How to Ace Calculus: The Streetwise Guide


Colin Conrad Adams - 1998
    Capturing the tone of students exchanging ideas among themselves, this unique guide also explains how calculus is taught, how to get the best teachers, what to study, and what is likely to be on exams—all the tricks of the trade that will make learning the material of first-semester calculus a piece of cake. Funny, irreverent, and flexible, How to Ace Calculus shows why learning calculus can be not only a mind-expanding experience but also fantastic fun.

First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time


Emma Chapman - 2020
    There's a lot for astronomers to be smug about. But when it comes to understanding how the Universe began and grew up we are literally in the dark ages. In effect, we are missing the first one billion years from the timeline of the Universe.This brief but far-reaching period in the Universe's history, known to astrophysicists as the 'Epoch of Reionisation', represents the start of the cosmos as we experience it today. The time when the very first stars burst into life, when darkness gave way to light. After hundreds of millions of years of dark, uneventful expansion, one by the one these stars suddenly came into being. This was the point at which the chaos of the Big Bang first began to yield to the order of galaxies, black holes and stars, kick-starting the pathway to planets, to comets, to moons, and to life itself.Incorporating the very latest research into this branch of astrophysics, this book sheds light on this time of darkness, telling the story of these first stars, hundreds of times the size of the Sun and a million times brighter, lonely giants that lived fast and died young in powerful explosions that seeded the Universe with the heavy elements that we are made of. Emma Chapman tells us how these stars formed, why they were so unusual, and what they can teach us about the Universe today. She also offers a first-hand look at the immense telescopes about to come on line to peer into the past, searching for the echoes and footprints of these stars, to take this period in the Universe's history from the realm of theoretical physics towards the wonder of observational astronomy.

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.

Einstein's Miraculous Year


John J. Stachel - 1998
    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.

Elementary Number Theory and Its Applications


Kenneth H. Rosen - 1984
    The Fourth Edition builds on this strength with new examples, additional applications and increased cryptology coverage. Up-to-date information on the latest discoveries is included.Elementary Number Theory and Its Applications provides a diverse group of exercises, including basic exercises designed to help students develop skills, challenging exercises and computer projects. In addition to years of use and professor feedback, the fourth edition of this text has been thoroughly accuracy checked to ensure the quality of the mathematical content and the exercises.

Mathematical Methods for Physicists


George B. Arfken - 1970
    This work includes differential forms and the elegant forms of Maxwell's equations, and a chapter on probability and statistics. It also illustrates and proves mathematical relations.

The Little Book of Scientific Principles, Theories and Things


Surendra Verma - 2005
    It features all the great names in science, including Pythagoras, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, as well as more recent contributors such as Rachel Carson, James Lovelock, and Stephen Hawking.This little book presents serious science simply, answering questions like:What is Pythagorean Theorem? What is the difference between circadian rhythms and the popular concept of biorhythms? What is Hawking’s Black Hole Theory? Who developed the World Wide Web?

Linear Algebra and Its Applications [with CD-ROM]


David C. Lay - 1993
    

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.

Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics


John Stewart Bell - 1987
    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.

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.

Differential Geometry


Erwin Kreyszig - 1991
    With problems and solutions. Includes 99 illustrations.

Einstein's Heroes: Imagining the World Through the Language of Mathematics


Robyn Arianrhod - 2004
    Einstein's Heroes takes you on a journey of discovery about just such a miraculous language--the language of mathematics--one of humanity's mostamazing accomplishments. Blending science, history, and biography, this remarkable book reveals the mysteries of mathematics, focusing on the life and work of three of Albert Einstein's heroes: Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, and especially James Clerk Maxwell, whose work directly inspired the theory of relativity. RobynArianrhod bridges the gap between science and literature, portraying mathematics as a language and arguing that a physical theory is a work of imagination involving the elegant and clever use of this language. The heart of the book illuminates how Maxwell, using the language of mathematics in a newand radical way, resolved the seemingly insoluble controversy between Faraday's idea of lines of force and Newton's theory of action-at-a-distance. In so doing, Maxwell not only produced the first complete mathematical description of electromagnetism, but actually predicted the existence of theradio wave, teasing it out of the mathematical language itself. Here then is a fascinating look at mathematics: its colorful characters, its historical intrigues, and above all its role as the uncannily accurate language of nature.

Infinite Potential: What Quantum Physics Reveals About How We Should Live


Lothar Schäfer - 2013
    With his own research as well as that of some of the most distinguished scientists of our time, Schäfer moves us from a reality of Darwinian competition to cooperation, a meaningless universe to a meaningful one, and a disconnected, isolated existence to an interconnected one. In so doing, he shows us that our potential is infinite and calls us to live in accordance with the order of the universe, creating a society based on the cosmic principle of connection, emphasizing cooperation and community.

Schaum's Outline of Discrete Mathematics (Schaum's Outline Series)


Seymour Lipschutz - 2009
    More than 40 million students have trusted Schaum's to help them succeed in the classroom and on exams. Schaum's is the key to faster learning and higher grades in every subject. Each Outline presents all the essential course information in an easy-to-follow, topic-by-topic format. You also get hundreds of examples, solved problems, and practice exercises to test your skills.This Schaum's Outline gives you:Practice problems with full explanations that reinforce knowledgeCoverage of the most up-to-date developments in your course fieldIn-depth review of practices and applicationsFully compatible with your classroom text, Schaum's highlights all the important facts you need to know. Use Schaum's to shorten your study time-and get your best test scores!Schaum's Outlines-Problem Solved.