The Beauty Of Physics

Author : A. Ravi P. Rau
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198709919
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Beauty of Physics written by A. Ravi P. Rau and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beauty of physics lies in its coherence in terms of a few fundamental concepts and principles. Even physicists have occasion to marvel at the overarching reach of basic principles and their ability to account for features stretching from the microscopic sub-atomic world to the cosmological expanses of the Universe. While mathematics is its natural language, physics is mostly about patterns, connections, and relations between objects and phenomena, and it is this aspect that is emphasized in this book. Since science tries to connect phenomena that at first sight appear widely different, while boiling them down to a small set of essential principles and laws, metaphor and analogy pervade our subject. Consider the pendulum, its swing from one extreme to the other often invoked in social or economic contexts. In molecular vibrations, such as in the CO2 molecule, the quantum motions of electrons and nuclei are metaphorically the pendulums. In electromagnetic radiation, including the visible light we observe, there are not even any concrete material particles, only electric and magnetic fields executing simple harmonic motion. But, to a physicist, they are all "just a pendulum". The selection of topics reflects the author's own four-decade career in research physics and his resultant perspective on the subject. While aimed primarily at physicists, including junior students, this book also addresses other readers who are willing to think with symbols and simple algebra in understanding the physical world around us. Each chapter, on themes such as dimensions, transformations, symmetries, or maps, begins with simple examples accessible to all while connecting them later to more sophisticated realizations in more advanced topics of physics.

Author : Weimin Wu
Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9812705600
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Beauty of Physics written by Weimin Wu and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2007 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a labor of love for Dr Wu Weimin whose favorite photography subjects are ordinary events which capture the heart of the common folks. The cameras Dr Wu uses may not be the most sophisticated but the images he has taken are truly striking. His award-winning collections of photographs are very well received worldwide.The introduction written by Dr Rick Vidal of Fermilab was endorsed by Dr Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate in Physics (1988).Being a physicist by training, Dr Wu was among the pioneer scientists who helped to develop China's first atomic bomb and to launch its first satellite. He also participated in building the first Chinese electron-positron collider. Another extraordinary feat is that he sent out the very first e-mail from China on 25 August 1986.

Author : Hilary Thayer Hamann
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Categories--on the Beauty of Physics written by Hilary Thayer Hamann and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CategoriesOn the Beauty of Physics is a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary educational book that uses art, and information from a variety of disciplines to facilitate the reader'ss encounter with challenging material. It promotes scientific literacy, fosters an appreciation of the humanities, and encourages informed and imaginative connections between the sciences and the arts. Categories is a cooperative learning tool through which people (especially educators and students) can engage in academic and value-oriented discussions.

Author : Sabine Hossenfelder
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465094260
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lost in Math written by Sabine Hossenfelder and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this "provocative" book (New York Times), a contrarian physicist argues that her field's modern obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science. Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.

Author : Bruce A. Schumm
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801879715
Total Pages : 406 pages
Book Rating : 4.1X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Deep Down Things written by Bruce A. Schumm and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2004-10-20 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A useful scientific theory, claimed Einstein, must be explicable to any intelligent person. In Deep Down Things, experimental particle physicist Bruce Schumm has taken this dictum to heart, providing in clear, straightforward prose an elucidation of the Standard Model of particle physics -- a theory that stands as one of the crowning achievements of twentieth-century science. In this one-of-a-kind book, the work of many of the past century's most notable physicists, including Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Feynman, Gell-Mann, and Weinberg, is knit together in a thorough and accessible exposition of the revolutionary notions that underlie our current view of the fundamental nature of the physical world. Schumm, who has spent much of his life emmersed in the subatomic world, goes far beyond a mere presentation of the "building blocks" of matter, bringing to life the remarkable connection between the ivory tower world of the abstract mathematician and the day-to-day, life-enabling properties of the natural world. Schumm leaves us with an insight into the profound open questions of particle physics, setting the stage for understanding the progress the field is poised to make over the next decade or two. Introducing readers to the world of particle physics, Deep Down Things opens new realms within which are many clues to unraveling the mysteries of the universe.

Author : A. Zee
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400874505
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fearful Symmetry written by A. Zee and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging exploration of beauty in physics, with a foreword by Nobel Prize–winning physicist Roger Penrose The concept of symmetry has widespread manifestations and many diverse applications—from architecture to mathematics to science. Yet, as twentieth-century physics has revealed, symmetry has a special, central role in nature, one that is occasionally and enigmatically violated. Fearful Symmetry brings the incredible discoveries of the juxtaposition of symmetry and asymmetry in contemporary physics within everyone's grasp. A. Zee, a distinguished physicist and skillful expositor, tells the exciting story of how contemporary theoretical physicists are following Einstein in their search for the beauty and simplicity of Nature. Animated by a sense of reverence and whimsy, Fearful Symmetry describes the majestic sweep and accomplishments of twentieth-century physics—one of the greatest chapters in the intellectual history of humankind.

Author : Frank Wilczek
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698195620
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Beautiful Question written by Frank Wilczek and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-07-14 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.” With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry—harmony, balance, proportion—and economy. There are other meanings of “beauty,” but this is the deep logic of the universe—and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that “all things are number,” to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentiethcentury physics. Though the ancients weren’t right about everything, their ardent belief in the music of the spheres has proved true down to the quantum level. Indeed, Wilczek explores just how intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are with our scientific understanding of the cosmos. Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledge today, where the core insights of even the craziest quantum ideas apply principles we all understand. The equations for atoms and light are almost literally the same equations that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries. The universe itself, suggests Wilczek, seems to want to embody beautiful and elegant forms. Perhaps this force is the pure elegance of numbers, perhaps the work of a higher being, or somewhere between. Either way, we don’t depart from the infinite and infinitesimal after all; we’re profoundly connected to them, and we connect them. When we find that our sense of beauty is realized in the physical world, we are discovering something about the world, but also something about ourselves. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.

Author : Leonard Mlodinow
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307946495
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Feynman's Rainbow written by Leonard Mlodinow and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the brightest minds in science have passed through the halls of the California Institute of Technology. In the early 1980s, Leonard Mlodinow joined their ranks to begin a postdoctoral fellowship. Afraid he was not smart enough to be there, despite his groundbreaking Ph.D. thesis, he took his insecurities to Richard Feynman, Caltech’s intimidating resident genius and iconoclast. So began a pivotal year in a young man’s life. Though a series of fascinating exchanges, Mlodinow and Feynman delve into the nature of science, creativity, love mathematics, happiness, God, art, pleasures and ambition, producing a moving portrait of a friendship and an affecting account of Feynman’s final creative years.

Author : George Johnson
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307765458
Total Pages : 447 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Strange Beauty written by George Johnson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-09-29 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a New Afterword "Our knowledge of fundamental physics contains not one fruitful idea that does not carry the name of Murray Gell-Mann."--Richard Feynman Acclaimed science writer George Johnson brings his formidable reporting skills to the first biography of Nobel Prize-winner Murray Gell-Mann, the brilliant, irascible man who revolutionized modern particle physics with his models of the quark and the Eightfold Way. Born into a Jewish immigrant family on New York's East 14th Street, Gell-Mann's prodigious talent was evident from an early age--he entered Yale at 15, completed his Ph.D. at 21, and was soon identifying the structures of the world's smallest components and illuminating the elegant symmetries of the universe. Beautifully balanced in its portrayal of an extraordinary and difficult man, interpreting the concepts of advanced physics with scrupulous clarity and simplicity, Strange Beauty is a tour-de-force of both science writing and biography.

Author : David Orrell
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300186614
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Truth Or Beauty written by David Orrell and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions the promises and pitfalls of associating beauty with truth, showing how ideas of mathematical elegance have inspired, and have sometimes misled, scientists attempting to understand nature. The author also shows how the ancient Greeks constructed a concept of the world based on musical harmony.