Download or read book 101 Quantum Questions written by Kenneth W. Ford and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ken Ford’s mission is to help us understand the “great ideas” of quantum physics—ideas such as wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, superposition, and conservation. These fundamental concepts provide the structure for 101 Quantum Questions, an authoritative yet engaging book for the general reader in which every question and answer brings out one or more basic features of the mysterious world of the quantum—the physics of the very small. Nuclear researcher and master teacher, Ford covers everything from quarks, quantum jumps, and what causes stars to shine, to practical applications ranging from lasers and superconductors to light-emitting diodes. Ford’s lively answers are enriched by Paul Hewitt's drawings, numerous photos of physicists, and anecdotes, many from Ford’s own experience. Organized for cover-to-cover reading, 101 Quantum Questions also is great for browsing. Some books focus on a single subject such as the standard model of particles, or string theory, or fusion energy. This book touches all those topics and more, showing us that disparate natural phenomena, as well as a host of manmade inventions, can be understood in terms of a few key ideas. Yet Ford does not give us simplistic explanations. He assumes a serious reader wanting to gain real understanding of the essentials of quantum physics. Ken Ford's other books include The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone (Harvard 2004), which Esquire magazine recommended as the best way to gain an understanding of quantum physics. Ford's new book, a sequel to the earlier one, makes the quantum world even more accessible.
Download or read book Quantum Questions written by Ken Wilber and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2001-04-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mystical writings of the world’s great physicists—now in one eye-opening volume that bridges the gap between science and religion Quantum Questions collects the mystical writings of each of the major physicists involved in the discovery of quantum physics and relativity, including Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Max Planck. The selections are written in nontechnical language and will be of interest to scientists and nonscientists alike.
Download or read book Open Questions in Quantum Physics written by G. Tarozzi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Due to its extraordinary predictive power and the great generality of its mathematical structure, quantum theory is able, at least in principle, to describe all the microscopic and macroscopic properties of the physical world, from the subatomic to the cosmological level. Nevertheless, ever since the Copen hagen and Gottingen schools in 1927 gave it the definitive formu lation, now commonly known as the orthodox interpretation, the theory has suffered from very serious logical and epistemologi cal problems. These shortcomings were immediately pointed out by some of the principal founders themselves of quantum theory, to wit, Planck, Einstein, Ehrenfest, Schrodinger, and de Broglie, and by the philosopher Karl Popper, who assumed a position of radical criticism with regard to the standard formulation of the theory. The aim of the participants in the workshop on Open Questions in Quantum Physics, which was held in Bari (Italy), in the Department of Physics of the University, during May 1983 and whose Proceedings are collected in the present volume, accord ingly was to discuss the formal, the physical and the epistemo logical difficulties of quantum theory in the light of recent crucial developments and to propose some possible resolutions of three basic conceptual dilemmas, which are posed respectively ~: (a) the physical developments of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument and Bell's theorem, i. e.
Download or read book QBism written by Hans Christian von Baeyer and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Measured by the accuracy of its predictions and the scope of its technological applications, quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in science—as well as one of the most misunderstood. The deeper meaning of quantum mechanics remains controversial almost a century after its invention. Providing a way past quantum theory’s paradoxes and puzzles, QBism offers a strikingly new interpretation that opens up for the nonspecialist reader the profound implications of quantum mechanics for how we understand and interact with the world. Short for Quantum Bayesianism, QBism adapts many of the conventional features of quantum mechanics in light of a revised understanding of probability. Bayesian probability, unlike the standard “frequentist probability,” is defined as a numerical measure of the degree of an observer’s belief that a future event will occur or that a particular proposition is true. Bayesianism’s advantages over frequentist probability are that it is applicable to singular events, its probability estimates can be updated based on acquisition of new information, and it can effortlessly include frequentist results. But perhaps most important, much of the weirdness associated with quantum theory—the idea that an atom can be in two places at once, or that signals can travel faster than the speed of light, or that Schrödinger’s cat can be simultaneously dead and alive—dissolves under the lens of QBism. Using straightforward language without equations, Hans Christian von Baeyer clarifies the meaning of quantum mechanics in a commonsense way that suggests a new approach to physics in general.
Download or read book The Quantum World written by Kenneth W. Ford and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Kenneth W. Ford shows us in The Quantum World, the laws governing the very small and the very swift defy common sense and stretch our minds to the limit. Drawing on a deep familiarity with the discoveries of the twentieth century, Ford gives an appealing account of quantum physics that will help the serious reader make sense of a science that, for all its successes, remains mysterious. In order to make the book even more suitable for classroom use, the author, assisted by Diane Goldstein, has included a new section of Quantum Questions at the back of the book. A separate answer manual to these 300+ questions is available; visit The Quantum World website for ordering information. There is also a cloth edition of this book, which does not include the Quantum Questions included in this paperback edition.
Download or read book Quantum Computing written by Eleanor G. Rieffel and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-03-04 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thorough exposition of quantum computing and the underlying concepts of quantum physics, with explanations of the relevant mathematics and numerous examples.
Download or read book Rabi Scientist Citizen written by John Rigden and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-08-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Rabi’s voice comes through vividly and forcefully. This is a work of great inspiration.” — Aage Bohr, Professor of Physics, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark “This excellent work is the first full biography of Professor Rabi, the scientist who epitomizes the passing of the torch of physics from Europe to the United States almost a half-century ago. As I read this biography it was almost as if Rabi himself were retelling these events so that all can share his memories of those exciting and important years and benefit from his experience and wisdom.” — Rosalyn S. Yalow, Nobel Laureate in Medicine “A delightful book about a delightful man. Rabi always found a simpler way to do any given experiment, and this made him a great physicist. He has now become a sage who has given the most useful advice to all his colleagues.” — Hans A. Bethe, Nobel Laureate in Physics and Professor Emeritus of Physics, Cornell University “A steadily fascinating account of an exemplary life. Rigden gives the lay reader a clear idea of what the physicist is seeing, what leads him to such strange thoughts. His account of ‘The Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer’ gives more useful information in a few pages than I could find in the near thousand-page transcript of the hearings.” —Howard Nemerov, Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet and Professor of English, Washington University “An admirable biography, the best possible replacement for the memoirs that Rabi never found time to write.” McGeorge Bundy, Professor of History, New York University “The twentieth century [was] a time of high adventure in physics. It is no wonder that Rabi, with his ebullience and complex genius and wisdom found his profession ‘wonderful.’ As Rigden demonstrates in this complete and very good book, physics was wonderful for Rabi and Rabi was wonderful for physics.” — R. R. Wilson, Science “The growth, in this century, of the American physics community — in size, stature, and influence — is certainly a historical development with deep roots and profound implications. John Rigden’s Rabi: Scientist and Citizen is a fascinating treatment of that subject as reflected in the career and person of Isidor I. Rabi... The [book] sets forth in coherent and sometimes passionate prose an impressive account of I. I. Rabi’s self-image and vision, a vision shared by an important group of physicist colleagues... an engaging personal portrait.” — Allan A. Needell, Isis: A Journal of the History of Science “A real tour de force and a pleasure to read.” — John G. King, Physics Today “Rabi’s life was remarkable, full of incident, vision and action, including war, hot and cold. The biography is a masterpiece, rich in anecdote and never losing the narrative drive.” — New Scientist “Nobel prize-winning physicist I. I. Rabi was described by journalist Daniel Greenberg in 1967 as the éminence grise of America’s scientific establishment. During the Second World War he was in charge of radar research as an associate director of the MIT Radiation Laboratory and was a senior consultant for Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. After the war he helped to establish the Brookhaven National Laboratory; he sat on the General Advisory Committee (GAC) of the Atomic Energy Commission, eventually succeeding Oppenheimer as chairman; under Eisenhower he was an architect of the president’s Science Advisory Committee. As an elder statesman in the American Cold War scientific community, he was concerned to solidify both the political and the cultural power of science. John S. Rigden’s biography of Rabi, now reissued with a new preface by the author, emphasizes Rabi’s view of science as properly not just a source of technological and military strength, but as ‘the center of culture’.” — Charles Thorpe, British Journal for the History of Science “Rigden, physicist and editor of the American Journal of Physics, has created an intimate portrait of this Titan of 20th century science... The book takes the reader into a world where powerful physical forces and powerful political forces come together to shape our century.” — Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society “[A] satisfying, sympathetic portrait of a modest, brilliant scientist who regards his calling as ‘sacred,’ a religious exploration of ‘one God,’ the God being nature. Readers will treasure equally the story of Rabi’s molecular-beam experiments which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1944 and a gallery of revealing glimpses of his scientist friends, chief among them J. Robert Oppenheimer.” — Publishers Weekly “I. I. Rabi is one of this country’s most distinguished physicists... his life has encompassed all of this century and the revolution in physics that it produced... an interesting story, ably told by John S. Rigden, a physicist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.” — Lee Dembart, Los Angeles Times
Download or read book Quantum Optics written by Marlan O. Scully and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-09-04 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An in-depth and wide-ranging introduction to the field of quantum optics.
Download or read book On Theories written by William Demopoulos and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned philosopherÕs final work, illuminating how the logical empiricist tradition has failed to appreciate the role of actual experiments in forming its philosophy of science. The logical empiricist treatment of physics dominated twentieth-century philosophy of science. But the logical empiricist tradition, for all it accomplished, does not do justice to the way in which empirical evidence functions in modern physics. In his final work, the late philosopher of science William Demopoulos contends that philosophers have failed to provide an adequate epistemology of science because they have failed to appreciate the tightly woven character of theory and evidence. As a consequence, theory comes apart from evidence. This trouble is nowhere more evident than in theorizing about particle and quantum physics. Arguing that we must consider actual experiments as they have unfolded across history, Demopoulos provides a new epistemology of theories and evidence, albeit one that stands on the shoulders of giants. On Theories finds clarity in Isaac NewtonÕs suspicion of mere Òhypotheses.Ó NewtonÕs methodology lies in the background of Jean PerrinÕs experimental investigations of molecular reality and of the subatomic investigations of J. J. Thomson and Robert Millikan. Demopoulos extends this account to offer novel insights into the distinctive nature of quantum reality, where a logico-mathematical reconstruction of Bohrian complementarity meets John Stewart BellÕs empirical analysis of EinsteinÕs Òlocal realism.Ó On Theories ultimately provides a new interpretation of quantum probabilities as themselves objectively representing empirical reality.
Download or read book Problems in Quantum Mechanics written by F. Constantinescu and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International Series in Natural Philosophy, Volume 30: Problems in Quantum Mechanics focuses on the processes, principles, reactions, and methodologies involved in quantum mechanics. The publication first elaborates on the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, simple quantum systems, and mean values and uncertainty relations. Discussions focus on mean values of dynamical variables, uncertainty relations, eigenfunctions and the energy spectrum, motion in a central field, matrix representation of vectors and operators, Hubert spaces, and operators in Hilbert space. The text then takes a look at mean values and uncertainty relations, semi-classical approximation, and pictures and representations. The book takes a look at orbital angular momentum and spin, systems of identical particles, and perturbation theory. Topics include variational method, stationary state perturbation theory, isotopic spin, second quantization, properties of angular momentum operators, and angular momentum and rotations of coordinate axes. The manuscript also ponders on functions used in quantum mechanics, relativistic quantum mechanics, and radiation theory. The publication is a dependable reference for researchers interested in quantum mechanics.
Download or read book Quantum Computing Since Democritus written by Scott Aaronson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Takes students and researchers on a tour through some of the deepest ideas of maths, computer science and physics.
Download or read book Beyond Weird written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Since Niels Bohr said this many years ago, quantum mechanics has only been getting more shocking. We now realize that it’s not really telling us that “weird” things happen out of sight, on the tiniest level, in the atomic world: rather, everything is quantum. But if quantum mechanics is correct, what seems obvious and right in our everyday world is built on foundations that don’t seem obvious or right at all—or even possible. An exhilarating tour of the contemporary quantum landscape, Beyond Weird is a book about what quantum physics really means—and what it doesn’t. Science writer Philip Ball offers an up-to-date, accessible account of the quest to come to grips with the most fundamental theory of physical reality, and to explain how its counterintuitive principles underpin the world we experience. Over the past decade it has become clear that quantum physics is less a theory about particles and waves, uncertainty and fuzziness, than a theory about information and knowledge—about what can be known, and how we can know it. Discoveries and experiments over the past few decades have called into question the meanings and limits of space and time, cause and effect, and, ultimately, of knowledge itself. The quantum world Ball shows us isn’t a different world. It is our world, and if anything deserves to be called “weird,” it’s us.
Download or read book The Upper World written by Femi Fadugba and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you had the chance to change your future, would you take it? Perfect for fans of Neal Shusterman and Jason Reynolds, this powerhouse, mind-bending YA debut follows two teens, a generation apart, whose fates collide across time—and outside of it. Today During arguably the worst week of Esso’s life, an accident knocks him into an incredible world—a place beyond space or time, where he can see glimpses of the past and future. But if what he sees there is true, he might not have much longer to live, unless he can use his new gift to change the course of history. Tomorrow Rhia’s past is filled with questions, none of which she expects a new physics tutor to answer. But Dr. Esso’s not here to help Rhia. He’s here because he needs her help—to unravel a tragedy that happened fifteen years ago. One that holds the key not only to Rhia’s past, but to a future worth fighting for. Soon to be a major Netflix movie starring Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya! (Get Out, Black Panther, Judas and the Black Messiah)
Download or read book The Quantum Story written by Jim Baggott and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twentieth century was defined by physics. From the minds of the world's leading physicists there flowed a river of ideas that would transport mankind to the pinnacle of wonderment and to the very depths of human despair. This was a century that began with the certainties of absolute knowledge and ended with the knowledge of absolute uncertainty. It was a century in which physicists developed weapons with the capacity to destroy our reality, whilst at the same time denying us the possibility that we can ever properly comprehend it. Almost everything we think we know about the nature of our world comes from one theory of physics. This theory was discovered and refined in the first thirty years of the twentieth century and went on to become quite simply the most successful theory of physics ever devised. Its concepts underpin much of the twenty-first century technology that we have learned to take for granted. But its success has come at a price, for it has at the same time completely undermined our ability to make sense of the world at the level of its most fundamental constituents. Rejecting the fundamental elements of uncertainty and chance implied by quantum theory, Albert Einstein once famously declared that 'God does not play dice'. Niels Bohr claimed that anybody who is not shocked by the theory has not understood it. The charismatic American physicist Richard Feynman went further: he claimed that nobody understands it. This is quantum theory, and this book tells its story. Jim Baggott presents a celebration of this wonderful yet wholly disconcerting theory, with a history told in forty episodes — significant moments of truth or turning points in the theory's development. From its birth in the porcelain furnaces used to study black body radiation in 1900, to the promise of stimulating new quantum phenomena to be revealed by CERN's Large Hadron Collider over a hundred years later, this is the extraordinary story of the quantum world. Oxford Landmark Science books are 'must-read' classics of modern science writing which have crystallized big ideas, and shaped the way we think.
Download or read book Quantum Social Science written by Emmanuel Haven and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by world experts in the foundations of quantum mechanics and its applications to social science, this book shows how elementary quantum mechanical principles can be applied to decision-making paradoxes in psychology and used in modelling information in finance and economics. The book starts with a thorough overview of some of the salient differences between classical, statistical and quantum mechanics. It presents arguments on why quantum mechanics can be applied outside of physics and defines quantum social science. The issue of the existence of quantum probabilistic effects in psychology, economics and finance is addressed and basic questions and answers are provided. Aimed at researchers in economics and psychology, as well as physics, basic mathematical preliminaries and elementary concepts from quantum mechanics are defined in a self-contained way.
Download or read book Fundamentals of Quantum Optics written by John R. Klauder and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This graduate-level text surveys the fundamentals of quantum optics, including the quantum theory of partial coherence and the nature of the relations between classical and quantum theories of coherence.1968 edition.
Download or read book Foundations of Quantum Mechanics written by Travis Norsen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authored by an acclaimed teacher of quantum physics and philosophy, this textbook pays special attention to the aspects that many courses sweep under the carpet. Traditional courses in quantum mechanics teach students how to use the quantum formalism to make calculations. But even the best students - indeed, especially the best students - emerge rather confused about what, exactly, the theory says is going on, physically, in microscopic systems. This supplementary textbook is designed to help such students understand that they are not alone in their confusions (luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Erwin Schroedinger, and John Stewart Bell having shared them), to sharpen their understanding of the most important difficulties associated with interpreting quantum theory in a realistic manner, and to introduce them to the most promising attempts to formulate the theory in a way that is physically clear and coherent. The text is accessible to students with at least one semester of prior exposure to quantum (or "modern") physics and includes over a hundred engaging end-of-chapter "Projects" that make the book suitable for either a traditional classroom or for self-study.
