Download or read book Surprises in Theoretical Physics written by Rudolf Peierls and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Problems in theoretical physics often lead to paradoxical answers; yet closer reasoning and a more complete analysis invariably lead to the resolution of the paradox and to a deeper understanding of the physics involved. Drawing primarily from his own experience and that of his collaborators, Sir Rudolf Peierls selects examples of such "surprises" from a wide range of physical theory, from quantum mechanical scattering theory to the theory of relativity, from irreversibility in statistical mechanics to the behavior of electrons in solids. By studying such surprises and learning what kind of possibilities to look for, he suggests, scientists may be able to avoid errors in future problems. In some cases the surprise is that the outcome of a calculation is contrary to what physical intuition seems to demand. In other instances an approximation that looks convincing turns out to be unjustified, or one that looks unreasonable turns out to be adequate. Professor Peierls does not suggest, however, that theoretical physics is a hazardous game in which one can never foresee the surprises a detailed calculation might reveal. Rather, he contends, all the surprises discussed have rational explanations, most of which are very simple, at least in principle. This book is based on the author's lectures at the University of Washington in the spring of 1977 and at the Institut de Physique Nucleaire, University de Paris-Sud, Orsay, during the winter of 1977-1978.
Download or read book More Surprises in Theoretical Physics written by Rudolf Peierls and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-16 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like its predecessor, this book by the renowned physicist Sir Rudolf Peierls draws from many diverse fields of theoretical physics to present problems in which the answer differs from what our intuition had led us to expect. In some cases an apparently convincing approximation turns out to be misleading; in others a seemingly unmanageable problem turns out to have a simple answer. Peierls's intention, however, is not to treat theoretical physics as an unpredictable game in which such surprises happen at random. Instead he shows how in each case careful thought could have prepared us for the outcome. Peierls has chosen mainly problems from his own experience or that of his collaborators, often showing how classic problems can lend themselves to new insights. His book is aimed at both graduate students and their teachers. Praise for Surprises in Theoretical Physics: "A beautiful piece of stimulating scholarship and a delight to read. Physicists of all kinds will learn a great deal from it."--R. J. Blin-Stoyle, Contemporary Physics
Download or read book Sleeping Beauties in Theoretical Physics written by Thanu Padmanabhan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-02-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses a fascinating set of questions in theoretical physics which will both entertain and enlighten all students, teachers and researchers and other physics aficionados. These range from Newtonian mechanics to quantum field theory and cover several puzzling issues that do not appear in standard textbooks. Some topics cover conceptual conundrums, the solutions to which lead to surprising insights; some correct popular misconceptions in the textbook discussion of certain topics; others illustrate deep connections between apparently unconnected domains of theoretical physics; and a few provide remarkably simple derivations of results which are not often appreciated. The connoisseur of theoretical physics will enjoy a feast of pleasant surprises skilfully prepared by an internationally acclaimed theoretical physicist. Each topic is introduced with proper background discussion and special effort is taken to make the discussion self-contained, clear and comprehensible to anyone with an undergraduate education in physics.
Download or read book Surprises in theoretical physics written by Rudolf Ernst Peierls and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Surprises in Theoretical Casimir Physics written by William M.R. Simpson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-19 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite more than half a century of theoretical work, the Casimir effect is still not as fully understood as some suppose. In this treatise, the author uncovers new puzzles and paradoxes concerning this mysterious phenomenon. In particular, he clearly demonstrates that the most sophisticated theories fail when confronted with dielectrics in which the refractive index is not uniform but gradually changes.
Download or read book Physics of the Future written by Michio Kaku and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The renowned theoretical physicist and national bestselling author of The God Equation details the developments in computer technology, artificial intelligence, medicine, space travel, and more, that are poised to happen over the next century. “Mind-bending…. [An] alternately fascinating and frightening book.” —San Francisco Chronicle Space elevators. Internet-enabled contact lenses. Cars that fly by floating on magnetic fields. This is the stuff of science fiction—it’s also daily life in the year 2100. Renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku considers how these inventions will affect the world economy, addressing the key questions: Who will have jobs? Which nations will prosper? Kaku interviews three hundred of the world’s top scientists—working in their labs on astonishing prototypes. He also takes into account the rigorous scientific principles that regulate how quickly, how safely, and how far technologies can advance. In Physics of the Future, Kaku forecasts a century of earthshaking advances in technology that could make even the last centuries’ leaps and bounds seem insignificant.
Download or read book The Beautiful Invisible written by Giovanni Vignale and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents an account of the fundamental topics of theoretical physics from the viewpoint of imagination and beauty.
Download or read book Basic Theoretical Physics written by Uwe Krey and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-08-14 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise treatment embraces, in four parts, all the main aspects of theoretical physics. Recent topics such as holography and quantum cryptography are included. The book summarizes what a graduate student, physicist working in industry, or a physics teacher should master during his or her degree course. It will also be useful for deepening one’s insight and it adds new dimensions to understanding of these elemental concepts.
Download or read book The Hubbard Model written by Dionys Baeriswyl and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the slightly more than thirty years since its formulation, the Hubbard model has become a central component of modern many-body physics. It provides a paradigm for strongly correlated, interacting electronic systems and offers insights not only into the general underlying mathematical structure of many-body systems but also into the experimental behavior of many novel electronic materials. In condensed matter physics, the Hubbard model represents the simplest theoret ical framework for describing interacting electrons in a crystal lattice. Containing only two explicit parameters - the ratio ("Ujt") between the Coulomb repulsion and the kinetic energy of the electrons, and the filling (p) of the available electronic band - and one implicit parameter - the structure of the underlying lattice - it appears nonetheless capable of capturing behavior ranging from metallic to insulating and from magnetism to superconductivity. Introduced originally as a model of magnetism of transition met als, the Hubbard model has seen a spectacular recent renaissance in connection with possible applications to high-Tc superconductivity, for which particular emphasis has been placed on the phase diagram of the two-dimensional variant of the model. In mathematical physics, the Hubbard model has also had an essential role. The solution by Lieb and Wu of the one-dimensional Hubbard model by Bethe Ansatz provided the stimulus for a broad and continuing effort to study "solvable" many-body models. In higher dimensions, there have been important but isolated exact results (e. g. , N agoaka's Theorem).
Download or read book International Conference on Theoretical Physics written by Daniel Iagolnitzer and published by Birkhäuser. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 981 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The International Conference on Theoretical Physics, TH-2002, took place in Paris from July 22 to 27 in the Conference Center of the UNESCO, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, under aegis of the IUPAP, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and of the French and Euro pean Physical Societies, with a large support of several French, European and international Institutions. International and crossdisciplinary, TH-2002 welcomed around 1200 partic ipants representing all domains of modern theoretical physics. The conference offered a high-level scientific program, including 18 plenary lectures, 45 general lectures in thematic sessions and 140 more specialized lectures, partly invited and partly selected among proposals received from participants. Around 500 contribu tions were also presented as posters. Plenary lectures as well as general thematic lectures were addressed to a general audience of theoricians, not only to specialists. According to our commitments towards UNESCO and other sponsoring insti tutions, TH-2002 attributed more than 200 fellowships, mostly to scientists from developing countries and Eastern Europe, covering registration fees and, for more than half of them, stay expenses with student type accomodation. Special highlights of the conference included • the opening ceremony on July 22, with the participation of Mrs Claudie Haignere, French Minister of Research, and M. Walter Erdelen, General Ad joint Director for Sciences at UNESCO. Their opening addresses were espe cially appreciated and are reproduced below. This ceremony preceded the first lecture by Professor Cohen-Tannoudji, Physics Nobel prize winner.
Download or read book Surprises in Theoretical Physics Based on Lectures Given at the University of Washington in Spring 1977 and at the Institute de Physique Nucl aire Universit de Paris Sud Orsay in Winter 1977 78 written by Rudolf Ernst Peierls and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Trouble with Physics written by Lee Smolin and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample Text
Download or read book Warped Passages written by Lisa Randall and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-21 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The universe has many secrets. It may hide additional dimensions of space other than the familier three we recognize. There might even be another universe adjacent to ours, invisible and unattainable . . . for now. Warped Passages is a brilliantly readable and altogether exhilarating journey that tracks the arc of discovery from early twentieth-century physics to the razor's edge of modern scientific theory. One of the world's leading theoretical physicists, Lisa Randall provides astonishing scientific possibilities that, until recently, were restricted to the realm of science fiction. Unraveling the twisted threads of the most current debates on relativity, quantum mechanics, and gravity, she explores some of the most fundamental questions posed by Nature—taking us into the warped, hidden dimensions underpinning the universe we live in, demystifying the science of the myriad worlds that may exist just beyond our own.
Download or read book Concepts of Elementary Particle Physics written by Michael Edward Peskin and published by Oxford Master Physics. This book was released on 2019 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This particle physics textbook for senior undergraduates and early graduates explains the Standard Model of particle physics, both the theory and its experimental basis. The point of view is thoroughly modern. Theory relevant to the experiments is developed in detail but in a simplified way without needing full knowledge of quantum field theory.
Download or read book The Second Kind of Impossible written by Paul Steinhardt and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize* One of the most fascinating scientific detective stories of the last fifty years, an exciting quest for a new form of matter. “A riveting tale of derring-do” (Nature), this book reads like James Gleick’s Chaos combined with an Indiana Jones adventure. When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s thirty-five-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter—one that raises the possibility of new materials with never before seen properties, but that violates laws set in stone for centuries. Steinhardt dubs this new form of matter “quasicrystal.” The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible. The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardt’s scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecture—that nature made quasicrystals long before humans discovered them. Along the way, his team encounters clandestine collectors, corrupt scientists, secret diaries, international smugglers, and KGB agents. Their quest culminates in a daring expedition to a distant corner of the Earth, in pursuit of tiny fragments of a meteorite forged at the birth of the solar system. Steinhardt’s discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple, and beautiful—and Steinhardt’s firsthand account is “packed with discovery, disappointment, exhilaration, and persistence...This book is a front-row seat to history as it is made” (Nature).
Download or read book New Foundations for Classical Mechanics written by D. Hestenes and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a textbook on classical mechanics at the intermediate level, but its main purpose is to serve as an introduction to a new mathematical language for physics called geometric algebra. Mechanics is most commonly formulated today in terms of the vector algebra developed by the American physicist J. Willard Gibbs, but for some applications of mechanics the algebra of complex numbers is more efficient than vector algebra, while in other applica tions matrix algebra works better. Geometric algebra integrates all these algebraic systems into a coherent mathematical language which not only retains the advantages of each special algebra but possesses powerful new capabilities. This book covers the fairly standard material for a course on the mechanics of particles and rigid bodies. However, it will be seen that geometric algebra brings new insights into the treatment of nearly every topic and produces simplifications that move the subject quickly to advanced levels. That has made it possible in this book to carry the treatment of two major topics in mechanics well beyond the level of other textbooks. A few words are in order about the unique treatment of these two topics, namely, rotational dynamics and celestial mechanics.
Download or read book Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists written by A. Zee and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise, modern textbook on group theory written especially for physicists Although group theory is a mathematical subject, it is indispensable to many areas of modern theoretical physics, from atomic physics to condensed matter physics, particle physics to string theory. In particular, it is essential for an understanding of the fundamental forces. Yet until now, what has been missing is a modern, accessible, and self-contained textbook on the subject written especially for physicists. Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists fills this gap, providing a user-friendly and classroom-tested text that focuses on those aspects of group theory physicists most need to know. From the basic intuitive notion of a group, A. Zee takes readers all the way up to how theories based on gauge groups could unify three of the four fundamental forces. He also includes a concise review of the linear algebra needed for group theory, making the book ideal for self-study. Provides physicists with a modern and accessible introduction to group theory Covers applications to various areas of physics, including field theory, particle physics, relativity, and much more Topics include finite group and character tables; real, pseudoreal, and complex representations; Weyl, Dirac, and Majorana equations; the expanding universe and group theory; grand unification; and much more The essential textbook for students and an invaluable resource for researchers Features a brief, self-contained treatment of linear algebra An online illustration package is available to professors Solutions manual (available only to professors)
