By Siegmund Brandt
Physics was once the major technological know-how of the 20th century and the booklet retraces very important discoveries, made among 1895 and 2001, in a hundred self-contained Episodes. each one is a quick tale of the scientists concerned, their time and their paintings. jointly, they shaped a mosaic of recent physics: formulating relativity and quantum mechanics, discovering the parts of subject and unravelling the forces among them, figuring out the operating of conductors and semiconductors, researching and explaining macroscopic quantum results (superconductivity, superfluidity, quantum corridor effect), constructing novel experimental thoughts just like the Geiger counter and particle accelerators, development innovative functions just like the transistor and the laser, and looking at dazzling gains of our cosmos (expanding universe, cosmic heritage radiation). The textual content is meant for simple examining. sometimes, a extra thorough dialogue of experimental set-ups and theoretical options is gifted in certain containers for readers drawn to extra element. Episodes include broad references to biographies and unique clinical literature. The ebook is richly illustrated by means of approximately six hundred photos, images and figures.
Read or Download The harvest of a century: discoveries of modern physics in 100 episodes PDF
Best history & philosophy books
Flesh Machine; Cyborgs, Designer Babies, and New Eugenic Consciousness
Having in other places explored the size of social and political regulate in digital tradition, the severe Arts Ensemble right here turns complete frontal in the direction of the physique, arguing that utopian offers of virtuality are uncomplicated distractions from the true venture: the deployment of biotechnologies upon the our bodies of electorate within the carrier of the transnational order.
Landmark Experiments in Twentieth Century Physics
Physics is particularly a lot an experimental technology, yet too frequently, scholars on the undergraduate point usually are not uncovered to the truth of experimental physics ― i. e. , what used to be performed in a given test, why it used to be performed, the historical past of physics opposed to which the scan was once conducted and the alterations in concept and information that resulted.
During this engrossing biography, Dorothy Stein strips away the numerous layers of delusion to bare a narrative way more dramatic and interesting than prior debts have indicated
The publication is worried with human development and the unforeseen outcomes of technological advances. It examines an enormous diversity of issues from drugs to agriculture, together with electronics, communications, a world economic system and a burgeoning inhabitants. summary: The booklet is anxious with human development and the unforeseen effects of technological advances.
- Principia: Vol. II: The System of the World
- History of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom
- Symmetry in Science: An Introduction to the General Theory (Cancer Treatment and Research)
- Scientific Discovery: Logic and Tinkering (S U N Y Series in Philosophy and Biology)
- Current Protocols In Cytometry
- Institut X: Die Anfänge der Kern- und Hochenergiephysik in der DDR (German Edition)
Additional resources for The harvest of a century: discoveries of modern physics in 100 episodes
Example text
His grandfather and his great-grandfather had been professors of theology in Göttingen. Planck studied in Munich and, for one year, in Berlin under Helmholtz and Kirchhoff. He was fascinated with the elegance of the theory of thermodynamics and, in particular, with the second heat law as formulated by Clausius. D. thesis submitted to the Philosophical Faculty in Munich in 1879. In 1880 Planck became Privatdozent in Munich and in 1885 professor in Kiel. In 1889 he succeeded Kirchhoff as professor of theoretical physics at the University of Berlin.
Lord Rayleigh, J. W. , Philosophical Magazine, 49 (1900) 439. Rubens, H. , Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. (Berlin), (1900) 929. , Verh. d. Dt. Phys. Gesellschaft, 2 (1900) 202. , Verh. d. Dt. Phys. Gesellschaft, 2 (1900) 237. , Out of my Later Years, chap. In Memoriam Max Planck. Philosophical Library, New York, 1950. 8 Rutherford Finds the Law of Radioactive Decay (1900) In his first research work done at McGill, Rutherford made two discoveries at a time: He found a new element, now called radon.
Trajectories in homogeneous fields: The trajectory of a charged particle in a homogeneous electric field is a parabola like that of a stone in a homogeneous gravitational field. The trajectory of a charged particle in a homogeneous magnetic field with a velocity perpendicular to the field is a circle of radius R = (q/m)(v/B). Energy gained in an electric field: If a particle is originally at rest and is accelerated in a constant electric field over the distance , it acquires the kinetic energy Ekin = mv 2 /2 = qE = qU , where U = E is the electric potential over the distance .