Of clocks and time /

Of Clocks and Time takes readers on a five-stop journey through the physics and technology--and occasional bits of applications and history--of timekeeping. The author offers conceptual vistas and qualitative images, along with equations, quantitative relations, and rigorous definitions. The book in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Clasificación:Libro Electrónico
Autor principal: Hüwel, Lutz (Autor)
Formato: Electrónico eBook
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: San Rafael [California] (40 Oak Drive, San Rafael, CA, 94903, USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, [2018]
Colección:IOP (Series). Release 4.
IOP concise physics.
Temas:
Time measurements.
Time.
Clocks and watches > History.
Space and time.
Astronomy, space & time.
SCIENCE / General.
Acceso en línea:Texto completo
Tabla de Contenidos:
  • 1. Days, months and years
  • 1.1. A first discourse on measurement, units and precision
  • 1.2. What we see in the sky--stars, planets, Sun and Moon
  • 1.3. What the solar system looks like
  • 1.4. What a day makes
  • 1.5. Discovering the laws of motion
  • 1.6. Absolute space and time
  • 1.7. A bit of mechanics--or why the solar system is stable
  • 1.8. Not quite a clock yet--the Antikythera mechanism
  • 2. Hours, minutes and seconds
  • 2.1. Origins of the metric system and the SI unit of time
  • 2.2. A generic clock
  • 2.3. Toy clock I : bouncing bead in a box
  • 2.4. Friction I : spoiling the bouncing bead
  • 2.5. Toy clock II : the simple harmonic oscillator
  • 2.6. Friction II : spoiling the simple harmonic oscillator
  • 2.7. Toy clock III : the pendulum
  • 2.8. Resonance and feedback
  • 2.9. Numbers for comparison
  • 2.10. From Huygens to shortt--how the pendulum revolutionized time-keeping
  • 3. From milliseconds to attoseconds : is there a limit?
  • 3.1. From quartz vibrations...
  • 3.2. ...to quartz clocks
  • 3.3. The first atomic clock was not one
  • 3.4. Dancing electrons are making waves--the old-fashioned way
  • 3.5. Inner workings and limits of atomic clocks
  • 3.6. How time fared in the quantum revolution
  • 3.7. Inside the hydrogen atom
  • 3.8. Quanta make their entrance
  • 3.9. Precisely specified fuzziness
  • 3.10. Does nature play dice?
  • 3.11. Fountain clocks--state-of-the-art time-keeping
  • 3.12. A better clock--the ABC of clock comparison
  • 3.13. Who needs it?
  • 4. Space and time forever entwined
  • 4.1. The ether and the birth of interferometry
  • 4.2. c = 299 792 458 m s-1 for everyone
  • 4.3. The principle of relativity
  • 4.4. A first (boring) application
  • 4.5. Moving clocks must run slow
  • 4.6. When lightning strikes twice--was it or was it not simultaneous?
  • 4.7. Running makes you thinner
  • 4.8. Why gravity must slow down clocks
  • 4.9. A pair of twins most famous
  • 4.10. The invariant space-time interval
  • 5. Deep time or getting old
  • 5.1. Earth's age--a cautionary tale
  • 5.2. Built on sand--the hourglass as an analogue to radioactive dating
  • 5.3. Survival graphs and aging
  • 5.4. The neutron and other unstable characters
  • 5.5. Radioactive dating of rocks
  • 6. From beginning to end
  • 6.1. The fixed stars in their crystal sphere revisited
  • 6.2. The cosmic egg
  • 6.3. Supporting evidence 1--ancient light
  • 6.4. Supporting evidence 2--it is elementary
  • 6.5. Supporting evidence 3--it is dark at night
  • 6.6. Standard candles and a very long ladder
  • 6.7. Was there anything before the Big Bang?
  • 6.8. Will it end?
  • 6.9. The long now.

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