The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics PDF Download

Author: Jagdish Mehra
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 96

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Author: Jagdish Mehra
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789810249847
Category : Quantum theory
Languages : en
Pages : 1408

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Book Description

Author: Jagdish Mehra
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 981449285X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1436

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Book Description
The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics brings together 37 selected essays. Many of these essays were first presented as lectures at various universities in Europe and the USA, and then published as reports or articles. Their enlarged, final versions were published in the joint work of Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, while the other essays were published as articles in scientific journals or in edited books. Here they are published together as a tribute to the Mehra-Rechenberg collaboration sustained for several decades, and cover various aspects of quantum theory, the special and general theories of relativity, the foundations of statistical mechanics, and some of their fundamental applications. Two essays, ‘Albert Einstein's “First” Paper’ (Essay 1) and ‘The Dream of Leonardo da Vinci’ (Essay 37), lie outside the major themes treated in this book, but are included here because of their historical interest. The origin of each essay is explained in a footnote.This book deals with the most important themes developed in the first 40 years of the twentieth century by some of the greatest pioneers and architects of modern physics. It is a vital source of information about what can veritably be described as ‘the golden age of theoretical physics’.

Author: Margarita Ryutova-Kemoklidze
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642493572
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Quantum mechanics dates its anniversaries from 1925, the year when its first versions, matrix and wave mechanics, were born. The quan tum itself had by that time reached the age of 25, having first seen the light of day on the eve of the nativity of the 20th century itself. Either shunned or completely unnoticed, the quantum seemed for a long time to be an illegitimate child. Even Max Planck himself, its own father, could not bring himself to accept his monstrous child until he was forced to do so -that is, until it became clear that the problems which were arising in physics could not be solved without the quantum. At first the quantum "like a greasy stain, soaked through all the different branches of physics" and then, like an explosion, came the creation of quantum mechanics. The overwhelming majority of those who first created quantum mechanics were just about of an age with the quantum itself. These were very young people, born as the new century was born, give or take a year or so. Hence the phrase was coined - "the quantum generation". At that time there was quantum everything - towns, steps, park benches, lodging houses and so, natu rally, the quantum generation.

Author: Abdus Salam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521131032
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Originally published in 1972, the twelve articles in this volume discuss various aspects of quantum mechanics that owe their origin to the work of P. A. M. Dirac. Each of the distinguished contributors reviews Dirac's work and discusses its development in some detail. Since Dirac's work ranged widely, the resulting volume constitutes a valuable survey of the state of quantum mechanics. A small part of the book contains personal reminiscences of Dirac in Cambridge and of his early visits to the USA and gives a historical account of the development of quantum mechanics during the decade 1924-1933, aptly termed 'the golden age of theoretical physics'.

Author: Jagdish Mehra
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9780387951744
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Quantum Theory, together with the principles of special and general relativity, constitute a scientific revolution that has profoundly influenced the way in which we think about the universe and the fundamental forces that govern it. The Historical Development of Quantum Theory is a definitive historical study of that scientific work and the human struggles that accompanied it from the beginning. Drawing upon such materials as the resources of the Archives for the History of Quantum Physics, the Niels Bohr Archives, and the archives and scientific correspondence of the principal quantum physicists, as well as Jagdish Mehra's personal discussions over many years with most of the architects of quantum theory, the authors have written a rigorous scientific history of quantum theory in a deeply human context. This multivolume work presents a rich account of an intellectual triumph: a unique analysis of the creative scientific process. The Historical Development of Quantum Theory is science, history, and biography, all wrapped in the story of a great human enterprise. Its lessons will be an aid to those working in the sciences and humanities alike.

Author: S. D'Agostino
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401090343
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
This book presents a perspective on the history of theoretical physics over the past two hundreds years. It comprises essays on the history of pre-Maxwellian electrodynamics, of Maxwell's and Hertz's field theories, and of the present century's relativity and quantum physics. A common thread across the essays is the search for and the exploration of themes that influenced significant con ceptual changes in the great movement of ideas and experiments which heralded the emergence of theoretical physics (hereafter: TP). The fun. damental change involved the recognition of the scien tific validity of theoretical physics. In the second half of the nine teenth century, it was not easy for many physicists to understand the nature and scope of theoretical physics and of its adept, the theoreti cal physicist. A physicist like Ludwig Boltzmann, one of the eminent contributors to the new discipline, confessed in 1895 that, "even the formulation of this concept [of a theoretical physicist] is not entirely without difficulty". 1 Although science had always been divided into theory and experiment, it was only in physics that theoretical work developed into a major research and teaching specialty in its own right. 2 It is true that theoretical physics was mainly a creation of tum of-the century German physics, where it received full institutional recognition, but it is also undeniable that outstanding physicists in other European countries, namely, Ampere, Fourier, and Maxwell, also had an important part in its creation.

Author: Jim Al-Khalili
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141965010
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
For over 700 years the international language of science was Arabic. In Pathfinders, Jim al-Khalili celebrates the forgotten pioneers who helped shape our understanding of the world. All scientists have stood on the shoulders of giants. But most historical accounts today suggest that the achievements of the ancient Greeks were not matched until the European Renaissance in the 16th century, a 1,000-year period dismissed as the Dark Ages. In the ninth-century, however, the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Abu Ja'far Abdullah al-Ma'mun, created the greatest centre of learning the world had ever seen, known as Bayt al-Hikma, the House of Wisdom. The scientists and philosophers he brought together sparked a period of extraordinary discovery, in every field imaginable, launching a golden age of Arabic science. Few of these scientists, however, are now known in the western world. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, a polymath who outshines everyone in history except Leonardo da Vinci? The Syrian astronomer Ibn al-Shatir, whose manuscripts would inspire Copernicus's heliocentric model of the solar system? Or the 13th-century Andalucian physician Ibn al-Nafees, who correctly described blood circulation 400 years before William Harvey? Iraqi Ibn al-Haytham who practised the modern scientific method 700 years before Bacon and Descartes, and founded the field of modern optics before Newton? Or even ninth-century zoologist al-Jahith, who developed a theory of natural selection a thousand years before Darwin? The West needs to see the Islamic world through new eyes and the Islamic world, in turn, to take pride in its extraordinarily rich heritage. Anyone who reads this book will understand why.

Author: Steven Weinberg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781009513470
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Steven Weinberg shares his candid thoughts, in his own words, on theoretical physics and cosmology, along with personal anecdotes and recollections of the people who helped shape his career. These memoirs of his life as a scientist and public figure cover his student days and early career, through the golden age of particle physics in the 1970s, his being awarded the Nobel prize, through to the end of the twentieth century. In addition to his research insights, Weinberg provides glimpses into his life in academia more broadly: dealing with the 'two-body problem', tenure, international conference travel, his book-writing, advisory work with JASON, and his advocacy for the Superconducting Super Collider. Physicists, historians of science and interested readers will find the presentation engaging and often witty, as Weinberg reflects on his life in physics.

Author: Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521086000
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
These twelve articles discuss aspects of quantum mechanics that owe their origin to the work of P. A. M. Dirac.