560 results for "Physics"

Pauli Lectures on Physics

Wolfgang Pauli
These lectures covering topics basic to classical and modern physics were given by Pauli at the Zurich Federal Institute, where they were transcribed by his collaborators. They have now been translated and edited for English publication, and are introduced by Victor Weisskopf, who writes as follows: "It is often said that scientific texts quickly become obsolete. Why are the Pauli lectures brought to the public today, when some of them were given as long as twenty years ago? The reason is simple: Pauli's way of presenting physics is never out of date. His famous article on the foundations of quantum mechanics appeared in 1933 in the German encyclopedia "Handbuch der Physik." Twenty-five years later it reappeared practically unchanged in a new edition, whereas most other contributions to this encyclopedia had to be completely rewritten. The reason for this remarkable fact lies in Pauli's style, which is commensurate to the greatness of its subject in its clarity and impact. Style in scientific writing is a quality that today is on the point of vanishing. The pressure of fast publication is so great that people rush into print with hurriedly written papers and books that show little concern for careful formulation of ideas. Mathematical and instrumental techniques have become complicated and difficult today; they demand so much skill and training that most of the effort of writing and learning is devoted to the acquisition of this skill instead of insight into important concepts. Essential ideas of physics are often lost in the dense forest of mathematical reasoning. This situation need not be so. Pauli's lectures show how physical ideas can be presented clearly and in good mathematical form, without being hidden in formalistic expertise."
MIT Press 1977

Science and Its History A Reassessment of the Historiography of Science

Joseph Agassi
Professor Joseph Agassi has published his Towards an Historiography of Science in 1963. It received many reviews by notable academics, including Maurice Finocchiaro, Charles Gillispie, Thomas S. Kuhn, Geroge Mora, Nicholas Rescher, and L. Pearce Williams. It is still in use in many courses in the philosophy and history of science. Here it appears in a revised and updated version with responses to these reviews and with many additional chapters, some already classic, others new. They are all paradigms of the author’s innovative way of writing fresh and engaging chapters in the history of the natural sciences.
Springer Netherlands 2010-11-22 514 pages

The Principles of Mechanics Presented in a New Form

Heinrich Hertz
This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.
Alpha Editions 2020-09-29 306 pages

Elements of advanced quantum theory

Ziman, John Michael
This is a textbook of advanced quantum theory for graduate students and research workers which gives a connected mathematical derivation of the important results, concentrating on the central ideas without burdening the exposition with elaborate detail or unnecessary rigour, and explains, in the simplest possible terms, the symbols and concepts which frequently confront the active research worker in solid state, nuclear and high-energy physics, and in theoretical chemistry. Professor Ziman brings to his task the sympathetic guidance of a lecturer who has not forgotten the difficulties that he himself had to surmount in mastering his subject.
Cambridge university 1992 269 pages

Bryce DeWitt's lectures on gravitation

DeWitt, Bryce S.
Bryce DeWitt, a student of Nobel Laureate Julian Schwinger, was himself one of the towering figures in 20th century physics, particularly renowned for his seminal contributions to quantum field theory, numerical relativity and quantum gravity. In late 1971, DeWitt gave a course on gravitation at Stanford University, leaving almost 400 pages of detailed handwritten notes. Written with clarity and authority, and edited by his former student Steven Christensen, these timeless lecture notes, containing material or expositions not found in any other textbooks, are a gem to be discovered or re-discovered by anyone seriously interested in the study of gravitational physics--P. 4 of cover.
Springer 2011-02-23 287 pages

Concepts of mass in contemporary physics and philosophy

Jammer, Max
The concept of mass is one of the most fundamental notions in physics, comparable in importance only to those of space and time. But in contrast to the latter, which are the subject of innumerable physical and philosophical studies, the concept of mass has been but rarely investigated. Here Max Jammer, a leading philosopher and historian of physics, provides a concise but comprehensive, coherent, and self-contained study of the concept of mass as it is defined, interpreted, and applied in contemporary physics and as it is critically examined in the modern philosophy of science. With its focus on theories proposed after the mid-1950s, the book is the first of its kind, covering the most recent experimental and theoretical investigations into the nature of mass and its role in modern physics, from the realm of elementary particles to the cosmology of galaxies. The book begins with an analysis of the persistent difficulties of defining inertial mass in a noncircular manner and discusses the related question of whether mass is an observational or a theoretical concept. It then studies the notion of mass in special relativity and the delicate problem of whether the relativistic rest mass is the only legitimate notion of mass and whether it is identical with the classical (Newtonian) mass. This is followed by a critical analysis of the different derivations of the famous mass-energy relationship E = mc2 and its conflicting interpretations. Jammer then devotes a chapter to the distinction between inertial and gravitational mass and to the various versions of the so-called equivalence principle with which Newton initiated his Principia but which also became the starting point of Einstein's general relativity, which supersedes Newtonian physics. The book concludes with a presentation of recently proposed global and local dynamical theories of the origin and nature of mass. Destined to become a much-consulted reference for philosophers and physicists, this book is also written for the nonprofessional general reader interested in the foundations of physics.
Princeton Univ. Press 2000 180 pages

Steven Weinberg: selected papers

Weinberg, Steven
Steven Weinberg (1933-2021) was a theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate who contributed tremendously to particle physics. Until his death, Weinberg was regarded by many as the greatest living scientist. His most well-known work was the formulation of electroweak theory for which he earned the 1979 Nobel Prize with Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam, but his research spanned many other fields. Examples include effective Lagrangians, quantum chromodynamics, supersymmetry, quantum gravity, and cosmology.Weinberg's publications were renowned not only for their profundity and originality but also for their devastating logic and clarity. This volume brings together 37 of his most significant papers, together with commentaries, providing today's physicists with easy access to these seminal papers. More than just a collection, this selection by editor Michael Duff places each article into a comprehensive overview, providing the reader with the scientific and historical context of Weinberg's finest papers.
World Scientific 2023 465 pages

Cosmic strings and other topological defects

Vilenkin, A.
This book is a comprehensive and coherent introduction to the role of cosmic strings and other topological defects in the universe. After an introduction to standard cosmological theory and the theory of phase transitions in the early universe, the book then describes, in turn, the properties, formation, and cosmological implications of cosmic strings, monopoles, domain walls and textures. It concludes with a chapter considering the role of topological defects in inflationary universe models. Ample introductory material is included to make the book readily accessible. It will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology.
Cambridge University Press 1994 517 pages