorous, and timely.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer, The New Yorker, and Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction “A brief, brilliant, and charming summary of what physicists know about climate change and how they learned it.” —Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate in Physics, Metcalf Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Boston University “The distinguished scientist Lawrence Krauss turns his penetrating gaze on the most pressing existential threat facing our world: climate change. It is brimming with information lucidly analysed. Such hope as there is lies in science, and a physicist of Dr. Krauss’s imaginative versatility is unusually qualified to offer it.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The Blind Watchmaker and Science in the Soul “Lucid and gripping, this study of the most severe challenge humans have ever faced leads the reader from the basic physics of climate change to recognition of the damage that humans have already caused and on to the prospects that lie ahead if we do not change course soon.” —Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona, author of Internationalism or Extinction? “Lawrence Krauss tells the story of climate change with erudition, urgency, and passion. It is our great good luck that one of our most brilliant scientists is also such a gifted writer. This book will change the way we think about the future.” —Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of Good Boy and She’s Not There “Everything on climate change that I’ve seen is either dumbed down and bossy or written for other climate scientists. I’ve been looking for a book that can let me, a layperson, understand the science. This book does just what I was looking for. It is important.” —Penn Jillette, Magician, author of Presto! and God, No! “The renowned physicist Lawrence Krauss makes the science behind one of the most important issues of our time accessible to all.” —Richard C. J. Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego “Lawrence Krauss is a fine physicist, a talented writer, and a scientist deeply engaged with public affairs. His book deserves wide readership. The book’s eloquent exposition of the science and the threats should enlighten all readers and motivate them to an urgent concern about our planet’s future.” —Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, former president of the Royal Society, author of On the Future: Prospects for Humanity
Universe on A T-Shirt: The Quest for the Theory of Everything
Dan Falk - 2002
- This is the best kind of popular science: informed, impassioned, and highly accessible.- Compare it to Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell, but broader in scope and much more readable.- A crossover for the Young Adult market, now in the perfect format.
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
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences
Eugene Paul Wigner - 1959
In the paper, Wigner observed that the mathematical structure of a physical theory often points the way to further advances in that theory and even to empirical predictions.
Communication Electronics
Louis E. Frenzel - 1989
In addition, it discusses antennas and microwave techniques at a technician level and covers data communication techniques (modems, local area networks, fiber optics, satellite communication) and advanced applications (cellular telephones, facsimile and radar). The work is suitable for courses in Communications Technology.
Where Does The Weirdness Go?: Why Quantum Mechanics Is Strange, But Not As Strange As You Think
David Lindley - 1996
Everyday experience cannot prepare us for the sub-atomic world, where quantum effects become all-important. Here, particles can look like waves, and vice versa; electrons seem to lose their identity and instead take on a shifting, unpredictable appearance that depends on how they are being observed; and a single photon may sometimes behave as if it could be in two places at once. In the world of quantum mechanics, uncertainty and ambiguity become not just unavoidable, but essential ingredients of science -- a development so disturbing that to Einstein "it was as if God were playing dice with the universe." And there is no one better able to explain the quantum revolution as it approaches the century mark than David Lindley. He brings the quantum revolution full circle, showing how the familiar and trustworthy reality of the world around us is actually a consequence of the ineffable uncertainty of the subatomic quantum world -- the world we can't see.
Einstein's Shadow: A Black Hole, a Band of Astronomers, and the Quest to See the Unseeable
Seth Fletcher - 2018
But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just that.With exclusive access to the team, journalist Seth Fletcher spent five years following Shep and an extraordinary cast of characters as they assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a virtual radio observatory the size of the Earth. He witnessed their struggles, setbacks, and breakthroughs, and along the way, he explored the latest thinking on the most profound questions about black holes. Do they represent a limit to our ability to understand reality? Or will they reveal the clues that lead to the long-sought Theory of Everything?Fletcher transforms astrophysics into something exciting, accessible, and immediate, taking us on an incredible adventure to better understand the complexity of our galaxy, the boundaries of human perception and knowledge, and how the messy human endeavor of science really works.Weaving a compelling narrative account of human ingenuity with excursions into cutting-edge science, Einstein’s Shadow is a tale of great minds on a mission to change the way we understand our universe—and our place in it.
Problems Plus In Iit Mathematics
A. Das Gupta
This is type of problems asked at the JEE (IIT). The purpose of this book is to show students how to handle such problems and give them sufficient practice in solving problems of this type, thus building their confidence. The main features of this book are:Each chapter begins with a summary of facts, formulate and working techniques. Trick, tips and techniques have been clearly marked with the icon.A large number of problems have been solved and explained in each chapter.The exercises contain short-answer, long-answer and objective type questions.Multiple-choice questions in which more than one option may be correct have also been given.Time-bound tests at the end of each chapter will help students practise answering questions in a given time.The book also includes integrated tests, bases on all the chapters.A chapter containing miscellaneous problems has been given at the end of the book. This will help students gain confidence in solving problems without prior knowledge of the chapter(s) to which the problems belong.Table of ContentsAlgebraProgressions, Related Inequalities and SeriesDeterminants and Cramer's RuleEquations, Inequations and ExpressionsComplex NumbersPermutation and CombinationBinomial Theorem for Positive Integral IndexPrinciple of Mathematical Induction (PMI)Infinite SeriesMatricesTrigonometryCircular Functions, IdentitiesSolution of EquationsInverse Circular FunctionsTrigonometrical Inequalities and InequationsLogarithmProperties of TriangleHeights and DistancesCoordinate GeometryCoordinates and Straight LinesPairs of Straight Lines and Transformation of AxesCirclesParabolaEllipse and HyperbolaCalculusFunctionDifferentiationLimit, Indeterminate FormContinuity, Differentiability and Graph of FunctionApplication of dy/dxMaxima and MinimaMonotonic Function and Lagrange's TheoremIndefinite In
Relativity Visualized: The Gold Nugget of Relativity Books
Lewis Carroll Epstein - 1984
By replacing equations with diagrams, the book allows non-specialist readers to fully understand the concepts in relativity without the slow, painful progress so often associated with a complicated scientific subject. It allows readers not only to know how relativity works, but also to intuitively understand it.
The Physics of Star Wars: The Science Behind a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Patrick Johnson - 2017
In The Physics of Star Wars, you’ll explore the mystical power of the Force using quantum mechanics, find out how much energy it would take for the Death Star or Starkiller Base to destroy a planet, and discover how we can potentially create our very own lightsabers. The fantastical world of Star Wars may become a reality!
Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness
Bruce Rosenblum - 2006
Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories.Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schr�dinger showed that it absurdly allowed a cat to be in a superposition simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's spooky interactions. With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schr�dinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist.Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation.Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial.Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing.Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves.
The New Quotable Einstein
Albert Einstein - 2005
Tens of thousands of readers have enjoyed The Quotable Einstein and The Expanded Quotable Einstein, with translations into twenty-two languages. This updated edition--which appears on the 100th anniversary of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and the 50th anniversary of Einstein's death--offers more than 300 new quotations, or over 1,200 altogether. Nearly all are by Einstein himself and a few are about the self-professed lone wolf Time magazine named Man of the Century at the turn of the millennium.The New Quotable Einstein also includes a new section, On Aging, and fresh material has been added to the appendix-from a touching account by Helen Dukas of Einstein's last days to a day-by-day summary of Johanna Fantova's telephone conversations with Einstein during the final year and a half of his life.Also included are a poem called Einstein, by Robert Service; and three virtually unknown verses to the song As Time Goes By (made famous in the movie Casablanca) that refer to Einstein. New photographs have been selected to introduce each section of the book.Through well-documented quotations and supplementary information, The New Quotable Einstein provides a bigger and better biographical account of this multifaceted man-as son, husband, father, lover, scientist, philosopher, aging widower, humanitarian, and friend. It shows us even more vividly why the real and imagined Einstein continues to fascinate people across the world into the twenty-first century.300-plus new quotations, more than 1,200 in allA day-by-day summary of Johanna Fantova's phone conversations with Einstein toward the end of his lifeA touching account of Einstein's last daysA new section, On AgingThree virtually unknown original verses of the song As Time Goes By (from the movie Casablanca) that refer to EinsteinRobert Service's poem Einstein-- "New Scientist"
Supersymmetry: Unveiling The Ultimate Laws Of Nature
Gordon L. Kane - 2000
In this groundbreaking work, renowned physicist Gordon Kane first gives us the basics of the Standard Model, which describes the fundamental constituents and forces of nature. He then explains the next great leap in understanding: the theory of supersymmetry, which implies that each of the fundamental particles has a "superpartner" that can be detected at energies and intensities only now being achieved in the giant accelerators. If Kane and his colleagues are correct, these superpartners will also help solve many of the puzzles of modern physics-such as the existence of the Higgs boson-as well as one of the biggest mysteries is cosmology: the notorious "dark matter" of the universe.
The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn
Louisa Gilder - 2008
What happened during those years and what has happened since to refine the understanding of this phenomenon is the fascinating story told here.We move from a coffee shop in Zurich, where Einstein and Max von Laue discuss the madness of quantum theory, to a bar in Brazil, as David Bohm and Richard Feynman chat over cervejas. We travel to the campuses of American universities—from J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Berkeley to the Princeton of Einstein and Bohm to Bell’s Stanford sabbatical—and we visit centers of European physics: Copenhagen, home to Bohr’s famous institute, and Munich, where Werner Heisenberg and Wolfgang Pauli picnic on cheese and heady discussions of electron orbits.Drawing on the papers, letters, and memoirs of the twentieth century’s greatest physicists, Louisa Gilder both humanizes and dramatizes the story by employing their own words in imagined face-to-face dialogues. Here are Bohr and Einstein clashing, and Heisenberg and Pauli deciding which mysteries to pursue. We see Schrödinger and Louis de Broglie pave the way for Bell, whose work is here given a long-overdue revisiting. And with his characteristic matter-of-fact eloquence, Richard Feynman challenges his contemporaries to make something of this entanglement.