These centuries gave birth to the basic concepts from which modern physics has evolved. In this first volume of his celebrated UNDERSTANDING PHYSICS, Isaac Asimov deals with this fascinating, momentous stage of scientific development with an authority and clarity that add further lustre to an eminent reputation. Demanding the minimum of specialized knowledge from his audience, he has produced a work that is the perfect supplement to the student’s formal textbook, as well as offering invaluable illumination to the general reader.

    Here he explains how our image of the world has changed throughout centuries. Fom Aristotle to Albert Einstein, Michael Faraday to the Higgs boson, he takes us on a wondrous journey to show us that beyond our ever-changing idea of reality is a whole new world that has yet to be discovered.

    The presentation develops physical insight by stressing the microscopic content of the theory.

    After sampling myths explaining First Light, the story moves on to early philosophers' queries, then through the centuries, from Buddhist temples to Biblical scripture, when light was the soul of the divine.Battling darkness and despair, Gothic architects crafted radiant cathedrals while Dante dreamed a "heaven of pure light." Later, following Leonardo's advice, Renaissance artists learned to capture light on canvas. During the Scientific Revolution, Galileo gathered light in his telescope, Descartes measured the rainbow, and Newton used prisms to solidify the science of optics. But even after Newton, light was an enigma. Particle or wave? Did it flow through an invisible "ether"? Through the age of Edison and into the age of lasers, Light reveals how light sparked new wonders--relativity, quantum electrodynamics, fiber optics, and more.Although lasers now perform everyday miracles, light retains its eternal allure. "For the rest of my life," Einstein said, "I will reflect on what light is." Light explores and celebrates such curiosity.

    Polya, How to Solve It will show anyone in any field how to think straight. In lucid and appealing prose, Polya reveals how the mathematical method of demonstrating a proof or finding an unknown can be of help in attacking any problem that can be reasoned out--from building a bridge to winning a game of anagrams. Generations of readers have relished Polya's deft--indeed, brilliant--instructions on stripping away irrelevancies and going straight to the heart of the problem.

    This edition retains the scope and emphasis that have made the book very successful while adding over twenty new numerical examples and over 550 new end-of-chapter problems.

    Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann offers a uniquely personal and unifying vision of the relationship between the fundamental laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world.

    Beginning near the speed of light and proceeding to explorations of space-time and curved spaces, "Introducing Relativity" plots a visually accessible course through the thought experiments that have given shape to contemporary physics. Scientists from Newton to Hawking add their unique contributions to this story, as we encounter Einstein's astounding vision of gravity as the curvature of space-time and arrive at the breathtakingly beautiful field equations. Einstein's legacy is reviewed in the most advanced frontiers of physics today - black holes, gravitational waves, the accelerating universe and string theory. This is a superlative, fascinating graphic account of Einstein's strange world and how his legacy has been built upon since.

    But what about relativity? Physics professor Chad Orzel and his inquisitive canine companion, Emmy, tackle the concepts of general relativity in this irresistible introduction to Einstein’s physics. Through armchair ”and sometimes passenger-seat” conversations with Emmy about the relative speeds of dog and cat motion or the logistics of squirrel-chasing, Orzel translates complex Einsteinian ideas, i.e., ”the slowing of time for a moving observer, the shrinking of moving objects, the effects of gravity on light and time, black holes, the Big Bang, and of course, E=mc2” into examples simple enough for a dog to understand.A lively romp through one of the great theories of modern physics, How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about space, time, and anything else you might have slept through in high school physics class.

    Features exceptionally clear explanations and descriptions, step-by-step examples, more than 50 practical applications, over 2000 easy-to-challenging practice problems, and comprehensive coverage of essentials. PSpice, OrCAd version 9.2 Lite Edition, Multisims 2001 version of Electronics Workbench, and MathCad software references and examples are used throughout. Computer programs (C++, BASIC and PSpice) are printed in color, as they run, at the point in the book where they are discussed. Current and Voltage. Resistance. Ohm's Law, Power, and Energy. Series Circuits. Parallel Circuits. Series-Parallel Networks. Methods of Analysis & Selected Topics. Network Theorems. Capacitors. Magnetic Circuits. Inductors. Sinusodial Alternating Waveforms. The Basic Elements and Phasors. Series and Parallel ac Circuits. Series-Parallel ac Networks. Methods of Analysis and Related Topics. Network Theorems (ac). Power (ac). Resonance. Transformers. Polyphase Systems. Decibels, Filters, and Bode Points. Pulse Waveforms and the R-C Response. Nonsinusodial Circuits. System Analysis: An Introduction. For those working in electronic technology.

    Our Big Bang, our distant future, parallel worlds, the sub-atomic and intergalactic - none of them are what they seem. But there is a way to understand this immense strangeness - mathematics. Seeking an answer to the fundamental puzzle of why our universe seems so mathematical, Tegmark proposes a radical idea: that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics. This may offer answers to our deepest questions: How large is reality? What is everything made of? Why is our universe the way it is?Table of ContentsPreface 1 What Is Reality? Not What It Seems • What’s the Ultimate Question? • The Journey Begins Part One: Zooming Out 2 Our Place in Space Cosmic Questions • How Big Is Space? • The Size of Earth • Distance to the Moon • Distance to the Sun and the Planets • Distance to the Stars • Distance to the Galaxies • What Is Space? 3 Our Place in TimeWhere Did Our Solar System Come From? • Where Did theGalaxies Come From? • Where Did the Mysterious MicrowavesCome From? • Where Did the Atoms Come From? 4 Our Universe by NumbersWanted: Precision Cosmology • Precision Microwave-Background Fluctuations • Precision Galaxy Clustering • The Ultimate Map of Our Universe • Where Did Our Big Bang Come From? 5 Our Cosmic Origins What’s Wrong with Our Big Bang? • How Inflation Works • The Gift That Keeps on Giving • Eternal Inflation 6 Welcome to the Multiverse The Level I Multiverse • The Level II Multiverse • Multiverse Halftime Roundup Part Two: Zooming In 7 Cosmic Legos Atomic Legos • Nuclear Legos • Particle-Physics Legos • Mathematical Legos • Photon Legos • Above the Law? • Quanta and Rainbows • Making Waves • Quantum Weirdness • The Collapse of Consensus • The Weirdness Can’t Be Confined • Quantum Confusion 8 The Level III Multiverse The Level III Multiverse • The Illusion of Randomness • Quantum Censorship • The Joys of Getting Scooped • Why Your Brain Isn’t a Quantum Computer • Subject, Object and Environment • Quantum Suicide • Quantum Immortality? • Multiverses Unified • Shifting Views: Many Worlds or Many Words? Part Three: Stepping Back 9 Internal Reality, External Reality and Consensus Reality External Reality and Internal Reality • The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth • Consensus Reality • Physics: Linking External to Consensus Reality 10 Physical Reality and Mathematical Reality Math, Math Everywhere! • The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis • What Is a Mathematical Structure? 11 Is Time an Illusion? How Can Physical Reality Be Mathematical? • What Are You? • Where Are You? (And What Do You Perceive?) • When Are You? 12 The Level IV Multiverse Why I Believe in the Level IV Multiverse • Exploring the Level IV Multiverse: What’s Out There? • Implications of the Level IV Multiverse • Are We Living in a Simulation? • Relation Between the MUH, the Level IV Multiverse and Other Hypotheses •Testing the Level IV Multiverse 13 Life, Our Universe and Everything How Big Is Our Physical Reality? • The Future of Physics • The Future of Our Universe—How Will It End? • The Future of Life •The Future of You—Are You Insignificant? Acknowledgments Suggestions for Further Reading Index

    It took a year to accumulate enough so that one could actually see it. Now there is so much that we don't know what to do to get rid of it. We have created a monster.The history of plutonium is as strange as the element itself. When scientists began looking for it, they did so simply in the spirit of inquiry, not certain whether there were still spots to fill on the periodic table. But the discovery of fission made it clear that this still-hypothetical element would be more than just a scientific curiosity?it could be a powerful nuclear weapon.As it turned out, it is good for almost nothing else. Plutonium's nuclear potential put it at the heart of the World War II arms race?the Russians found out about it through espionage, the Germans through independent research, and everybody wanted some. Now, nearly everyone has some?the United States alone has about 47 metric tons?but it has almost no uses besides warmongering. How did the product of scientific curiosity become such a dangerous burden?In his new history of this complex and dangerous element, noted physicist Jeremy Bernstein describes the steps that were taken to transform plutonium from a laboratory novelty into the nuclear weapon that destroyed Nagasaki. This is the first book to weave together the many strands of plutonium's story, explaining not only the science but the people involved.

    Kaku skillfully guides us through the latest innovations in string theory and its latest iteration, M-theory, which posits that our universe may be just one in an endless multiverse, a singular bubble floating in a sea of infinite bubble universes. If M-theory is proven correct, we may perhaps finally find answer to the question, “What happened before the big bang?” This is an exciting and unforgettable introduction into the new cutting-edge theories of physics and cosmology from one of the pre-eminent voices in the field.

    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.

    Astronomer John Barrow takes an intriguing look at the limits of science, who argues that there are things that are ultimately unknowable, undoable, or unreachable.