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Quantum generations : a history of physics in the twentieth century /
"The first comprehensive one-volume history of twentieth-century physics, the book takes us from the discovery of x-rays in the mid-1890s to superstring theory in the 1990s. Kragh writes about pure science with the expertise of a trained physicist, while keeping the content accessible to nonspe...
| Clasificación: | Libro Electrónico |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Electrónico eBook |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Princeton, N.J. :
Princeton University Press,
©1999.
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| Temas: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Texto completo |
Tabla de Contenidos:
- pt. 1. From consolidation to revolution. 1. Fin-de-siècle physics: a world picture in flux
- 2. The world of physics : Personnel and resources ; Physics journals ; A Japanese look at European physics
- 3. Discharges in gases and what followed : A new kind of rays ; From Becquerel rays to radioactivity ; Spurious rays, more or less ; The electron before Thomson ; The first elementary particle
- 4. Atomic architecture : The Thomson atom ; Other early atomic models ; Rutherford's nuclear atom ; A quantum theory of atomic structure
- 5. The slow rise of quantum theory : The law of blackbody radiation ; Early discussions of the quantum hypothesis ; Einstein and the photon ; Specific heats and the status of quantum theory by 1913
- 6. Physics at low temperatures : The race toward zero ; Kammerlingh Onnes and the Leiden Laboratory ; Superconductivity
- 7. Einstein's relativity, and others' : The Lorentz transformations ; Einsteinian relativity ; From special to general relativity ; Reception
- 8. A revolution that failed : The concept of electromagnetic mass ; Electron theory as a workflow ; Mass variation experiments ; Decline of a worldview ; Unified field theories
- 9. Physics in industry and war : Industrial physics ; Electrons at work, I: long-distance telephony ; Electrons at work, II: vacuum tubes ; Physics in the chemists' war.
- pt. 2. From revolution to consolidation. 10. Science and politics in the Weimar republic : Science policy and financial support ; International relations ; The physics community ; Zeitgeist and the physical worldview
- 11. Quantum jumps : Quantum anomalies ; Heisenberg's quantum mechanics ; Schrödinger's equation ; Dissemination and receptions
- 12. The rise of nuclear physics : The electron-proton model ; Quantum mechanics and the nucleus ; Astrophysical applications ; 1932, annus mirabilis
- 13. From two to many particles : Antiparticles ; Surprises from the cosmic radiation ; Crisis in quantum theory ; Yukawa's heavy quantum
- 14. Philosophical implications of quantum mechanics : Uncertainty and complementarity ; Against the Copenhagen interpretation ; Is quantum mechanics complete?
- 15. Eddington's dream and other heterodoxies : Eddington's fundamentalism ; Cosmonumerology and other speculations ; Milne and cosmophysics ; The modern Aristotelians
- 16. Physics and the new dictatorships : In the shadow of the swastika ; Aryan physics ; Physics in Mussolini's Italy ; Physics, dialectical materialism, and Stalinism
- 17. Brain drain and brain gain : American physics in the 1930s ; Intellectual migrations
- 18. From uranium puzzles to Hiroshima : The road to fission ; More than moonshine ; Toward the bomb ; The death of two cities.
- pt. 3. Progress and problems. 19. Nuclear themes : Physics of atomic nuclei ; Modern alchemy ; Hopes and perils of nuclear energy
- 20. Militarization and megatrends : Physics, a branch of the military? ; Big machines ; A European big science adventure
- 21. Particle discoveries : Mainly mesons ; Weak interactions ; Quarks ; The growth of particle physics
- 22. Fundamental theories : QED ; The ups and downs of field theory ; Gauge fields and electroweak unification ; Quantum chromodynamics
- 23. Cosmology and the renaissance of relativity : Toward the big bang universe ; The steady state challenge ; Cosmology after 1960 ; The Renaissance of general relativity
- 24. Elements of solid state physics : The solid state before 1940 ; Semiconductors and the rise of the solid state community ; Breakthroughs in superconductivity
- 25. Engineering physics and quantum electronics : It started with the transistor ; Microwaves, the laser, and quantum optics ; Optical fibers
- 26. Science under attack, physics in crisis? : Signs of crisis ; A revolt against science ; The end of physics?
- 27. Unifications and speculations : The problem of unity ; Grand unified theories ; Superstring theory ; Quantum cosmology.
- pt. 4. A look back. 28. Nobel physics
- 29. A century of physics in retrospect : Growth and progress ; Physics and the other sciences ; Conservative revolutions
- Appendix. Further reading.