The book explains in a precise and complete manner how elementary particle physics has evolved over the past 50 years. The historical development of the ideas that have shaped our thinking about the ultimate constituents of matter is traced out. The author has been associated with some of the originators of elementary particle theory and has made significant contributions to the field. Here, he gives a first-person description of some of the main developments leading to our present view of...

Learn about Einstein's theory of relativity from a physics Nobel laureate and "one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century" (New York Review of Books) in six memorable lessonsIt was Richard Feynman's outrageous and scintillating method of teaching that earned him legendary status among students and professors of physics. From 1961 to 1963, Feynman delivered a series of lectures at the California Institute of Technology that revolutionized the teachi...

There are two scientific theories that, taken together, explain the entire universe. The first, which describes the force of gravity, is widely known: Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. But the theory that explains everything else—the Standard Model of Elementary Particles—is virtually unknown among the general public.In The Theory of Almost Everything, Robert Oerter shows how what were once thought to be separate forces of nature were combined into a single ...

"Clear and elegant . . . Anyone who has tried to get through one of the many books on quantum theory, superstrings, and such, ought to give this book a try." — American WayNo one is more successful than John Gribbin when it comes to making the cutting edge of physics more accessible to a broad lay audience. In Schrodinger's Kittens, he took readers to the eerie world of subatomic particles & waves. Now, he explores the most exciti...

"This detective story is magnificently presented . . . [the] chronology of the quest to answer one of the most challenging questions in astronomy." — ChoiceAstronomers have determined that our universe is 13.7 billion years old. How exactly did they come to this precise conclusion? How Old Is the Universe? tells the incredible story of how astronomers solved one of the most compelling mysteries in science and, along the way, introduces readers to f...

The Nobel Prize–winning physicist offers a fascinating popular introduction to nuclear physics from early atomic theory to its transformative applications.Theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg is famous for developing the uncertainty principle, which bears his name, and for his pioneering work in quantum mechanics. A central figure in the development of the atomic bomb and a close colleague of Albert Einstein, Heisenberg wrote Nuclear Physics "for readers...

In this well-illustrated text, Kenneth R. Lang explains the life cycle of stars, from the dense molecular clouds that are stellar nurseries to the enigmatic nebulae some stars leave behind in their violent ends. Free of mathematical equations and technical jargon, Lang's lively and accessible text provides physical insights into how stars such as our Sun are born, what fuels them and keeps them bright, how they evolve and the processes by which they eventually die. The book demonstrates th...

A series of seminal technological revolutions has led to a new generation of electronic devices miniaturized to such tiny scales where the strange laws of quantum physics come into play. There is no doubt that, unlike scientists and engineers of the past, technology leaders of the future will have to rely on quantum mechanics in their everyday work. This makes teaching and learning the subject of paramount importance for further progress. Mastering quantum physics is a very non-trivial tas...

The 'Enigma of Gravity' gives an insight into the origin and nature of an architectural phenomenon of the universe, namel gravity, the book starts by asking the fundamental questions, what is light, matter, space, time and energy and using classical physics seeks the relationships between these fundamental physical phenomenon and the cause of gravity. Is is possible to travel faster than light? Can gravity, space and time be manipulated? What is the physical nature of Einstein's curved spa...

This second edition of the successful textbook, Modern Physics: An Introductory Text, preserves the unique blend of readability, scientific rigour and authenticity that made its predecessor so indispensible a text for non-physics science majors. As in the first edition, it sets out to present 20th century physics in a form accessible and useful to students of the life sciences, medicine, agricultural, earth and environmental sciences. It is also valuable as a first reader and source text f...

Physicist Frank Close takes the reader to the frontiers of science in a vividly told investigation of revolutionary science and enterprise from the seventeenth century to the present. He looks at what has been meant by theories of everything, explores the scientific breakthroughs they have allowed, and shows the far-reaching effects they have had on crucial aspects of life and belief. Theories of everything, he argues, can be described as those which draw on all relevant branches of knowle...

This book gives an accessible account of the history of the Universe; not only what happened, but why it happened. An author of textbooks on the early Universe and inflation, David Lyth now explains both cosmology and the underlying physics to the general reader. The book includes a detailed account of the almost imperceptible structure in the early Universe, and its probable origin as a quantum fluctuation during an early epoch known as the epoch of inflation. It also explains how that ea...