Download or read book Luis Alvarez and the Development of the Bubble Chamber written by Amy Allison and published by . This book was released on 2002-08 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the life of the physicist who, among other achievements, was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize for physics for developing the hydrogen bubble chamber, a powerful tool for tracking atomic particles.
Download or read book Alvarez Adventures of a Physicist written by Luis W. Alvarez and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, Luis W. Alvarez participated in the Allies’ development of radar at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, and of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. He then worked as an experimental physicist on cyclotrons, particle accelerators and bubble chambers at UC-Berkeley with Ernest Lawrence. Later in life, he used cosmic rays to “X ray” an Egyptian pyramid, developed a new theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs, and won the 1968 Nobel prize in physics for his work on elementary particles. In this autobiography, Alvarez shares insights on the process of scientific discovery, risk-taking in science and how theoretical and experimental physics interact. “[A] delightful autobiography... [A] fascinating book... It should be read by everyone who is interested in science and adventure, or who just wants to meet one of our most fascinating contemporaries.” — James Trefil, New York Times Book Review “Beyond its self-portrait, Alvarez provides an exceptionally clear view of the world of science.” — Alan Lightman, Washington Post Book World “This is a richly absorbing autobiography... Personally as well as scientifically forthright and plainspoken, [Alvarez] holds the reader with the story of his life as a scientist, much of the time at Berkeley, Calif., working with such men as Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence and Enrico Fermi.” — Publishers Weekly “A gripping book. It succeeds well in making the scientific experience and the excitement of discovery accessible to the general reader.” — Richard L. Garwin,Physics Today “A fascinating life.” — Elena Brunet, Los Angeles Times “One of the best popular books on science to emerge from the laboratory in years.” — Henry Kisor, Chicago Sun-Times “Luis W. Alvarez has an unsurpassed reputation among scientists for a lifelong record of crucial participation in important discoveries in pure and applied science. In this book he performs an additional service by revealing his thought processes.” — Philip Abelson, Science Advisor, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Download or read book Physics 1963 1970 written by and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 1998 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/3729
Download or read book The Mangle of Practice written by Andrew Pickering and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-12-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ambitious book by one of the most original and provocative thinkers in science studies offers a sophisticated new understanding of the nature of scientific, mathematical, and engineering practice and the production of scientific knowledge. Andrew Pickering offers a new approach to the unpredictable nature of change in science, taking into account the extraordinary number of factors—social, technological, conceptual, and natural—that interact to affect the creation of scientific knowledge. In his view, machines, instruments, facts, theories, conceptual and mathematical structures, disciplined practices, and human beings are in constantly shifting relationships with one another—"mangled" together in unforeseeable ways that are shaped by the contingencies of culture, time, and place. Situating material as well as human agency in their larger cultural context, Pickering uses case studies to show how this picture of the open, changeable nature of science advances a richer understanding of scientific work both past and present. Pickering examines in detail the building of the bubble chamber in particle physics, the search for the quark, the construction of the quarternion system in mathematics, and the introduction of computer-controlled machine tools in industry. He uses these examples to address the most basic elements of scientific practice—the development of experimental apparatus, the production of facts, the development of theory, and the interrelation of machines and social organization.
Download or read book Galileo Unbound written by David D. Nolte and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-12 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Galileo Unbound traces the journey that brought us from Galileo's law of free fall to today's geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman's dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once — setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.
Download or read book Image and Logic written by Peter Galison and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1997-10 with total page 1002 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engages with the impact of modern technology on experimental physicists. This study reveals how the increasing scale and complexity of apparatus has distanced physicists from the very science which drew them into experimenting, and has fragmented microphysics into different technical traditions.
Download or read book T rex and the Crater of Doom written by Walter Alvarez and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mount Everest slammed into the Earth, inducing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs. Vaporized detritus blasted through the atmosphere upon impact, falling back to Earth around the globe. Disastrous environmental consequences ensued: a giant tsunami, continent-scale wildfires, darkness, and cold, followed by sweltering greenhouse heat. When conditions returned to normal, half the plant and animal genera on Earth had perished. This horrific chain of events is now widely accepted as the solution to a great scientific mystery: what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Walter Alvarez, one of the Berkeley scientists who discovered evidence of the impact, tells the story behind the development of the initially controversial theory. It is a saga of high adventure in remote locations, of arduous data collection and intellectual struggle, of long periods of frustration ended by sudden breakthroughs, of friendships made and lost, and of the exhilaration of discovery that forever altered our understanding of Earth's geological history.
Download or read book A Whirlwind History of the Universe and Mankind written by Thomas Sanford and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.
Download or read book Knowledges written by Ellen Messer-Davidow and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Anyone interested in the relationship between disciplines--and today this means everyone--should read this collection, which is itself a model of interdisciplinarity.' -Stanley Fish, Duke University
Download or read book Facts And Mysteries In Elementary Particle Physics Revised Edition written by Martinus J G Veltman and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-03-21 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a comprehensive overview of modern particle physics accessible to anyone with a true passion for wanting to know how the universe works. We are introduced to the known particles of the world we live in. An elegant explanation of quantum mechanics and relativity paves the way for an understanding of the laws that govern particle physics. These laws are put into action in the world of accelerators, colliders and detectors found at institutions such as CERN and Fermilab that are in the forefront of technical innovation. Real world and theory meet using Feynman diagrams to solve the problems of infinities and deduce the need for the Higgs boson.Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics offers an incredible insight from an eyewitness and participant in some of the greatest discoveries in 20th century science. From Einstein's theory of relativity to the spectacular discovery of the Higgs particle, this book will fascinate and educate anyone interested in the world of quarks, leptons and gauge theories.This book also contains many thumbnail sketches of particle physics personalities, including contemporaries as seen through the eyes of the author. Illustrated with pictures, these candid sketches present rare, perceptive views of the characters that populate the field.The Chapter on Particle Theory, in a pre-publication, was termed 'superbly lucid' by David Miller in Nature (Vol. 396, 17 Dec. 1998, p. 642).
Download or read book Pions to Quarks written by Laurie M. Brown and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-11-24 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The historical studies and analyses provided in the volume are unique in their scope and level of detail.
Download or read book History of CERN III written by J. Krige and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 1996-12-18 with total page 675 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume covers the story of the history of CERN from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. The book is organized in three main parts. The first, containing contributions by historians of science, perceives the laboratory as being at the node of a complex of interconnected relationships between scientists and science managers on the staff, the users in the member states, and the governments which were called upon to finance the organization. Parts II and III include chapters by practising scientists. The former surveys the theoretical and experimental physics results obtained at CERN in this period, while the latter describes the development of the laboratory's accelerator complex and Charpak detection techniques.
Download or read book Radioactivity written by Michael F. L'Annunziata and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2016-05-13 with total page 934 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A recipient of the PROSE 2017 Honorable Mention in Chemistry & Physics, Radioactivity: Introduction and History, From the Quantum to Quarks, Second Edition provides a greatly expanded overview of radioactivity from natural and artificial sources on earth, radiation of cosmic origins, and an introduction to the atom and its nucleus. The book also includes historical accounts of the lives, works, and major achievements of many famous pioneers and Nobel Laureates from 1895 to the present. These leaders in the field have contributed to our knowledge of the science of the atom, its nucleus, nuclear decay, and subatomic particles that are part of our current knowledge of the structure of matter, including the role of quarks, leptons, and the bosons (force carriers). Users will find a completely revised and greatly expanded text that includes all new material that further describes the significant historical events on the topic dating from the 1950s to the present. - Provides a detailed account of nuclear radiation – its origin and properties, the atom, its nucleus, and subatomic particles including quarks, leptons, and force carriers (bosons) - Includes fascinating biographies of the pioneers in the field, including captivating anecdotes and insights - Presents meticulous accounts of experiments and calculations used by pioneers to confirm their findings
Download or read book Nuclear and Particle Physics written by Brian R. Martin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-02-08 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated and expanded edition of this well-known Physics textbook provides an excellent Undergraduate introduction to the field This new edition of Nuclear and Particle Physics continues the standards established by its predecessors, offering a comprehensive and highly readable overview of both the theoretical and experimental areas of these fields. The updated and expanded text covers a very wide range of topics in particle and nuclear physics, with an emphasis on the phenomenological approach to understanding experimental data. It is one of the few publications currently available that gives equal treatment to both fields, while remaining accessible to undergraduates. Early chapters cover basic concepts of nuclear and particle physics, before describing their respective phenomenologies and experimental methods. Later chapters interpret data through models and theories, such as the standard model of particle physics, and the liquid drop and shell models of nuclear physics, and also discuss many applications of both fields. The concluding two chapters deal with practical applications and outstanding issues, including extensions to the standard model, implications for particle astrophysics, improvements in medical imaging, and prospects for power production. There are a number of useful appendices. Other notable features include: New or expanded coverage of developments in relevant fields, such as the discovery of the Higgs boson, recent results in neutrino physics, research to test theories beyond the standard model (such as supersymmetry), and important technical advances, such as Penning traps used for high-precision measurements of nuclear masses. Practice problems at the end of chapters (excluding the last chapter) with solutions to selected problems provided in an appendix, as well as an extensive list of references for further reading. Companion website with solutions (odd-numbered problems for students, all problems for instructors), PowerPoint lecture slides, and other resources. As with previous editions, the balanced coverage and additional resources provided, makes Nuclear and Particle Physics an excellent foundation for advanced undergraduate courses, or a valuable general reference text for early graduate studies.
Download or read book Restructuring Of Physical Sciences In Europe And The United States 1945 1960 The Proceedings Of The International Conference written by Michelangelo De Maria and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 1989-06-01 with total page 829 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
